Fred Chappell

Sylvia Bailey Shurbutt (Shepherd College)
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Fred Chappell’s writing is rich with surprising paradoxes that make it both rewarding and challenging for the reader. Though the Appalachian region of North America informs his prose and poetry, his work also transcends the regionalist designation; and while his writing appears varied, disparate, and distinctively original in all of its separate parts, there is a remarkable wholeness and interconnectedness throughout - as pieces of patchwork quilting which form a rich mosaic of word color and design and ultimately art. Chappell’s early novels portray a dark and existential world, characteristic of the postlapsarian condition, while the later poems and novels are lighter in tone and concerned with how we might ultimately adjust to and accept the limitations of a fallen world - or as…

1020 words

Citation: Shurbutt, Sylvia Bailey. "Fred Chappell". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 September 2004 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=825, accessed 19 March 2024.]

825 Fred Chappell 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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