Correspondence and American Literature, 1770–1865

ISBN-13: 9780521842556 / Angielski / Twarda / 2004 / 242 str.

Elizabeth Hewitt (Ohio State University)

Opis

Elizabeth Hewitt argues that many canonical American authors, including Jefferson, Emerson, Melville, Dickinson and Whitman, turned to letter-writing as an idealized genre through which to consider the challenges of American democracy before the Civil War. Hewitt maintains that, although correspondence is generally only conceived as a biographical archive, it must instead be understood as a significant genre through which these early authors made sense of social and political relations in the new nation.

Recenzje

Review of the hardback: '… absorbing …' Journal of American Studies

Spis treści

Preface: universal letter writers; 1. National letters; 2. Emerson and Fuller's phenomenal letters; 3. Melville's dead letters; 4. Jacobs's letters from nowhere; 5. Dickinson's lyrical letters; Conclusion: Whitman's universal letters.