Family, Kinship, and Sympathy in Nineteenth-Century American Literature

ISBN-13: 9780521842532 / Angielski / Twarda / 2004 / 243 str.

Cindy Weinstein

Opis

Cindy Weinstein radically revises our understanding of nineteenth-century sentimental literature. Arguing that these novels are far more complex than critics have suggested, Weinstein expands the archive of sentimental novels to include some of the more popular, though under-examined writers, and shows how canonical texts can take on new meaning when read in the context of these novels. She demonstrates the aesthetic and political complexities of this influential genre and its impact on Stowe, Twain and Melville.

Recenzje

"Weinstein seems motivated not only by a genuine curiosity regarding the odd repetitions in so many of these sentimental novels--she reads with a keenly-tuned sensibility, picking up an astonishing number of echoing phrases and plot lines--but also by the desire for less hostile readings of sentimental fiction than we have seen lately." - Kristin Boudreau, The University of Georgia Studies in American Fiction

Spis treści

Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1. In loco parentis; 2. 'A sort of adopted daughter': family relations in The Lamplighter; 3. Thinking through sympathy: Kemble, Hentz, and Stowe; 4. Behind the scenes of sentimental novels: Ida May and Twelve Years a Slave; 5. Love American style: The Wide, Wide World; 6. We are family, or Melville's Pierre; Afterword; Notes; Select bibliography; Index.