The Cambridge History of American Literature: Volume 2, Prose Writing 1820-1865

ISBN-13: 9780521301060 / Angielski / Twarda / 1995 / 944 str.

Sacvan Bercovitch

Opis

This is a rounded account of the American Renaissance in literature. The narratives in this volume offer a four-fold perspective on literature: social, cultural, intellectual and aesthetic. Michael D. Bell describes the social conditions of the literary vocation: those that shaped the growth of a professional literature in the United States. Eric Sundquist draws upon broad cultural patterns: his account of the writings of exploration, slavery, and the frontier is an interweaving of disparate voices, outlooks and traditions. Barbara L. Packer's sources come largely from intellectual history: the theological and philosophical controversies that prepared the way for transcendentalism. Jonathan Arac's categories are basically formalist: he sees the development of antebellum fiction as a dialectic of prose genres, the emergence of a literary mode out of the clash of national, local and personal forms. Together, these four narratives constitute a basic reassessment of American prose-writing between 1820 and 1865.

Recenzje

'… vast and eminently readable survey of twentieth century American literature …'. Use of English

Spis treści

Conditions of Literary Vocation, 1820–1850 Michael D. Bell; 2. The literature of the expansion and race conflict Eric Sundquist; 3. The transcendentalists Barbara L. Packer; Narrative forms Jonathan Arac.