Challenges the familiar way of reading a major strain of 19th century American literature. Rather than seeing this strain as preoccupied with a subject's inner mental life, it shows that subjects can only be understood, and understand themselves, through
Challenges the familiar way of reading a major strain of 19th century American literature. Rather than seeing this strain as preoccupied with a subjec...
Stacey Margolis rethinks a key chapter in American literary history, challenging the idea that nineteenth-century American culture was dominated by an ideology of privacy that defined subjects in terms of their intentions and desires. She reveals how writers from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Henry James depicted a world in which characters could only be understood--and, more importantly, could only understand themselves--through their public actions. She argues that the social issues that nineteenth-century novelists analyzed--including race, sexuality, the market, and the law--formed integral...
Stacey Margolis rethinks a key chapter in American literary history, challenging the idea that nineteenth-century American culture was dominated by an...
