Revisionary Interventions Into the Americanist CanonThroughout the era of the Cold War a consensus reigned as to what constituted the great works of American literature. Yet as scholars have increasingly shown, and as this volume unmistakably demonstrates, that consensus was built upon the repression of the voices and historical contexts of subordinated social groups as well as literary works themselves, works both outside and within the traditional canon. This book is an effort to recover those lost voices. Engaging New Historicist, neo-Marxist, poststructuralist, and other literary practices, this volume marks important shifts in the organizing principles and self-understanding of the field of American Studies. Originally published as a special issue of boundary 2, the essays gathered here discuss writers as diverse as Kate Chopin, Frederick Douglass, Emerson, Melville, W. D. Howells, Henry James, W. E. B. DuBois, and Mark Twain, plus the historical figure John Brown. Two major sections devoted to the theory of romance and to cultural-historical analyses emphasize the political perspective of "New Americanist" literary and cultural study. Contributors. William E. Cain, Wai-chee Dimock, Howard Horwitz, Gregory S. Jay, Steven Mailloux, John McWilliams, Susan Mizruchi, Donald E. Pease, Ivy Schweitzer, Priscilla Wald, Michael Warner, Robert Weimann |
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Contents
Michael Warner The Res Publica of Letters | 38 |
John McWilliams The Rationale for The American Romance | 71 |
Priscilla Wald Hearing Narrative Voices in Melvilles Pierre | 100 |
Copyright | |
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American Americanists appeared argue authority become beginning Billy Boston Brown called character claim consensus context course Crews critical cultural described desire difference discourse Douglass DuBois economic Edna effect Emerson essay example experience fact fiction field figure finally force freedom function human ideal identity ideology imagination individual interest internal Isabel James John Brown labor language less letter liberal literary literature Mark material means Melville moral mother narrative narrator nature never novel opposition Pierre Pierre's piloting political position possibility practices principle progress question readers reading reality reference relation represented rhetoric river romance seems sense separate slave slavery social society story Studies suggests symbolic theory thought tion tradition turn Twain understanding University Press women writing York
Bibliographic information
| Title | Revisionary Interventions Into the Americanist Canon New Americanists, ISSN 2380-9523 |
| Editor | Donald E. Pease |
| Publisher | Duke University Press, 1994 |
| ISBN | 0822314789, 9780822314783 |
| Length | 342 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |