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Beneath the American Renaissance : The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Oxford : Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2011Copyright date: ©2011Edition: 1st edDescription: 1 online resource (656 pages)Content type:
  • text
Media type:
  • computer
Carrier type:
  • online resource
ISBN:
  • 9780199976393
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Additional physical formats: Print version:: Beneath the American RenaissanceDDC classification:
  • 810.9/355
LOC classification:
  • PS208.R49 2011
Online resources:
Contents:
Cover -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: THE OPEN TEXT: American Writers and Their Environment -- PART ONE: GOD'S BOW, MAN'S ARROWS: Religion, Reform, and American Literature -- 1. The New Religious Style -- 2. The Reform Impulse and the Paradox of Immoral Didacticism -- 3. The Transcendentalists, Whitman, and Popular Reform -- 4. Hawthorne and the Reform Impulse -- 5. Melville's Whited Sepulchres -- PART TWO: PUBLIC POISON: Sensationalism and Sexuality -- 6. The Sensational Press and the Rise of Subversive Literature -- 7. The Erotic Imagination -- 8. Poe and Popular Irrationalism -- 9. Hawthorne's Cultural Demons -- 10. Melville's Ruthless Democracy -- 11 . Whitman's Transfigured Sensationalism -- PART THREE: OTHER AMAZONS: Women's Rights, Women's Wrongs, and the Literary Imagination -- 12. Types of American Womanhood -- 13. Hawthorne's Heroines -- 14. The American Women's Renaissance and Emily Dickinson -- PART FOUR: THE GROTESQUE POSTURE: Popular Humor and the American Subversive Style -- 15. The Carnivalization of American Language -- 16. Transcendental Wild Oats -- 17. Whitman's Poetic Humor -- 18. Stylized Laughter in Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville -- Epilogue: RECONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM: Literary Theory and Literary History -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.
Summary: Since its initial publication, David Reynolds's Beneath the American Renaissance has become a seminal resource for understanding American literature. It ranks alongside classics like F.O. Matthiessen's The American Renaissance, R.W.B. Lewis's The American Adam, and Eric Sundquist's To Wake the Nations as a book that defined how we apprehend our literary past. With its combination of sharp critical insight, engaging observation, and narrative drive, it represents the kind of masterful cultural history for which Reynolds is now known. Now back in print in an affordable paperback edition that includes a new foreword by Sean Wilentz that recollects the book's impact and influence, a lost gem returns. It is poised to find an appreciative new readership in anyone interested in the genesis of America's most significant literary epoch and the iconic figures-Hawthorne, Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville-who defined it.
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Cover -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: THE OPEN TEXT: American Writers and Their Environment -- PART ONE: GOD'S BOW, MAN'S ARROWS: Religion, Reform, and American Literature -- 1. The New Religious Style -- 2. The Reform Impulse and the Paradox of Immoral Didacticism -- 3. The Transcendentalists, Whitman, and Popular Reform -- 4. Hawthorne and the Reform Impulse -- 5. Melville's Whited Sepulchres -- PART TWO: PUBLIC POISON: Sensationalism and Sexuality -- 6. The Sensational Press and the Rise of Subversive Literature -- 7. The Erotic Imagination -- 8. Poe and Popular Irrationalism -- 9. Hawthorne's Cultural Demons -- 10. Melville's Ruthless Democracy -- 11 . Whitman's Transfigured Sensationalism -- PART THREE: OTHER AMAZONS: Women's Rights, Women's Wrongs, and the Literary Imagination -- 12. Types of American Womanhood -- 13. Hawthorne's Heroines -- 14. The American Women's Renaissance and Emily Dickinson -- PART FOUR: THE GROTESQUE POSTURE: Popular Humor and the American Subversive Style -- 15. The Carnivalization of American Language -- 16. Transcendental Wild Oats -- 17. Whitman's Poetic Humor -- 18. Stylized Laughter in Poe, Hawthorne, and Melville -- Epilogue: RECONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM: Literary Theory and Literary History -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.

Since its initial publication, David Reynolds's Beneath the American Renaissance has become a seminal resource for understanding American literature. It ranks alongside classics like F.O. Matthiessen's The American Renaissance, R.W.B. Lewis's The American Adam, and Eric Sundquist's To Wake the Nations as a book that defined how we apprehend our literary past. With its combination of sharp critical insight, engaging observation, and narrative drive, it represents the kind of masterful cultural history for which Reynolds is now known. Now back in print in an affordable paperback edition that includes a new foreword by Sean Wilentz that recollects the book's impact and influence, a lost gem returns. It is poised to find an appreciative new readership in anyone interested in the genesis of America's most significant literary epoch and the iconic figures-Hawthorne, Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville-who defined it.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2024. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.

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