Failure and the American Writer - A Literary History

By exploring the aberrant literary styles of nineteenth-century American writers, Jones suggests failure is just as important as 'success' in US national experience.

List of contents

Introduction: Henry Adams and the catastrophic century; 1. Falling for Edgar Allan Poe; 2. Herman Melville in the doldrums; 3. The disappointments of Henry David Thoreau; 4. Stephen Crane's fake war; 5. The double failure of Mark Twain; 6. Sarah Orne Jewett falling short; 7. The faltering style of Henry James; Conclusion.

About the author

Gavin Jones is Professor of English at Stanford University, where he currently serves as department Chair. A former Junior Fellow in Harvard University's Society of Fellows, Jones is the author of Strange Talk: The Politics of Dialect Literature in Gilded Age America (1999) and American Hungers: The Problem of Poverty in US Literature, 1840-1945 (2007). He has published numerous articles on nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature in journals such as American Literary History, African American Review and New England Quarterly.

Summary

Jones explores encounters with failure by nineteenth-century American writers - including Poe, Melville and Twain - whose celebrated works more often struck readers as profoundly messy, flawed and even perverse. Here, they emerge as theorists of failure who discovered ways to translate their own social insecurities into complex portrayals of a modern self.

Product details

• Authors: Gavin Jones, Gavin (Stanford University Jones
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 20.01.2014
• EAN: 9781107662179
• ISBN: 978-1-107-66217-9
• No. of pages: 211
• Series: Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture; Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture; Cambridge Studies in American
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies