The Late Modernism of Cormac McCarthy

Through close examination of the formal as well as thematic organization of Cormac McCarthy's eight novels, this volume offers a radically new assessment of the work of an author who has often been described as one of the greatest contemporary American novelists. In opposition to existing McCarthy scholarship-which tends to concentrate on the regional dimensions of his work, viewing it within the literary and mythopoetic traditions of the South and Southwest-Holloway argues that McCarthy's full significance can only be understood if his work is contextualized within the broader political, economic, and intellectual discourses of the period in which his novels have been produced. Drawing on the ideas of Marxist thinkers such as Fredric Jameson, George Lukács, and Jean-Paul Sartre, he shows how McCarthy's late modernism resists many of the postmodern assumptions about literary narrative that have come to shape our understanding of aesthetics in recent times.

List of contents

Foreword by Rick Wallach
Introduction
The Ideology of Representation
The Waning of Historicity
Transcoding McCarthy's Existentialism: The Materiality of Form
Nature/Language: Figuring Utopia in McCarthy's Ecocritics of Style
Works Cited

About the author

David Holloway is Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Derby.

DAVID HOLLOWAY is Lecturer in American Studies at the University of Derby, England. He has published scholarly articles and book chapters on 20th-century American literature and popular culture.

Summary

Through close examination of the formal as well as thematic organization of Cormac McCarthy's eight novels, this volume offers a radically new assessment of the work of an author who has often been described as one of the greatest contemporary American novelists.

Product details

• Authors: David Holloway, Holloway David
• Publisher: Greenwood Press
• Languages: English
• Age Recommendation: ages 7 to 17
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 29.09.2002
• EAN: 9780313322273
• ISBN: 978-0-313-32227-3
• Dimensions: 165 mm x 250 mm x 20 mm
• Series: Contributions to the Study of World Literature; Contributions to the Study of; Contributions to the Study of; Contributions to the Study of World Literature
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > English linguistics / literary studies; Cultural Studies, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, American English, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form, The Arts: World Literature