Literary Quest for an American National Character

Informationen zum Autor Finn Pollard is a historian of the literature and politics of revolutionary and early national United States. He is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh and has held lectureships at the universities of Glasgow and Newcastle. Klappentext "What then is the American, this new man?" This question is explored here through the lives and writings of a sequence of imaginative authors each of whom confronted a crucial moment in the evolution of the new nation (from Crevecoeur and the Revolution, through Washington Irving and Jeffersonian Democracy, to James Fenimore Cooper and the Era of Good Feelings). At the centre of these confrontations was a division between those who claimed national perfection had been obtained, and those who, while desperately wanting to believe this, perceived all too clearly that that perfection had not yet come. Rediscovering this neglected literary debate, The Literary Quest for an American National Character illuminates afresh the traumatic birth and development of the new American nation. Zusammenfassung Through key literary works of revolutionary and early national America by writers (both well-known, Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper and more obscure (John Neal and Jonas Clopper)), this book shows how American national character was born and remained in bitter debate in the nation’s formative years. Inhaltsverzeichnis Introduction 1 – A Farmer asks a Question and a Scientist creates a Model (c.1760-1776) 2 – Hugh Henry Brackenridge and the Dogma of Balance 3 – The Defining Moment: Washington Irving and A History of New York 4 – The Fragments: Minor Writers (c.1810-1824) 5 – The Illusion Ascendant: James Fenimore Cooper and the Art of Reconciliation Conclusion: A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs Notes Bibliography Index

Product details

• Authors: Finn Pollard, Finn (Glasgow University Pollard, Pollard Finn
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd.
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 21.11.2008
• EAN: 9780415963732
• ISBN: 978-0-415-96373-2
• No. of pages: 272
• Series: Routledge Transnational Perspectives on American Literature; Routledge Transnational Perspe; Routledge Transnational Perspectives on American Literature
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; LITERARY CRITICISM / General, North America, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, Regional Studies, Literary studies: general, Regional / International studies, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800