Writing of America

Literature and Cultural Identity from the Puritans to the Present
1. Auflage 2002
ISBN: 978-0-7456-2622-2
Verlag: Polity Press

Buch, Englisch, 248 Seiten, Format (B × H): 154 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 367 g

In this lively and provocative study, Geoff Ward puts forward the bold claim that the founding documents of American identity are essentially literary. America was invented, not discovered, and it remains in thrall to the myth of an earthly Paradise. This is ParadiseTM, and American ideology imprisons as it inspires.

The Writing of America shows the tension between these forces in a wide range of literary and other texts, from Puritan sermons and the Declaration of Independence, through nineteenth-century classics, to folk and blues lyrics and the popular novel. Alongside his provocative reassessments of canonical writers, Ward offers new material on lost or neglected figures from the world of literature, film and music. His acute and often startling analyses of American literature and culture make this an essential guide to what Lincoln termed the last best hope of earth.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ward, Geoff

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements vi

Introduction: Paradise™ 1

1 Maps and Legends 11

2 American Literature and the Body Electric 31

3 Melville: Crises in Representation 67

4 ‘Eden is burning’: Literature of the Popular Imagination 93

5 Going Fishing: Harry Smith, the Anthology of American Folk Music, and the Fan 136

6 Modernism and the Subversive Imagination 158

7 ‘Dedicated to America, whatever that is’: Contemporary Literature and the Egress 188

Afterword: Meditations in an Emergency 213

Notes 215

Select Bibliography 224

Index 230

Über Autor(innen)

Geoff Ward is Professor of English at the University of Dundee. His previous publications include Statutes of Liberty: The New York School of Poets, Language Poetry and the American Avant-garde, and (Ed.) The Bloomsbury Guide to Romantic Literature.