First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Author(s): Russell J. Reising
Edition: 1
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: 302
Tags: Literary Criticism, Literary Theory, American Literature
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
General editor’s preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The unused past: theorists of American literature and the problem of exclusivity
An unusable past?
What is an American author?
American literature: out of space - out of time
The consolation of criticism
2 The problem of Puritan origins in literary history and theory
Puritanism as tragic vision: Perry Miller
Puritanism as allegory: Yvor Winters, Richard Chase, and Leslie Fiedler
Puritanism as rhetoric: Sacvan Bercovitch
3 ‘Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is’: cultural theories of American literature
Unreality in America: Lionel Trilling
Parties of one: R. W. B. Lewis
The romance of America: Richard Chase
The apolitical unconscious: Leslie Fiedler
An American fable: Leo Marx
The Phelps farm revisited: cultural theorists on Huckleberry Finn
4 American literature should not mean but be: self-reflexive theories of American literature
D. H. Lawrence and American art-speech
New Criticism and the American Renaissance: F. O. Matthiessen
Making the world safefor symbolism: Charles Feidelson, Jr
Worlds elsewhere: Richard Poirier
Myths of American origins: post-structuralism
‘The world’s body'
5 What is to be done?
What is the American tradition?
New directions
The American scene
6 Conclusion: the significance of Frederick Douglass
Notes
Works Cited
Index
