Continental divides : revisioning American literature / Anne E. Goldman.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Goldman, Anne E., 1960-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--West (U.S.)--History and criticism.

American fiction.

American fiction--19th century--History and criticism.

Frontier and pioneer life in literature.

Regionalism in literature.

West (U.S.)--In literature.

West (U.S.).

Physical Description:

xvi, 208 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Palgrave, 2000.

Summary:

This book calls for a new iconography of region that unseats New England' s status as cultural center of the United States and originary metaphor for national identity. No single territorial or political axis can adequately describe the complex regional relationships that comprise the nation, Anne Goldman argues. Goldman's arguments question critical sectionalism as extensively as they do regional divisions, by blurring generic distinctions, by reading across literary periods, and by juxtaposing writers who explore the same set of social issues during the same historical moment, but who are conventionally located in separate literary traditions: sentimental literature, the African American novel, literary modernism, early Mexican fiction.

Contents:

Introduction: Location, Location, Location Complicating Transnational Readings of American Literary History 1

1 Beasts in the Jungle: Regional "aliens" and Boston Natives 21

2 "I think our romance is spoiled": Mixed Marriage and Land Loss in Nineteenth-Century Historical Romances of California 39

3 "Who ever heard of a blue-eyed Mexican?": Satire and Sentimentality in Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton's Who Would Have Thought It? 65

4 "Who would be a Western senator?": Californians in "the drawing Room of the Republic" 85

5 All in the Family? Willa Cather's Imperial Housekeeping in the Southwest 111.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [195]-202) and index.

ISBN:

0312232802

OCLC:

43919777