Transatlantic insurrections : British culture and the formation of American literature, 1730-1860 / Paul Giles.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Giles, Paul.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--English influences.

American literature.

American literature--Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775--History and criticism.

American literature--Revolutionary period, 1775-1783--History and criticism.

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

American literature--1783-1850--History and criticism.

English literature--Appreciation--United States.

English literature.

United States--Civilization--British influences.

United States.

English-speaking countries--Intellectual life--18th century.

English-speaking countries.

English-speaking countries--Intellectual life--19th century.

United States--Relations--Great Britain.

Great Britain--Relations--United States.

Great Britain.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (271 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic TitlePaul Giles traces the paradoxical relations between English and American literature from 1730 through 1860, suggesting how the formation of a literary tradition in each national culture was deeply dependent upon negotiation with its transatlantic counterpart. Using the American Revolution as the fulcrum of his argument, Giles describes how the impulse to go beyond conventions of British culture was crucial in the establishment of a distinct identity for American literature. Similarly, he explains the consolidation of British cultural identity partly as a response to the need to suppress the memory and consequences of defeat in the American revolutionary wars.Giles ranges over neglected American writers such as Mather Byles and the Connecticut Wits as well as better-known figures like Franklin, Jefferson, Irving, and Hawthorne. He reads their texts alongside those of British authors such as Pope, Richardson, Equiano, Austen, and Trollope. Taking issue with more established utopian narratives of American literature, Transatlantic Insurrections analyzes how elements of blasphemous, burlesque humor entered into the making of the subject.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction: British-American Literature: Paradoxical Constitutions, Civil Wars

Chapter One. The Art of Sinking

Chapter Two. Topsy-Turvy Neoclassicism

Chapter Three. From Allegory to Exchange

Chapter Four. The Culture of Sensibility

Chapter Five. "Another World Must Be Unfurled"

Chapter Six. Burlesques of Civility

Chapter Seven. Perverse Reflections

Conclusion: Transatlantic Perspectives

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [231]-253) and index.

ISBN:

9786613211163

9780585436234

0585436231

9781283211161

1283211165

9780812200690

0812200691

OCLC:

51322172