Gothic to multicultural : idioms of imagining in American literary fiction / A. Robert Lee.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lee, A. Robert, 1941-

Series:

Costerus ; new ser., v. 178.

Costerus. New series ; 178

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--Criticism, Textual.

American fiction.

American fiction--History and criticism.

American prose literature--History and criticism.

American prose literature.

Books and reading--United States.

Books and reading.

Criticism--United States.

Criticism.

Novelists, American--Biography.

Novelists, American.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (544 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : Rodopi, 2009.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Gothic to Multicultural: Idioms of Imagining in American Literary Fiction , twenty-three essays each carefully revised from the past four decades, explores both range and individual register. The collection opens with considerations of gothic as light and dark in Charles Brockden Brown, war and peace in Cooper’s The Spy , Antarctica as world-genesis in Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym , the link of “The Custom House” and main text in Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter , reflexive codings in Melville’s Moby-Dick and The Confidence-Man , Henry James’ Hawthorne as self-mirroring biography, and Stephen Crane’s working of his Civil War episode in The Red Badge of Courage . Two composite lineages address apocalypse in African American fiction and landscape in women’s authorship from Sarah Orne Jewett to Leslie Marmon Silko. There follow culture and anarchy in Henry James’ The Princess Casamassima , text-into-film in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence , modernist stylings in Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Hemingway, and roman noir in Cornell Woolrich. The collection then turns to the limitations of protest categorization for Richard Wright and Chester Himes, autofiction in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye , and the novel of ideas in Robert Penn Warren’s late fiction. Three closing essays take up multicultural genealogy, Harlem, then the Black South, in African American fiction, and the reclamation of voice in Native American fiction.

Contents:

Preliminary Material

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PATHWAYS, BEARINGS

A DARKNESS VISIBLE: GOTHIC AND THE CASE OF CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN

MAKING HISTORY, MAKING FICTION: COOPER’S THE SPY

IMPUDENT AND INGENIOUS FICTION: POE’S THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM OF NANTUCKET

LIKE A DREAM BEHIND ME: HAWTHORNE’S “THE CUSTOM-HOUSE” AND THE SCARLET LETTER

THE MIRRORS OF BIOGRAPHY, THE MIRRORS OF FICTION: HENRY JAMES’ HAWTHORNE

MOBY-DICK AS ANATOMY

VOICES OFF, ON, AND BEYOND: VENTRILOQUY IN THE CONFIDENCE-MAN

STEPHEN CRANE’S THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE: THE NOVELLA AS MOVING BOX

HELL’S LOOSE: APOCALYPSE IN THE EARLY AND MODERN AFRICAN AMERICAN NOVEL

WOMAN’S PLACE? THE LANDSCAPES OF JEWETT, CHOPIN, CATHER, HURSTON,WELTY, CHÁVEZ, YAMASHITA, SILKO

ODD MAN OUT? HENRY JAMES, THE CANON AND THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA

WATCHING MANNERS:MARTIN SCORSESE’S THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, EDITH WHARTON’S THE AGE OF INNOCENCE

A QUALITY OF DISTORTION: IMAGINING THE GREAT GATSBY

EVERYTHING COMPLETELY KNIT UP: SEEING FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS WHOLE

MODERNIST FAULKNER: A YOKNAPATAWPHA TRILOGY

THE VIEW FROM THE REAR WINDOW: THE FICTION OF CORNELL WOOLRICH

RICHARD WRIGHT’S INSIDE NARRATIVES

VIOLENCE BECOME A FORM: THE NOVELS OF CHESTER HIMES

FLUNKING EVERYTHING ELSE EXCEPT ENGLISH ANYWAY: HOLDEN CAULFIELD, AUTHOR

THE PLACE WE HAVE COME TO: THE LATE FICTION OF ROBERT PENN WARREN

HARLEM ON MY MIND: FICTIONS OF A BLACK METROPOLIS

DOWN HOME: MAPPING THE SOUTH IN CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN AMERICAN FICTION

I AM YOUR WORST NIGHTMARE: I AM AN INDIAN WITH A PEN – FICTIONS OF THE INDIAN, NATIVE FICTIONS

INDEX.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

94-012-0660-0

1-4416-0350-6

OCLC:

649903375

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789401206600 DOI