Radical representations : politics and form in U.S. proletarian fiction, 1929-1941 / Barbara Foley.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Foley, Barbara, 1948-

Series:

Post-contemporary interventions.

Post-contemporary interventions

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American fiction--20th century--History and criticism.

American fiction.

Politics and literature--United States--History--20th century.

Politics and literature.

Working class writings, American--History and criticism.

Working class writings, American.

Political fiction, American--History and criticism.

Political fiction, American.

Working class--United States--Intellectual life.

Working class.

Working class in literature.

Social problems in literature.

Proletariat in literature.

Radicalism in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (485 p.)

Place of Publication:

Durham : Duke University Press, 1993.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

In this revisionary study, Barbara Foley challenges prevalent myths about left-wing culture in the Depression-era U.S. Focusing on a broad range of proletarian novels and little-known archival material, the author recaptures an important literature and rewrites a segment of American cultural history long obscured and distorted by the anti-Communist bias of contemporaries and critics.Josephine Herbst, William Attaway, Jack Conroy, Thomas Bell and Tillie Olsen, are among the radical writers whose work Foley reexamines. Her fresh approach to the U.S. radicals' debates over experimentalism, the relation of art to propaganda, and the nature of proletarian literature recasts the relation of writers to the organized left. Her grasp of the left's positions on the "Negro question" and the "woman question" enables a nuanced analysis of the relation of class to race and gender in the proletarian novel. Moreover, examining the articulation of political doctrine in different novelistic modes, Foley develops a model for discussing the interplay between politics and literary conventions and genres.Radical Representations recovers a literature of theoretical and artistic value meriting renewed attention form those interested in American literature, American studies, the U. S. left, and cultural studies generally.

Contents:

The legacy of anti-communism

Influences on American proletarian literature

Defining proletarian literature

Art or propaganda?

Race, class, and the "Negro question"

Women and the left in the 1930s

Realism and didacticism in proletarian fiction

The proletarian fictional autobiography

The proletarian bildungsroman

The proletarian social novel

The collective novel.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780822313946

0822313944

9780822397755

0822397757

OCLC:

891395466