And the View from the Shore : Literary Traditions of Hawai'i / Stephen H. Sumida.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sumida, Stephen H.

Series:

Samuel and Althea Stroum Books

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Asian Americans in literature.

Pacific Islander Americans in literature.

Authors, American--Homes and haunts--Hawaii.

Authors, American.

American literature--Pacific Islander American authors--History and criticism.

American literature.

American literature--Asian American authors--History and criticism.

American literature--Hawaii--History and criticism.

Hawaii--In literature.

Hawaii.

Hawaii--Intellectual life.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xxiii, 330 p. )

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Seattle : University of Washington Press, c1991.

Summary:

This groundbreaking study of a little-explored branch of American literature both chronicles and reinterprets the variety of patterns found within Hawaii’s pastoral and heroic literary traditions, and is unprecedented in its scope and theme. As a literary history, it covers two centuries of Hawaii’s culture since the arrival of Captain James Cookin 1778. Its approach is multicultural, representing the spectrum of native Hawaiian, colonial, tourist, and polyethnic local literatures. Explicit historical, social, political, and linguistic context of Hawaii, as well as literary theory, inform Stephen Sumida’s analyses and explications of texts, which in turn reinterpret the nonfictional contexts themselves. These “texts” include poems, song lyrics, novels and short fiction, drama and oral traditions that epitomize cultural milieus and sensibilities.Hawaii’s rich literary tradition begins with ancient Polynesian chant and encompasses the compelling novels of O.A. Bushnell, Shelley Ota, Kazuo Miyamoto, Milton Marayama, and John Dominis Holt; the stories of Patsy Saiki and Darrell Lum; the dramas of Aldyth Morris; the poetry of Cathy Song, Erick Chock, Jody Manabe, Wing Tek Lum, and others of the contemporary “Bamboo Ridge” group; Hawaiian songs and poetry, or mele; and works written by visitors from outside the islands, such as the journals of Captain Cook and the prose fiction of Herman Melville, James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, and James Michener. Sumida discusses the renewed enthusiasm for native Hawaiian culture and the controversies over Hawaii’s vernacular pidgins and creoles. His achievement in developing a functional and accessible critical and intellectual framework for analyzing this diverse material is remarkable, and his engaging and perceptive analysis of these works invites the reader to explore further in the literature itself and to reconsider the present and future direction of Hawaii’s writers.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Preface

About Spelling and Capitalization

Myths At First Sight

Paradise of the Pacific? Nineteenth-Century Prototypes in American Literature

Hawaii's Pastoral: From Mele Hula to the Childhood Idyll

Hawaii's Complex Idyll: All I Asking for Is My Body and Waimea Summer

Hawaii's Heroic Literature: "Our People, Our History

Hawaii's Local Literary Tradition: "To Speak of Things So Real

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

"A Samuel and Althea Stroum book."

Includes bibliographical references (p. 307-322) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780295998701

0295998709

9780295803456

0295803452

OCLC:

933516602

Publisher Number:

heb40475 hdl