The complicity of imagination : the American renaissance, contests of authority, and seventeenth-century English culture / Robin Grey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Grey, Robin (Robin Sandra), author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in American literature and culture ; 106.

Cambridge studies in American literature and culture ; 106

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Fuller, Margaret, 1810-1850--Knowledge--England.

Fuller, Margaret.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882--Knowledge--England.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo.

Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862--Knowledge--England.

Thoreau, Henry David.

Melville, Herman, 1819-1891--Knowledge--England.

Melville, Herman.

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

American literature.

English literature--Early modern, 1500-1700--History and criticism--Theory, etc.

English literature.

English literature--Appreciation--United States.

American literature--English influences.

England--Civilization--17th century.

England.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (viii, 294 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Complicity of Imagination examines the rich and complex relationship between four nineteenth-century authors and the culture and politics of seventeenth-century England. Challenging the notion that antebellum Americans were burdened by a sense of cultural inferiority in both their thought and their writing, this 1997 study portrays an American Renaissance whose writers were deeply enough read in the literature and controversies of seventeenth-century England to appropriate its cultural artifacts for their own purposes. By exploring the broader cultural implications of intertextual relationships, this book demonstrates how literary texts participate in the artistic, political and theological tensions within American culture.

Contents:

Introduction: Antebellum America and the Culture of Seventeenth-Century England

1. Cultural Predicaments and Authorial Responses

2. "A Seraph's Eloquence": Emerson's Inspired Language and Milton's Apocalyptic Prose

3. Margaret Fuller's "The Two Herberts," Emerson, and the Disavowal of Sequestered Virtue

4. "As if a green bough were laid across the page": Thoreau's Seventeenth-Century Landscapes and Extravagant Personae

5. Melville's Mardi and Moby-Dick, Marvelous Travel Narratives, and Seventeenth-Century Methods of Inquiry

6. Surmising the Infidel: Melville Reads Milton.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references (p. 229-280) and index.

ISBN:

0-511-88794-9

0-511-58546-2

0-511-00373-0