The American elsewhere : adventure and manliness in the Age of Expansion / Jimmy L. Bryan Jr.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bryan, Jimmy L., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Adventure and adventurers--West (U.S.).

Adventure and adventurers.

Masculinity--West (U.S.)--History.

Masculinity.

Masculinity in literature.

Masculinity in popular culture--United States.

Masculinity in popular culture.

Frontier and pioneer life in literature.

Adventure stories, American--History and criticism.

Adventure stories, American.

United States--Territorial expansion--History--19th century.

United States.

United States--Territorial expansion--Social aspects.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (407 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Lawrence, Kansas : University Press of Kansas, 2017.

Summary:

"Adventure is a common thread in the mythology of the American West. In the era of manifest destiny, mountain men and frontiersmen blazed trails across the continent in ways that still loom large in the American imagination. The life of mountain man Hugh Glass, for example, has inspired numerous books and movies, including Oscar-winner The Revenant. In folklore and popular culture, these men are typically portrayed as bold adventurers and American heroes. By contrast, scholars, especially in the past fifty years, tend to view them as villains, agents of violent conquest. In The American Elsewhere, Jimmy Bryan proposes a third view, a middle ground that considers the influence of Romanticism on the emotional motivations behind both the violent actions and self-aggrandizing views of adventurers in antebellum America. Bryan bases his study on "adventurelogues," novels and memoirs about the West written in the decades before the Civil War. He argues that these writings reveal the Romantic emotionalism adventurers brought to their time in the West as they sought escape from the Market Revolution and an Eastern world they perceived as dull and stifling. While Romantic artists and philosophers encountered the sublime in nature, these adventurers found the sublime in dangerous, violent interactions. They sought out situations where they could act boldly, experience profound emotions, and demonstrate their masculinity. And by then publishing accounts and fictionalizations of their adventures, these men created narratives of American manhood that viewed brutality, avarice, and chauvinism as noble--narratives that supported conquest and colonialism."--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

The adventurous impulse

The storyteller nation

An aristocracy of buckskin

Sentimental frontiers

The companionship of peril

Romantic invaders

Epilogue: Legacies of adventurous manhood.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780700624799

0700624791

OCLC:

1006312195