The art of retreat : domestic romanticisms in the early United States / Laurel V. Hankins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hankins, Laurel V., author.

Series:

Transits (Bucknell University)

Transits: literature, thought & culture, 1650-1850

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

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

American literature.

Home in literature.

Romanticism--United States.

Romanticism.

Domestic fiction, American--History and criticism.

Domestic fiction, American.

Genre:

Literary criticism.

Physical Description:

175 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

Lewisburg, Pennsylvania : Bucknell University Press, [2025]

Summary:

"The political and cultural fantasy of home as a retreat from the pressures of the world first emerged in the U.S. alongside two major nineteenth-century literary movements: Romanticism and domestic fiction. Upending accepted gendered narratives from this period, The Art of Retreat posits that these movements originated from a domestic culture already in transition, in which home was frequently a more complicated site of self-interested pleasure, coerced labor, creole social reproduction, homosocial intimacy, bachelor whimsy, petty tyranny, racial abuse, and transgender capacity. The early national periodicals, sketches, and novels examined here lend themselves to this interpretation. Hankins argues that the literary tradition emerging from these decades--one that aligned creative genius with domestic retreat--reminds us that a politics that appeals to private feeling must reckon with new interpretations of labor, kinship, and reform in exchange for the promise of consensual citizenship."-- Provided by publisher.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 159-169) and index.

ISBN:

9781684485628

1684485622

9781684485635

1684485630

OCLC:

1453619487