American modern(ist) epic : novels to refound a nation / Adam Nemmers.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nemmers, Adam, author.

Series:

Liverpool scholarship online.

Liverpool scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Epic literature, American--History and criticism.

Epic literature, American.

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

American fiction.

National characteristics, American, in literature.

Civilization, Modern, in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (288 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Clemson, SC : Clemson University Press, 2021.

Summary:

'American Modern(ist) Epic' argues that during the 1920s and '30s a cadre of minority novelists revitalized the classic epic form in an effort to recast the United States according to modern, diverse, and pluralistic grounds. Rather than adhere to the reification of static culture (as did ancient verse epic), in their prose epics Gertrude Stein and John Dos Passos utilized recursion, bricolage, and polyphony to represent the multifarious immediacy and movement of the modern world. Meanwhile, H. T. Tsiang and Richard Wright created absurd and insipid anti-heroes for their epics, contesting the hegemony of Anglo and capitalist dominance in the United States. In all, I posit, these modern(ist) epic novels undermined and revised the foundational ideology of the United States, contesting notions of individualism, progress, and racial hegemony while modernizing the epic form in an effort to refound the nation.

Notes:

Published in association with Liverpool University Press.

This edition also issued in print: 2021.

Description based on online resource; title from home page (viewed on May 9, 2022).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-80085-283-5

1-949979-67-9

OCLC:

1257313450