Becoming Cajun, becoming American : the Acadian in American literature from Longfellow to James Lee Burke / Maria Hebert-Leiter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hebert-Leiter, Maria.

Series:

Southern literary studies.

Southern literary studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--History and criticism.

American literature.

Cajuns in literature.

Acadians in literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (213 p.)

Place of Publication:

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, c2009.

Language Note:

Text in English.

Summary:

From antebellum times, Louisiana's unique multipartite society included a legal and social space for intermediary racial groups such as Acadians, Creoles, and Creoles of Color. In Becoming Cajun, Becoming American, Maria Hebert-Leiter explores how American writers have portrayed Acadian culture over the past 150 years. Combining a study of Acadian literary history with an examination of Acadian ethnic history in light of recent social theories, she offers insight into the Americanization process experienced by Acadians-who over time came to be known as Cajuns-during the nineteenth and twentiet

Contents:

Introduction: from Acadian to American: the paradox of Cajun American identity

Longfellow's Evangeline: the origins of American myth and Cajun memory

How to become American: the irony of George Washington Cable's Bonaventure

The awakening awakened: Cajun identity and female sexuality in the fiction of Kate Chopin

Our Cajun America: twentieth-century revisions of Cajun representation

The journey home: James Lee Burke's parable of Cajun assimilation

Embracing difference: Cajuns take the next step in Cajun representation

Conclusion: local pride, global connections: twenty-first-century Cajuns.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 177-190) and index.

ISBN:

0-8071-3613-1

OCLC:

463256338