The English literary influence on classic American novelists’ depictions of gender, sexuality, and race
With
All the Devils Are Here, the literary scholar David Greven makes a signal contribution to the growing list of studies dedicated to tracing threads of literary influence. Herman Melville’s, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, and James Fenimore Cooper’s uses of Shakespeare and Milton, he finds, reflect not just an intertextual relationship between American Romanticism and the English tradition but also an ongoing engagement with gender and sexual politics.
Greven limns the effect of Shakespeare’s
Much Ado about Nothing on Hawthorne’s exploration of patriarchy, and he shows how misogyny in
King Lear informed Melville’s evocation of “the step-mother world” of orphaned men in
Moby-Dick. Throughout, Greven focuses particularly on male authors’ treatment of femininity, arguing that the figure of woman functions for them as a multivalent signifier for artistic expression. Ultimately, Greven demonstrates the ambitions of these writers to comment on the history of the Western tradition and the future of art from their unique positions as Americans.
With
All the Devils Are Here, the literary scholar David Greven makes a signal contribution to the growing list of studies dedicated to tracing threads of literary influence. Herman Melville’s, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, and James Fenimore Cooper’s uses of Shakespeare and Milton, he finds, reflect not just an intertextual relationship between American Romanticism and the English tradition but also an ongoing engagement with gender and sexual politics.
Greven limns the effect of Shakespeare’s
Much Ado about Nothing on Hawthorne’s exploration of patriarchy, and he shows how misogyny in
King Lear informed Melville’s evocation of “the step-mother world” of orphaned men in
Moby-Dick. Throughout, Greven focuses particularly on male authors’ treatment of femininity, arguing that the figure of woman functions for them as a multivalent signifier for artistic expression. Ultimately, Greven demonstrates the ambitions of these writers to comment on the history of the Western tradition and the future of art from their unique positions as Americans.
Despre autor
David Greven is Professor of English at the University of South Carolina and the author ofThe Fragility of Manhood: Hawthorne, Freud, and the Politics of Gender.
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Limba Engleză ● Format EPUB ● Pagini 324 ● ISBN 9780813951034 ● Mărime fișier 4.1 MB ● Editura University of Virginia Press ● Publicat 2024 ● Descărcabil 24 luni ● Valută EUR ● ID 9233630 ● Protecție împotriva copiilor Adobe DRM
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