Author : Finn Pollard
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1135892652
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (358 download)
Book Synopsis The Literary Quest for an American National Character by : Finn Pollard
Download or read book The Literary Quest for an American National Character written by Finn Pollard and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-01-14 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "What then is the American, this new man?" This question is explored here through the lives and writings of a sequence of imaginative authors each of whom confronted a crucial moment in the evolution of the new nation (from Crevecoeur and the Revolution, through Washington Irving and Jeffersonian Democracy, to James Fenimore Cooper and the Era of Good Feelings). At the centre of these confrontations was a division between those who claimed national perfection had been obtained, and those who, while desperately wanting to believe this, perceived all too clearly that that perfection had not yet come. Rediscovering this neglected literary debate, The Literary Quest for an American National Character illuminates afresh the traumatic birth and development of the new American nation.