The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American Renaissance by Christopher N. Phillips ISBN 9781108431088, 1108431089 instant download

The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American Renaissance by Christopher N. Phillips ISBN 9781108431088, 1108431089 instant download

The American Renaissance has been a foundational concept in American literary
history for nearly a century. The phrase connotes a period as well as an
event, an iconic turning point in the growth of a national literature and a canon
of texts that would shape American fi ction, poetry, and oratory for generations.
F. O. Matthiessen coined the term in 1941 to describe the years 1850– 1855,
which saw the publications of major writings by Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson,
Thoreau, and Whitman. This Companion takes up the concept of the American
Renaissance and explores its origins, meaning, and longevity. Essays by distinguished
scholars move chronologically from the formative reading of American
Renaissance authors to the careers of major fi gures ignored by Matthiessen,
including Stowe, Douglass, Harper, and Longfellow. The volume uses the best
of current literary studies, from digital humanities to psychoanalytic theory, to
illuminate an era that reaches far beyond the Civil War and continues to shape
our understanding of American literature.