Product Description

In this landmark work, the seven great writers of the American Renaissance--Emerson, Thoreau, Writman, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and Dickinson--are examined together in their cultural contexts. David Reynolds reveals how these authors broadly assimilated the themes and images of popular culture. Their classic works--among them Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, Leaves of Grass, Walden, and the tales of Poe--are given strikingly original reading when viewed against the rich, often startling background of long neglected popular writings of the time.

Reynolds also explores a whole lost world of sensational literature, including grisly novels, openly sold on the street, that combined intense violence with explicit eroticism. He demonstrates as well how common concerns with issues of religion, slavery, and workers' (as well as women's) rights resonate in the major writings.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #975093 in Books
• Published on: 1989-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 640 pages

From Library Journal
Using the products of popular culture between 1820 and 1855 more comprehensively than do other Renaissance scholars, Reynolds tries to fix our "classic" texts (e.g., Moby Dick ) as culminating transfigurations of, rather than anomalous reactions against, the voluminous literature of their day. He focuses especially on the various reform literatures, new religious evangelical style, and flood of popular fiction, arguing that our major writers were able to absorb the style, themes, and genres of these sub-literary materials without sacrificing aesthetic control. Though he tends to overstate specific influences and embraces too mechanical a model for the creative process, his argument and impressive display of materials make for a significant contribution to American studies. Earl Rovit, City Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
The most important work of American literary criticism in nearly 30 years Beautifully written, it gives us our clearest picture yet of the literary climate between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. -- David Stineback "Providence Journal"

Review
One of the most powerful pieces of scholarship and criticism on American literature in a very long time...[It exhibits] wonderful range, insight, verve, and critical sophistication. This is a most welcome and timely book; it helps set a new agenda for American literary and cultural studies.
--Alan Trachtenberg, Yale University

Customer Reviews

New Perspective on American Classic Literary Tradition
Truly well-thought, researched, and rendered. Reynolds grounds his literary analysis in a vivid sense of the transition from the Republic toward the corporate industrial era, explicating the dynamics of our vital tradition.