The American Epic: Transforming a Genre, 1770-1860

by John P. McWilliams, Jr

Overview

This is the first thorough account of the many attempts during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to fashion a distinctly American epic literature from a wide range of potentially heroic New World subjects. McWilliams considers the cultural, political and literary implications of adapting Enlightenment news of republican progress to a genre that had traditionally celebrated the greatness of warriors. He shows how and why the epic in America had to be transformed from imitative narrative poetry into the new genres of prose history (Irving, Prescott, Parkman), fictional romance (Cooper, Melville), and free verse (Whitman).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521107020
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/02/2009
Series:	Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture , #36
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 2.40(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; Part I. Imitations: Homer's Tyrannous Eye: 1. Invocations; 2. Freedom's heroes; 3. Freedom's fools; 4. A white achilles for the West?; Part II. Transformations: The Epic in New Genres: 5. Red Achilles, red Satan; 6. The destroying angel; 7. Till a better epic comes along; 8. 'An epic of democracy?'; Prospect; Notes; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"...an important book that fills a gap in our knowledge and strengthens our understanding of 19th-century literary culture." Choice

"McWilliams surveys the work of Barlow, Dwight, and Trumbull with a sharp eye toward the rhetorical work each must perform introducing his epic to the public, revealing the discomforts each feels in suiting vehicle to message." David S. Shields, The Eighteenth Century

From the Publisher