From Puritanism to Postmodernism: A History of American Literature - Hardcover

Bradbury, Malcolm; Ruland, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415013410 ISBN 13: 9780415013413

Publisher: Taylor & Francis Books Ltd, 1991

Synopsis

Two critics of American literature, one British and one American, join forces in this work to offer a late 20th century rediscovery of American literature. Adopting a modernist/postmodernist stance, Malcolm Bradbury and Richard Ruland address questions of literary and cultural nationalism. They demonstrate that since the 17th century, American writing has reflected the political and historical climate of its time, and how in turn, these works have, themselves, helped to define America's cultural and social parameters. They argue that American literature has always been essentially modern and illustrate this opinion by reference to a range of texts from Poe and Melville, through Fitzgerald and Pound, to Arthur Miller, Joyce Carol Oates and Toni Morrison. The book is intended to be of interest to students and teachers of literature and American cultural studies.

About this title

About the Author

Malcolm Bradbury is a novelist, critic, television dramatist and Emeritus Professor of American Studies at the University of East Anglia. He is author of the novels Eating People is Wrong (1959); Stepping Westward (1965); The History Man (1975); which won the Royal Society of Literature Heinemann Prize and was adapted as a famous television series; Rates of Exchange (1983) which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize; Cuts: A Very Short Novel (1987), also televised; and Doctor Criminale (1992). His critical works include The Modern American Novel (1984; revised edition, 1992); No, Not Bloomsbury (essays, 1987); The Modern world: Ten Great Writers (1988); From Puritanism to Post-modernism: A History of American Literature (with Richard Ruland, 1991) He is the author of a collection of seven stories and nine parodies, entitled Who Do You Think You Are? (1976), and of several works of humour and satire, including Why Come to Slaka? (1986), Unsent Letters (1988; revised edition, 1995) and Mensonge (1987). Many of his books are published by Penguin. In addition, he has written many television plays and the television 'novel' The Gravy Train and The Gravy Train Goes East. He has adapted several television series, including Tom Sharpe's Porterhouse Blue, Kinglsey Amis's The Green Man and Stella Gibbon's' Cold Comfort Farm, now a feature film.

Malcolm Bradbury lives in Norwich, travels good deal, and in 1991 he was awarded the CBE.

About this edition

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis Books Ltd
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0415013410
• ISBN 13: 9780415013413
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352