Multilingual America: Language and the Making of American Literature (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, Series Number 156) - Softcover

Rosenwald, Lawrence Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 052172161X ISBN 13: 9780521721615

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2008

Synopsis

Throughout its history, America has been the scene of multiple encounters between communities speaking different languages. Literature has long sought to represent these encounters in various ways, from James Fenimore Cooper’s frontier fictions to the Jewish-American writers who popularised Yiddish as a highly influential modern vernacular. While other studies have concentrated on isolated parts of this history, Lawrence Rosenwald’s book is the first to consider the whole story of linguistic representation in American literature, and to consider as well how multilingual fictions can be translated and incorporated into a national literary history. He uses case studies to analyse the most important kinds of linguistic encounters, such as those between Europeans and Native Americans, those between slaveholders and African slaves, and those between immigrants and American citizens. This ambitious, engaging book is an important contribution to the study of American literature, history and culture.

About this title

About the Author

Lawrence Rosenwald is Anne Pierce Rogers Professor of American Literature at Wellesley College.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 052172161X
• ISBN 13: 9780521721615
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216