Scenes of Nature, Signs of Men: Essays on 19th and 20th Century American Literature (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, Series Number 31)

Tanner, Tony

ISBN 10: 0521311551 / ISBN 13: 9780521311557

Published by Cambridge University Press, 1989

About this Item

Seller Inventory # 4368

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Scenes of Nature, Signs of Men: Essays on 19th and 20th Century American Literature (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, Series Number 31)
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication Date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521311551
• ISBN 13: 9780521311557
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dimensions: 15.24W x 22.86H x 1.83D centimeters 15.24 centimeters width by 22.86 centimeters height by 1.83 centimeters depth
• Weight: 470 grams

About this title

Synopsis

This book is about the relationship of the American writer to his land and language - to the 'scene' and the 'sign', to the natural landscape and the inscriptions imposed upon it by men. Among the questions considered in the first section of the book are how does American Romantic writing differ from European; what are the peculiar problems faced by the American artist, and what roles does he adopt to tackle them; what kind of writing results when authors as different as Henry Adams and Mark Twain lament the vanishing of an earlier America, or when Adams and Henry James review their complex relationship to their homeland, or when W. D. Howells and Stephen Crane seek to define their themes in a specifically American setting. The second section of the book examines similar concerns in a number of contemporary writers, notably Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Donald Barthelme, John DeLillo, and William Gass.

Book Description

An examination of the relationship of the American writer to his land and language--to the "scene" and the "sign", to the natural landscape and the inscriptions imposed upon it by men.