Anglo-American Encounters: England and the Rise of American Literature - Softcover

Lease, Benjamin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521108527 ISBN 13: 9780521108522

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Between the years 1850 and 1855 there appeared, in rapid succession, five American books now universally recognised as classics: The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Walden and Leaves of Grass. This study seeks to clarify that extraordinary half-decade in the rise of American literature. In successive chapters Professor Lease analyses the British connections of ten American writers, from Washington Irving to Walt Whitman. He considers their struggle for cultural independence through their engagement with, reaction to and gradual acceptance by the established English world of letters. These Anglo-American encounters are a dramatic series of portraits that provide new perspectives for understanding the career, the quest for nationality and the imaginative world of each of these major contributors to the shaping of an American literature.

About this title

Book Description

Between the years 1850 and 1855 there appeared, in rapid succession, five American books now universally recognised as classics: The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Walden and Leaves of Grass. This study seeks to clarify that extraordinary half-decade in the rise of American literature.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521108527
• ISBN 13: 9780521108522
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 316