Novels in the Time of Democratic Writing

The American Example

Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism, British, American
Cover of the book Novels in the Time of Democratic Writing by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong, University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong ISBN: 9780812294613
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc. Publication: November 15, 2017
Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press Language: English
Author: Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
ISBN: 9780812294613
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication: November 15, 2017
Imprint: University of Pennsylvania Press
Language: English

During the thirty years following ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the first American novelists carried on an argument with their British counterparts that pitted direct democracy against representative liberalism. Such writers as Hannah Foster, Isaac Mitchell, Royall Tyler, Leonore Sansay, and Charles Brockden Brown developed a set of formal tropes that countered, move for move, those gestures and conventions by which Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and others created their closed worlds of self, private property, and respectable society. The result was a distinctively American novel that generated a system of social relations resembling today's distributed network. Such a network operated counter to the formal protocols that later distinguished the great tradition of the American novel.

In Novels in the Time of Democratic Writing, Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse show how these first U.S. novels developed multiple paths to connect an extremely diverse field of characters, redefining private property as fundamentally antisocial and setting their protagonists to the task of dispersing that property—its goods and people—throughout the field of characters. The populations so reorganized proved suddenly capable of thinking and acting as one. Despite the diverse local character of their subject matter and community of readers, the first U.S. novels delivered this argument in a vernacular style open and available to all. Although it differed markedly from the style we attribute to literary authors, Armstrong and Tennenhouse argue, such democratic writing lives on in the novels of Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, and James.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

During the thirty years following ratification of the U.S. Constitution, the first American novelists carried on an argument with their British counterparts that pitted direct democracy against representative liberalism. Such writers as Hannah Foster, Isaac Mitchell, Royall Tyler, Leonore Sansay, and Charles Brockden Brown developed a set of formal tropes that countered, move for move, those gestures and conventions by which Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and others created their closed worlds of self, private property, and respectable society. The result was a distinctively American novel that generated a system of social relations resembling today's distributed network. Such a network operated counter to the formal protocols that later distinguished the great tradition of the American novel.

In Novels in the Time of Democratic Writing, Nancy Armstrong and Leonard Tennenhouse show how these first U.S. novels developed multiple paths to connect an extremely diverse field of characters, redefining private property as fundamentally antisocial and setting their protagonists to the task of dispersing that property—its goods and people—throughout the field of characters. The populations so reorganized proved suddenly capable of thinking and acting as one. Despite the diverse local character of their subject matter and community of readers, the first U.S. novels delivered this argument in a vernacular style open and available to all. Although it differed markedly from the style we attribute to literary authors, Armstrong and Tennenhouse argue, such democratic writing lives on in the novels of Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, and James.

More books from University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.

Cover of the book Bring Out Your Dead by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book How Real Estate Developers Think by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book Death of a Suburban Dream by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book John James Audubon by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book Masking Terror by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book The Capture of Constantinople by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book Toussaint Louverture and the American Civil War by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book Compassion's Edge by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book A Formalist Theatre by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book Banished by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book A Nation Dedicated to Religious Liberty by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book First Lady of Letters by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book Civitas by Design by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book Political Blackness in Multiracial Britain by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
Cover of the book Doomsayers by Leonard Tennenhouse, Nancy Armstrong
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy