Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville [Paperback]

David S. Reynolds (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1989

In this landmark work, the seven great writers of the American Renaissance--Emerson, Thoreau, Writman, Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, and Dickinson--are examined together in their cultural contexts. David Reynolds reveals how these authors broadly assimilated the themes and images of popular culture. Their classic works--among them Moby Dick, The Scarlet Letter, Leaves of Grass, Walden, and the tales of Poe--are given strikingly original reading when viewed against the rich, often startling background of long neglected popular writings of the time.

Reynolds also explores a whole lost world of sensational literature, including grisly novels, openly sold on the street, that combined intense violence with explicit eroticism. He demonstrates as well how common concerns with issues of religion, slavery, and workers' (as well as women's) rights resonate in the major writings.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Using the products of popular culture between 1820 and 1855 more comprehensively than do other Renaissance scholars, Reynolds tries to fix our "classic" texts (e.g., Moby Dick ) as culminating transfigurations of, rather than anomalous reactions against, the voluminous literature of their day. He focuses especially on the various reform literatures, new religious evangelical style, and flood of popular fiction, arguing that our major writers were able to absorb the style, themes, and genres of these sub-literary materials without sacrificing aesthetic control. Though he tends to overstate specific influences and embraces too mechanical a model for the creative process, his argument and impressive display of materials make for a significant contribution to American studies. Earl Rovit, City Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Impressively informed and heroic...An original piece of work that gives the literary canon and its contexts a good shaking. (Justin Kaplan New York Times Book Review )

Provocative and rigorously argued...It makes a strong case for the odd and ambiguous relationship of popular culture to the major works of nineteenth-century American literature. (James R. Mellow The Chicago Tribune )

The most important work of American literary criticism in nearly 30 years Beautifully written, it gives us our clearest picture yet of the literary climate between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. (David Stineback Providence Journal )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 640 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (October 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674065654
• ISBN-13: 978-0674065659
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #246,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David S. Reynolds, a Distinguished Professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, is the author or editor of 15 books, including "Mightier than the Sword: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Battle for America," "Walt Whitman's America," "John Brown, Abolitionist," "Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson," "George Lippard," "Faith in Fiction," and "Beneath the American Renaissance." He is the winner of the Bancroft Prize, the Christian Gauss Award, the Ambassador Book Award, the Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award, and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He has been interviewed some 80 times on radio and TV, on shows including NPR's "Fresh Air," "Weekend Edition," and "The Diane Rehm Show," ABC's "The John Batchelor Show," and C-SPAN's "After Words," Brian Lamb's "Book Notes," and "Book TV." He is a regular contributor to "The New York Times Book Review" and is included in "Who's Who in America," "Who's Who in American Education," and "Who's Who in the World." David Reynolds was born in Providence, Rhode Island. For much of his childhood he lived in West Barrington, Rhode Island in a home attached to the Nayatt Point Lighthouse (built in 1828). His father, Paul Reynolds, sold life insurance and later became an artist. His mother, Adelaide Koch Reynolds, was an artist, art teacher, and sometime illustrator who designed newspapers ads and Hallmark greeting cards. David Reynolds attended the Providence Country Day School, where he later taught for a year after his graduation from college. He received the B.A. magna cum laude from Amherst College and the Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He has taught American literature and American Studies at Northwestern University, Barnard College, New York University, Rutgers University, Baruch College, and the Sorbonne-Paris III. Since 2006, he has been at the CUNY Graduate Center. Besides writing and teaching, he enjoys songwriting and tennis as hobbies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars New Perspective on American Classic Literary Tradition, March 18, 2000

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Andrea Deurquiza "George dePue - "dep"" (Baltimore, MD, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Beneath the American Renaissance: The Subversive Imagination in the Age of Emerson and Melville (Paperback)

Truly well-thought, researched, and rendered. Reynolds grounds his literary analysis in a vivid sense of the transition from the Republic toward the corporate industrial era, explicating the dynamics of our vital tradition.