Recovering American Literature [Paperback]

Peter Shaw (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1995 | ISBN-10: 1566630959 | ISBN-13: 978-1566630955 | Edition: 1st Elephant pbk. ed

American literary criticism has taken a turn for the worse, Peter Shaw argues. Led chiefly by academics in the service of one or another ideology, critics in the last three decades have systematically raided the great works of 19th-century American literature and virtually robbed them of their deepest meaning. To illustrate, Shaw considers the treatment meted out to five American classics: Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, now reduced to a woman's struggle against an oppressive male orthodoxy; Moby Dick, actually a parable of doomed capitalism; Billy Budd, a reinforcement of senseless authority; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, blind to racism, among other failings; and Henry James's The Bostonians, perhaps an attack on lesbianism but at least a bumbling excuse for a novel. Tracing the evolution of this vein of criticism, and quoting the critics who have brought us to today's warped interpretations, Shaw shows convincingly that these great American books—and their readers—have been robbed of their complex humanity, the stuff that has made them great literature. Recovering American Literature is a clarion call for the restoration of criticism unfettered by ideological blinders.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In six lively essays, published previously in the Partisan Review and elsewhere, Shaw, a New York City-based critic, argues for the rescue of canonical American novels from the influence of politically correct university ideologues. Each chapter compares past and present trends in literary criticism in the appraisal of a major 19th-century novel; the novelists include Nathaniel Hawthorne ( The Scarlet Letter ), Mark Twain ( Huckleberry Finn ), Henry James ( The Bostonians ) and Herman Melville ( Moby Dick , Billy Budd , Typee ). Shaw posits that while earlier critics dealt primarily with these books as substantive and meaningful works of literature, critics since the 1960s, using evaluative interpretation, have reduced them to reflections of their own various political agendas. Among his examples of contemporary critical approaches are the reckoning of Hawthorne's character Hester Prynne as a feminist (Shaw particularly indicts feminist critics) and the alleged distortion of Melville's Billy Budd into an argument against the power of the state. Shaw's point of view is somewhat controversial but debate is necessary to the development of all thoughtful alternatives to some of the current theoretical trends.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Examining five famous texts from 19th-century American literature (Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, Melville's Moby Dick and Billy Budd, Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and James's The Bostonians), Shaw, a literary critic himself, maintains that in the last 25 years, critics have tended to reduce these texts to political tracts at the expense of their literary integrity. Works of literature essentially become social documents, frequently indicting the society of their authors. Some interpretations, Shaw insists, violate literary common sense: authors supposedly lose control of their materials. As a result, for example, we have Hawthorne unwittingly inviting us to view Hester Prynne as a victim of her morally repressive society. We can reclaim American literature by putting things in perspective, that is, by not ignoring the political implications of texts but not privileging them, either. Shaw's careful study raises important questions about the biases of recent trends in criticism of classic American literature. For informed readers and scholars.
R. David Kent, Lakeland College, Sheboygan, Wis.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: Ivan R Dee; 1st Elephant pbk. ed edition (August 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566630959
• ISBN-13: 978-1566630955
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,940,456 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)