Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Works
- PART I FOUR OVERVIEWS
- 1 Theoretical Premises
- 2 A Narrative Overview of New England's Literary Development
- 3 Marketplace, Ethos, Practice: The Antebellum Literary Situation
- 4 Neoclassical Continuities: The Early National Era and the New England Literary Tradition
- PART II THREE REPRESENTATIVE GENRES
- PART III REINVENTING PURITANISM: THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL IMAGINATION
- Part IV NEW ENGLAND AS A COUNTRY OF THE IMAGINATION: THE SPIRIT OF PLACE
- Postscript
- Appendix Vital Statistics: A Quantitative Analysis of Authorship as a Profession in New England
- Notes
- Index
1 - Theoretical Premises
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Works
- PART I FOUR OVERVIEWS
- 1 Theoretical Premises
- 2 A Narrative Overview of New England's Literary Development
- 3 Marketplace, Ethos, Practice: The Antebellum Literary Situation
- 4 Neoclassical Continuities: The Early National Era and the New England Literary Tradition
- PART II THREE REPRESENTATIVE GENRES
- PART III REINVENTING PURITANISM: THE NEW ENGLAND HISTORICAL IMAGINATION
- Part IV NEW ENGLAND AS A COUNTRY OF THE IMAGINATION: THE SPIRIT OF PLACE
- Postscript
- Appendix Vital Statistics: A Quantitative Analysis of Authorship as a Profession in New England
- Notes
- Index
Summary
One cannot do theoretical research without having the courage to put forward a theory, and, therefore, an elementary model as a guide for subsequent discourse; all theoretical research must however have the courage to specify its own contradictions, and should make them obvious where they are not apparent.
Umberto Eco, A Theory of Semiotics (1976)We do what we can, & then make a theory to prove our performance the best.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks (1834)This book is a study of New England literature during the years when it developed from an amateur pastime to its peak of distinction, the socalled New England Renaissance of about 1830–60. I shall explore the foundations, the unfolding, and the literary results of this great change, giving special attention to major writers – Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Stowe, and Dickinson particularly – but surveying them in relation to a host of other figures and to the conventions, values, and institutions that shaped their work in common. I hope in the process to contribute to the understanding of the authors and genres discussed, of the ideology of provincialism in general and the New England strain in particular, the phenomenon of literary emergence, and the ongoing attempt to chart a course for American literary history.
The following chapters approach New England letters from two complementary vantage points.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- New England Literary CultureFrom Revolution through Renaissance, pp. 3 - 22Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1986