The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American Renaissance

The American Renaissance has been a foundational concept in American literary history for nearly a century. The phrase connotes a period, as well as an event, an iconic turning point in the growth of a national literature and a canon of texts that would shape American fiction, poetry, and oratory for generations. F. O. Matthiessen coined the term in 1941 to describe the years 1850-1855, which saw the publications of major writings by Hawthorne, Melville, Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman. This Companion takes up the concept of the American Renaissance and explores its origins, meaning, and longevity. Essays by distinguished scholars move chronologically from the formative reading of American Renaissance authors to the careers of major figures ignored by Matthiessen, including Stowe, Douglass, Harper, and Longfellow. The volume uses the best of current literary studies, from digital humanities to psychoanalytic theory, to illuminate an era that reaches far beyond the Civil War and continues to shape our understanding of American literature.

Author: Christopher N. Phillips
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 03/15/2018
Pages: 278
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 9.01h x 6.23w x 0.82d
ISBN: 9781108431088

Review Citation(s):
Choice 11/01/2018

About the Author
Phillips, Christopher N.: - Christopher N. Phillips is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on American literature, published in venues such as PMLA, Early American Literature, and Literature in the Early American Republic. He is the author of Epic in American Culture, Settlement to Reconstruction (2012) and The Hymnal Before the Notes: A History of Reading and Progress (forthcoming). Among recent fellowships received are a National Endowment for the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Library Company of Philadelphia and a Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies in conjunction with the American Antiquarian Society.