Master Plots: Race and the Founding of an American Literature, 1787-1845

Master Plots: Race and the Founding of an American Literature, 1787-1845
ISBN-10
0801865387
ISBN-13
9780801865381
Category
Literary Criticism
Pages
264
Language
English
Published
2000-12-29
Publisher
JHU Press
Author
Jared Gardner

Description

In Master Plots, Jared Gardner examines the tangled intersection of racial and national discourses in early American narrative. While it is well known that the writers of the early national period were preoccupied with differentiating their work from European models, Gardner argues that the national literature of the United States was equally motivated by the desire to differentiate white Americans from blacks and Indians. To achieve these ends, early American writers were drawn to fantasies of an "American race," and an American literature came to be defined not only by its desire for cultural uniqueness but also by its defense of racial purity.

Similar books