1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910450126503321

Autore

Auerbach Jonathan <1954->

Titolo

The romance of failure : first-person fictions of Poe, Hawthorne, and James / / Jonathan Auerbach

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York ; ; Oxford, [England] : , : Oxford University Press, , 1989

©1989

ISBN

1-280-52376-X

0-19-534525-8

1-60256-600-3

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (212 p.)

Disciplina

813/.3/09353

Soggetti

American fiction - 19th century - History and criticism

Failure (Psychology) in literature

First person narrative

Psychological fiction, American - History - Criticism and interpretation

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliography: p. 177-196 and index.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Introduction: ""Proper Identity"" and the First Person; 1. Disfiguring the Perfect Plot: Doubling and Self-Betrayal in Poe; 2. Hawthorne's The Blithedale Romance and the Death of Enchantment; 3. The Jamesian Critical Romance; Afterword; Notes; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; Y

Sommario/riassunto

This book focuses on the intense intimacy between author and first-person narrator in the fictions of Poe, Hawthorne, and James in order to defend the beleaguered ""I"" in these works against the depersonalizing tendencies of postructuralism. In reaffirming the importance of the human subject for the study of narrative, Auerbach shows how the first person form, in particular, underscores fundamental problems of literary representation: how fictions come to be made, and the relation between these plots and the people who make them.