1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910451344803321

Autore

Couser G. Thomas

Titolo

Altered egos [[electronic resource] ] : authority in American autobiography / / G. Thomas Couser

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New York, : Oxford University Press, 1989

ISBN

1-280-52390-5

0-19-534523-1

1-4294-0101-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (298 p.)

Disciplina

810/.9/492

8109492

Soggetti

Autobiography

Authority in literature

American prose literature - History and criticism

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Description based upon print version of record.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 271-275) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; 1 Prologue: The Case of the Counterfeit Autobiography; 2 Introduction: Authority, Autobiography, America; 3 The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin: Self-Constitutional Conventions; 4 Prose and Cons: The Autobiographies of P. T. Barnum; 5 False ""I's"": Mark Twain's Pseudonymous Autobiography; 6 (En)Slave(d) Narrative: Early Afro-American Autobiography; 7 Mary Boykin Chesnut: Secession, Confederacy, Reconstruction; 8 Black Elk Speaks With Forked Tongue; 9 Biculturalism in Contemporary Autobiography: Richard Rodriguez and Maxine Hong Kingston; 10 Conclusion; Notes

Selected BibliographyIndex; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; Q; R; S; T; U; V; W; Y

Sommario/riassunto

This book is concerned with the ""authority"" of autobiography, seeing it as a shifting ground on which writers struggle for literary control over their lives against the constraints of genre, language, and society.