1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910807705303321

Autore

Buonomo Leonardo

Titolo

Immigration, ethnicity, and class in American writing, 1830-1860 : reading the stranger / / Leonardo Buonomo

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Lanham, Maryland : , : Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, , 2014

©2014

ISBN

1-61147-653-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (217 p.)

Disciplina

810.9/358

Soggetti

American literature - 19th century - History and criticism

National characteristics, American, in literature

Immigrants in literature

Ethnicity in literature

Race in literature

Social classes in literature

Group identity in literature

Nationalism and literature - United States - History - 19th century

Literature and society - United States - History - 19th century

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 and index.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Acknowledgments; Prologue; Introduction; Chapter One: Face to Face with the Stranger; Ralph Waldo Emerson on National Identity; Herman Melville's Redburn: In the Company of Strangers; Nathaniel Hawthorne's Foreign Reflections; Chapter Two: The Domestic Other; James Fenimore Cooper: Defining Master and Servant; Walt Whitman: A Sympathetic Glance at "Bridget"; Chapter Three: Landscape with Strangers; Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Changing Face of America; Henry David Thoreau and His Foreign Neighbors; Chapter Four: Views from the City; Epilogue; Bibliography; About the Author; Index

Sommario/riassunto

This book examines fiction and nonfiction texts from the period 1830 to 1860 to demonstrate how major and minor American writers constructed their country's identity by contrasting their own characteristics with those of innumerable immigrants. Confronted with



newcomers whose cultural and social background made them appear more alien than their predecessors, American writers reconsidered their nation's democracy and republicanism, together with its cultural and ethnic heritage, in a context of heated scientific and popular debates about race.