Synopses & Reviews
Before the West Was West examines the extent to which scholars have engaged in-depth with pre-1800 and#8220;westernand#8221; texts and asks what we mean by and#8220;westernand#8221; American literature in the first place and when that designation originated.
Calling into question the implicit temporal boundaries of the and#8220;American Westand#8221; in literature, a literature often viewed as having commenced only at the beginning of the 1800s, Before the West Was West explores the concrete, meaningful connections between different texts as well as the development of national ideologies and mythologies. Examining pre-nineteenth-century writings that do not fit conceptions of the Wild West or of cowboys, cattle ranching, and the Pony Express, these thirteen essays demonstrate that no single, unified idea or geography defines the American West.and#160;
Contributors investigate texts ranging from the Norse Vinland Sagas and Mary Rowlandsonand#8217;s famous captivity narrative to early Spanish and French exploration narratives, an eighteenth-century English novel, and a play by Aphra Behn. Through its examination of the disparate and multifaceted body of literature that arises from a broad array of cultural backgrounds and influences, Before the West Was West apprehends the literary West in temporal as well as spatial and cultural terms and poses new questions about and#8220;westernnessand#8221; and its literary representation.
Review
“
The War on Words delivers an impressively wide-ranging reinterpretation, at once rigorously astringent and perceptively sympathetic, of how canonical American writers coped with the formidable challenges not to engage in public talk about slavery and racism. Though some of Gilmores assessments are bound to provoke controversy, no serious reader of this book—which should indeed be required reading for all serious Americanists—will fail to come away informed and invigorated by Gilmores understanding of the de facto constraints on expression that confront even our ‘free society, both then and now.”
Lawrence Buell, Harvard University
Review
“
The War on Words is a brave and brilliant book that explores the fact of censorship, particularly as it operated in matters of slavery and race, in nineteenth-century American literature and politics. While positioning the Civil War as the moment when ‘the nature of utterance shifted from the comic to the tragic, from prophecy to indirection, from abolitionists to the Klan, Gilmore nevertheless attends to the consistency, across the century, with which words are championed, attacked, feared, and erased. With remarkable range and acuity, Gilmore convincingly demonstrates that what could not be said is as significant an impetus for the production and understanding of American literature as what could.”
Cindy Weinstein, California Institute of Technology
Review
“Gilmore's interpretations explain the texts' plot twists and figurative language in original ways, and with illuminating reference to historical contexts.”
Choice
Review
"Perceptive." Times Literary Supplement
Review
“Starting from the silences and evasions about race in the Declaration and Constitution, Michael T. Gilmore traces the fate of free speech as he conducts a compelling re-envisioning of the whole span of nineteenth-century American political culture and literature—from Emerson, Thoreau, and Lincoln to Stephen Crane, Twain, and Thomas Dixon. Using Bartlebys mid-century silence as a brilliant hinge to its narrative,
The War on Words moves from heroic antebellum proponents of words as deeds to the ‘tragedy of linguistic impotence that marked the betrayal of African-Americans as Reconstruction unraveled and realism reflected the repudiation of racial equality. In Gilmores expert hands nearly a score of canonical figures are accorded fresh and persuasive readings;
The War on Words is an exciting book.”
Ross Posnock, Columbia University
Review
“Michael T. Gilmores execution of his thesis is vigorous, enlightening, and arguable in a positive sense.” American Literature
Review
and#8220;The insights into the and#8216;whenand#8217; of the American West offered by this book are both timely and essential to our further understanding of how cultures developed in the contact zones of the northern parts of the western hemisphere.and#8221;and#8212;Nicolas S. Witschi, coeditor of Dirty Words in Deadwood: Literature and the Postwestern
Review
“Beyond the Fruited Plain poses a terrifically useful expansion of our understanding of how food-related discourse in the period was incorporated by literary artists, as well as how those artists turned their craft to the purpose of advocating for alternatives.”—Nicolas S. Witschi, coeditor of Dirty Words in Deadwood: Literature and the Postwestern
Synopsis
How did slavery and race impact American literature in the nineteenth century? In this ambitious book, Michael T. Gilmore argues that they were the carriers of linguistic restriction, and writers from Frederick Douglass to Stephen Crane wrestled with the demands for silence and circumspection that accompanied the antebellum fear of disunion and the postwar reconciliation between the North and South.
Proposing a radical new interpretation of nineteenth-century American literature, The War on Words examines struggles over permissible and impermissible utterance in works ranging from Thoreauand#8217;s and#8220;Civil Disobedienceand#8221; to Henry Jamesand#8217;s The Bostonians. Combining historical knowledge with groundbreaking readings of some of the classic texts of the American past, The War on Words places Lincolnand#8217;s Cooper Union address in the same constellation as Margaret Fullerand#8217;s feminism and Thomas Dixonand#8217;s defense of lynching. Arguing that slavery and race exerted coercive pressure on freedom of expression, Gilmore offers here a transformative study that alters our understanding of nineteenth-century literary culture and its fraught engagement with the right to speak.
Synopsis
Agriculture in the United States has changed dramatically in the last two hundred years. Economic transformation marked by the expansion of the industrial economy and big business has contributed to an increase in industrial food production. Amid this change, policymakers and cultural critics have debated the best way to produce food and wealth for an expanding population with imperialistic tendencies.
In a sweeping overview, Beyond the Fruited Plain traces the connections between nineteenth-century literature, agriculture, and U.S. territorial and economic expansion. Bringing together theories of globalization and ecocriticism, Kathryn Cornell Dolan offers new readings on the texts of such literary figures as Herman Melville, Frank Norris, Mark Twain, Henry David Thoreau, and Harriet Beecher Stowe as they examine conflicts of food, labor, class, race, gender, and time—issues still influencing U.S. food politics today. Beyond the Fruited Plain shows how these authors use their literature to imagine agricultural alternatives to national practices and in so doing prefigure twenty-first-century concerns about globalization, resource depletion, food security, and the relation of industrial agriculture to pollution, disease, and climate change.
About the Author
Amy T. Hamilton is an associate professor of English at Northern Michigan University.
Tom J. Hillard is an associate professor of English at Boise State University.
Michael P. Branch is professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, and the editor of Reading the Roots: American Nature Writing Before Walden.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I: Slavery, Race, and Free Speech
Part II: Antebellum
Emerson: Prospects
Thoreau: Words as Deeds
Fuller: History, Biography, and Criticism
Hawthorne and the Resilience of Dissent
Stowe: From the Sacramental to the Old Testamental
Part III: Antebellum/Postbellum
Speech and Silence in Douglass
Whitman: From Sayer-Doer to Sayer-Copyist
Slit Throats in Melville
"Speak, man!": Billy Budd in the Crucible of Reconstruction
Intertext: "Bartleby, the Scrivener"
Part IV: Postbellum
Tourgand#233;e: Margin and Center (with an Addendum on Jackson and the Indian Question)
James and the Monotone of Reunion
Was Twain Black?
Crane and the Tyranny of Twelve
Choking in Chesnutt
Dixon and the Rebirth of Discursive Power
Timeline
Notes
Index