Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860 - Hardcover

Tompkins, Jame P.; Tompkins, Jane P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195035658 ISBN 13: 9780195035650

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1985

Synopsis

This challenging book works towards a redefinition of literature and literary study. The texts the author examines are viewed not as works of art embodying enduring themes, but as attempts to redefine the social order.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

What makes a literary classic? In "Sensational Designs" Jane Tompkins argues that it is not the intrinsic merit of a text, but rather the circumstances of its writing. Against the modernist belief that art, in order to be art, must be free from propaganda, Tompkins contends that writers like Brockden Brown, Cooper, Stowe, and Warner wrote in order to alter the face of the social world, not to elicit aesthetic appreciation.Thus, the value and significance of the novels, for readers of their time, depended on precisely those characteristics that formalist criticism has taught us to deplore: stereotyped characters, sensational plots, and cliched language.

About the Author:

Jane Tompkins is at Duke University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 1985
• ISBN 10: 0195035658
• ISBN 13: 9780195035650
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 236