Scenes of Nature, Signs of Man

This book is about the relationship of the American writer to his land and language.

Zusammenfassung
This book is about the relationship of the American writer to his land and language - to the 'scene' and the 'sign', to the natural landscape and the inscriptions imposed upon it by men.

Inhalt

Preface; 1. Scenes of nature, signs of men; 2. Notes for a comparison between American and European Romanticism; 3. Problems and roles of the American artist as portrayed by the American novelist; 4. James on Hawthorne; 5. The lost America - the despair of Henry Adams and Mark Twain; 6. Henry James and Henry Adams; 7. William Dean Howells and A Hazard of New Fortunes; 8. Stephen Crane; 9. The Bostonians and the human voice; 10. Games American writers play: ceremony, complicity, contestation, and carnival; 11. Toward an ultimate topography: the work of Joseph McElroy; 12. Frames and sentences; 13. William Gass's barns and bees; Index.