{"product_id":"frantic-panoramas-american-literature-and-mass-culture-187-192-hardback-9780812241747","title":"Frantic Panoramas; American Literature and Mass Culture, 187-192 (Hardback) 9780812241747","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eFrantic Panoramas\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eAmerican Literature and Mass Culture, 187-192\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eNancy Bentley (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780812241747\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eHardback, published 16 June 2009\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e376 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.666 kg\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cem\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\"Original, stimulating, and richly informative.\" (\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eLate nineteenth-century America saw an explosion in mass culture-from sensationalist tabloid newspapers to amusement parks to Wild West shows. Historians and critics have traditionally observed the advent of mass culture as undermining literature's central role in the public sphere. Literary writers of the time either reacted with a public show of disdain or retreated to conduct their own private experiments in style and form. In \u003ci\u003eFrantic Panoramas\u003c\/i\u003e, Nancy Bentley questions these narratives of opposition.\u003cbr\u003e For literary writers, Bentley explains, the confrontation with mass culture was less a retreat than a transformation, an ordeal through which habits of contemplative appreciation could be refashioned into new forms of critical thought. By grappling with the energies that marked mass culture, authors came to recognize kinds of human experience that were only then becoming visible as public. William Dean Howells shaped the plots of his novels around tabloid events like rail and trolley accidents and the public chaos of apartment house fires. Although Henry James was distressed at the way dime fiction had changed the very definition of literature, his meditations on mass culture led him to reimagine the novel as a collective \"workshop\" in which authors and readers jointly discovered new meaning. Bentley offers close readings of these and other writers such as Edith Wharton, James Weldon Johnson, Pauline Hopkins, and Gertrude Bonnin to demonstrate how leading artists took inspiration from commercial culture to create new and distinct literary forms.\u003cbr\u003e Drawing on original archival research and a historically grounded theory of realism, \u003ci\u003eFrantic Panoramas\u003c\/i\u003e is an innovative and comprehensive study of how the emergence of mass culture affected literary culture in America.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntroduction: The Analytic Instinct and the Art of the Crash\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1. Literature and the Museum Idea\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2. Realism and the Gordian Knot of Aesthetics and Politics\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3. Women and the Realism of Desire\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4. Celebrity Warriors, Impossible Diplomats, and the Native Public Sphere\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 5. Black Bohemia and the African American Novel\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 6. Wharton, Mass Travel, and the \"Possible Crash\"\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 7. Neurological Modernity and American Social Thought\u003cbr\u003e Conclusion: Literary Analysis and the Perception of Incongruities\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Index\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"University of Pennsylvania Press","offers":[{"title":"Brand New","offer_id":52555710497048,"sku":"9780812241747","price":47.25,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/frantic-panoramas-american-literature-and-mass-culture-187-192-hardback-9780812241747","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}