{"product_id":"the-american-epic-transforming-a-genre-1770-1860-paperback-9780521107020","title":"The American Epic; Transforming a Genre, 1770–1860 (Paperback \/ softback) 9780521107020","description":"\u003cfont face=\"Georgia\"\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"6\"\u003eThe American Epic\u003c\/font\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\r\n\u003cfont size=\"5\"\u003eTransforming a Genre, 1770–1860\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eIn this 1990 book, McWilliams shows how and why the epic had to be transformed from imitative narrative poetry into new, open genres.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"4\"\u003eJohn P. McWilliams, Jr (Author)\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e9780521107020, Cambridge University Press\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003ePaperback \/ softback, published 2 April 2009\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003e296 pages\u003cbr\u003e22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.44 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\"McWilliams surveys the work of Barlow, Dwight, and Trumbull with a sharp eye toward the rhetorical work each must perform introducing his epic to the public, revealing the discomforts each feels in suiting vehicle to message.\"    David S. Shields, The Eighteenth Century\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp align=\"justify\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eJohn McWilliams's 1990 book was the first thorough account of the many attempts to fashion an epic literature (the anxiously anticipated 'American Epic') from a wide range of potentially heroic New World subjects. At the outset, McWilliams considers the many problems - cultural, political and literary' - of adapting Enlightenment views of republican progress to a genre that had traditionally celebrated the greatness of warriors. After a survey of the many epic poems written during and after the American Revolution, McWilliams shows how and why the epic had to be transformed from imitative narrative poetry into the new, open genres of prose history (Irving, Prescott and Parkman), fictional romance (Cooper and Melville) and free verse (Whitman). Believing that reviews are an important and slighted agent of literary change, McWilliams has written his book in the form of chronological literary history. His book, however, is no march of dates within tired categories. The American Epic suggests that imaginative writers of the Romantic era were in fact far less proscriptive about the boundaries of literary genre than many a twentieth-century writer and scholar.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eIntroduction\u003cbr\u003e Part I. Imitations: Homer's Tyrannous Eye: 1. Invocations\u003cbr\u003e 2. Freedom's heroes\u003cbr\u003e 3. Freedom's fools\u003cbr\u003e 4. A white achilles for the West?\u003cbr\u003e Part II. Transformations: The Epic in New Genres: 5. Red Achilles, red Satan\u003cbr\u003e 6. The destroying angel\u003cbr\u003e 7. Till a better epic comes along\u003cbr\u003e 8. 'An epic of democracy?'\u003cbr\u003e Prospect\u003cbr\u003e Notes\u003cbr\u003e Index.\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cfont size=\"3\"\u003eSubject Areas: Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900 [\u003ca title=\"See our other books on Literary studies: c 1800 to c 1900\" href=\"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/search?q=%22Literary%20studies:%20c%201800%20to%20c%201900%20%20%5BDSBF%5D%22\"\u003eDSBF\u003c\/a\u003e]\u003c\/font\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\r\n\r\n\r\n\u003c\/font\u003e","brand":"Cambridge University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46006021226776,"sku":"9780521107020","price":32.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0730\/2037\/5320\/products\/9780521107020i.jpg?v=1694976116","url":"https:\/\/freshlyprintedbooks.co.uk\/products\/the-american-epic-transforming-a-genre-1770-1860-paperback-9780521107020","provider":"Freshly Printed Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}