A sense of things : the object matter of American literature / Bill Brown.
2003
PS374.M39 B76 2003 (Mapit)
Available at General Collection
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Details
Title
A sense of things : the object matter of American literature / Bill Brown.
Author
ISBN
9780226076294 (paperback)
0226076296 (paperback)
9780226076287 (hardcover)
0226076288 (hardcover)
0226076296 (paperback)
9780226076287 (hardcover)
0226076288 (hardcover)
Publication Details
Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Language
English
Description
xii, 245 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Call Number
PS374.M39 B76 2003
Dewey Decimal Classification
813/.409355
Summary
"Brown's new study explores the roots of modern America's fascination with things and the problem that objects posed for American literature at the turn of the century. This was an era when the invention, production, distribution, and consumption of things suddenly came to define a national culture. Brown shows how crucial novels of the time made things not a solution to problems, but problems in their own right. Writers such as Mark Twain, Frank Norris, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Henry James ask why and how we use objects to make meaning, to make or remake ourselves, to organize our anxieties and affections, to sublimate our fears, and to shape our wildest dreams. Offering a remarkably new way to think about materialism. A Sense of Things will be essential reading for anyone interested in American literature and culture."--Jacket.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 189-235) and index.
Record Appears in
Table of Contents
The idea of things and the ideas in them
The tyranny of things
The nature of things
Regional artifacts
The decoration of houses
The death and life of things : modernity and modernism.
The tyranny of things
The nature of things
Regional artifacts
The decoration of houses
The death and life of things : modernity and modernism.