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Nothing is "pure" in America, and, indeed, the rich ethnic mix that constitutes our society accounts for much of its amazing vitality. Werner Sollors's new book takes a wide-ranging look at the role of "ethnicity" in American literature and what that literature has said--and continues to say--about our diverse culture. Ethnic consciousness, he contends, is a constituent feature of modernism, not modernism's antithesis. Discussing works from every period of American history, Sollors focuses particularly on the tension between "descent" and "consent"--between the concern for one's racial, ethnic, and familial heritage and the conflicting desire to choose one's own destiny, even if that choice goes against one's heritage. Some of the stories Sollors examines are retellings of the biblical Exodus--stories in which Americans of the most diverse origins have painted their own histories as an escape from bondage or a search for a new Canaan. Other stories are "American-made" tales of melting-pot romance, which may either triumph in intermarriage, accompanied by new world symphonies, or end with the lovers' death. Still other stories concern voyages of self-discovery in which the hero attempts to steer a perilous course between stubborn traditionalism and total assimilation. And then there are the generational sagas, in which, as if by magic, the third generation emerges as the fulfillment of their forebears' dream. Citing examples that range from the writings of Cotton Mather to Liquid Sky (a "post-punk" science fiction film directed by a Russian emigre), Sollors shows how the creators of American culture have generally been attracted to what is most new and modern. About the Author: Werner Sollors is Chairman of the Afro-American Studies Department at Harvard University and the author of Amiri Baraka: The Quest for a Populist Modernism. A provocative and original look at "ethnicity" in American literature BLCovers stories from all periods of our nation's history BLRelates ethnic literature to the principle of literary modernism BL"Grave and hilarious, tender and merciless...The book performs a public service."-Quentin Anderson

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Acknowledgments and Prefatory Remarks(p. vii)
• Introduction(p. 3)
• Chapter 1 Beyond Ethnicity(p. 20)
• Chapter 2 Typology and Ethnogenesis(p. 40)
• Chapter 3 Melting Pots(p. 66)
• Chapter 4 Romantic Love, Arranged Marriage, and Indian Melancholy(p. 102)
• Conclusion(p. 128)
• Interlude from Indian to Urban(p. 131)
• Chapter 5 Some Tales of Consent and Descent(p. 149)
• Chapter 6 the Ethics of Wholesome Provincialism(p. 174)
• Chapter 7 First Generation, Second Generation, Third Generation . . .: the Cultural Construction of Descent(p. 208)
• Chapter 8 Ethnicity and Literary Form(p. 237)
• Conclusion(p. 259)
• Notes(p. 263)
• Bibliography(p. 265)
• Index(p. 283)

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CHOICE Review

This work must stand as the most comprehensive definition of American culture ever attempted by any scholar of American literature. Sollors, a native of Germany, is convinced that it is time ``for American ethnic literary studies to rethink ethnicity theory and for social scientists and historians to understand literary and rhetorical patterns in a new way ... and provide Americans and non-Americans with new ways to understand the new world.'' Sollors's inclusiveness is overwhelming. Ethnic literature, for too many years ignored as not representative of the main stream of American WASP writers imitating British authors, is here presented as essential to an understanding of what being, or consenting to become, an American really means. Sollors considers the writings of the Puritan Fathers to the migrating black slaves to the various immigrant groups from around the globe and to the Native Americans up to the 1980s. Throughout, relevant cartoons and etchings are included. Every scholar of any note is looked at critically-e.g., Van Wyck Brooks, Margaret Mead, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Perry Miller, Robert E. Spiller, Quentin Anderson, Frederick Jackson Turner-as well as such earlier critical observers as de Crevecoeur or de Tocqueville. Sollors points up how much all ethnic literature shared in the use of similar themes. Carefully documented, the work contains a massive bibliography and an index. That the index is not always accurate in its page references is a minor criticism. This new definition of American culture will most certainly upset those purist American literature scholars who have yet to take ethnic literature seriously. Levels: upper-division undergraduate and graduate.-A. Johnson, Connecticut College

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Werner Sollors is at Harvard University.