Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

James L. Machor offers a sweeping exploration of how American fiction was received in both public and private spheres in the United States before the Civil War. Machor takes four antebellum authors--Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Catharine Sedgwick, and Caroline Chesebro'--and analyzes how their works were published, received, and interpreted. Drawing on discussions found in book reviews and in private letters and diaries, Machor examines how middle-class readers of the time engaged with contemporary fiction and how fiction reading evolved as an interpretative practice in nineteenth-century America. Through careful analysis, Machor illuminates how the reading practices of nineteenth-century Americans shaped not only the experiences of these writers at the time but also the way the writers were received in the twentieth century. What Machor reveals is that these authors were received in ways strikingly different from how they are currently read, thereby shedding significant light on their present status in the literary canon in comparison to their critical and popular positions in their own time. Machor deftly combines response and reception criticism and theory with work in the history of reading to engage with groundbreaking scholarship in historical hermeneutics. In so doing, Machor takes us ever closer to understanding the particular and varying reading strategies of historical audiences and how they impacted authors' conceptions of their own readership.--Book jacket.

American fiction --- Reader-response criticism --- Authors and readers --- Books and reading --- History and criticism. --- History --- Reader-oriented criticism --- Reception aesthetics --- Criticism --- Reading

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

"Blakey Vermeule wonders how readers become involved in the lives of fictional characters, people they know do not exist. She examines the ways in which readers' experiences of literature are affected by the emotional attachments they form to fictional characters and how those experiences then influence their social relationships in real life. She focuses on a range of topics, from intimate articulations of sexual desire, gender identity, ambition, and rivalry to larger issues brought on by rapid historical and economic change. Vermeule discusses the phenomenon of emotional attachment to literary characters primarily in terms of 18th-century British fiction but also considers the postmodern work of Thomas Mann, J.M. Coetzee, Ian McEwan, and Chinua Achebe." "From the perspective of cognitive science, Vermeule finds that caring about literary characters is not all that different from caring about other people, especially strangers. The tools used by literary authors to sharpen and focus reader interest tap into evolved neural mechanisms that trigger a caring response." "This book contributes to the emerging field of evolutionary literary criticism. Vermeule draws upon recent research in cognitive science to understand the mental processes underlying human social interactions without sacrificing solid literary criticism."--Jacket.

literatuur --- literatuurtheorie --- narratologie --- 7.01 --- 8 --- achttiende eeuw --- kennisleer --- psychologie --- kunsttheorie --- kunst --- fictie --- Fiction --- English literature --- Psychological study of literature --- anno 1700-1799 --- Characters and characteristics in literature --- English fiction --- Psychology and literature --- Reader-response criticism --- Reader-oriented criticism --- Reception aesthetics --- Criticism --- Reading --- Literature and psychology --- Literature --- Character sketches --- Characterization (Literature) --- Literary characters --- Literary portraits --- Portraits, Literary --- History and criticism --- Psychological aspects