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Atlantic Republic
The American Tradition in English Literature
Paul Giles
432 pages
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25 halftones
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234x156mm
978-0-19-920633-9
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Hardback
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23 November 2006
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This item is printed to order. Items which are printed to order are normally despatched and charged within 5-10 days.
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- Wide coverage from 18th century to the present day, allowing students to grasp the broader transatlantic dimensions of Anglo-American literature
- Establishes an American dimension as central, not marginal, to the trajectory of English literature
- Offers revisionist account of Anglo-American cultural relations during the Second World War
Atlantic Republic traces the legacy of the United States both as a place and as an idea in the work of English writers from 1776 to the present day. Seeing the disputes of the Reformation as a precursor to this transatlantic divide, it argues that America has operated since the Revolution as a focal point for various traditions of dissent within English culture. By ranging over writers from Richard Price and Susanna Rowson in the 1790s to Angela Carter and Salman Rushdie at the turn of the twenty-first century, the book argues that America haunts the English literary tradition as a parallel space where ideology and aesthetics
are configured differently. Consequently, it suggests, many of the key episodes in British history-parliamentary reform in the 1830s, the imperial designs of the Victorian era, the twentieth-century conflict with fascism, the advance of globalization since 1980-have been shaped by implicit dialogues with American cultural models. Rather than simply reinforcing the benign myth of a 'special relationship', Paul Giles considers how various English writers over the past 200 years have engaged with America for various complicated reasons: its promise of political republicanism (Byron, Mary Shelley); its emphasis on religious disestablishment (Clough, Gissing); its prospect of pastoral regeneration (Ruxton, Lawrence); its vision of scientific futurism (Huxley, Ballard). The book also analyses
the complex cultural relations between Britain and the United States around the time of the Second World War, suggesting that writers such as Wodehouse, Isherwood, and Auden understood the United States and Germany to offer alternative versions of the kind of technological modernity that appeared equally hostile to traditional forms of English culture. The book ends with a consideration of ways in which the canon of English literature might appear in a different light if seen from a transnational rather than a familiar national perspective.Readership: Scholars in the fields of English and American literature, 1780-present. Graduate students in the field of transatlantic literary relations and transnational
approaches to literary study.
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Paul Giles, Professor of American Literature and Director of the Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford
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"Giles's book is a magnificent achievement... Elegantly written, stunningly erudite, and bristling with insights, Atlantic Republic is - for literary scholars of all stripes - a force to be reckoned with" - Journal of American Studies "a very useful and rewarding work" "Atlantic Republic is a great book, and as the finale of his trilogy on the subject of British and American interrelations over the last 230 years, it is even greater and fully satisfying critical climax." - Daniel T. O'Hara, Modern Language Quarterly "Giles's book is trenchant, unsettling and timely" - Peter Conrad, The Observer "am immensely ambitious book... Atlantic Republic is as much a
contribution to the history of Anglo-American cultural relations writ large as it is a highly original entry in the field of literary studies" - Symbiosis Reviews
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Introduction: Reformation, Disestablishment, Transnationalism
1: The American Revolution and the Rhetoric of Schism
2: Transatlantic Romanticism and Parliamentary Reform
3: The First Cold War: Anglo-American Literature and the Oregon Question
4: Arthur Hugh Clough and the Poetics of Dissent
5: Aestheticism, Americanization, and Empire
6: Great Traditions: Modernism, Canonization, Counter-Reformation
7: The Fascist Imaginary: Abstraction, Violence, and the Second World War
8: Post-War Poetry and the Purifications of Exile
9: Postmodernist Fiction and the Inversion of History
10: Global English and the Politics of Traversal
Conclusion: The Transnationalization of English Literature
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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