Research Catalog

Title

The drama of the American short story, 1800-1865 / Michael J. Collins.

Author

Collins, Michael J. (Michael James), 1984-

Publication

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2016]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Subject

• Short stories, American > History and criticism
• American fiction > 19th century > History and criticism
• Performance in literature
• Performing arts in literature
• Theater in literature
• Ritual in literature
• America > In literature
• National characteristics, American, in literature

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Introduction: The Irving brothers at the Park Theatre, 1802 -- "No garden of thought, nor elysium of fancy": Washington Irving's The sketch-book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent -- The rites of pure brotherhood: fraternalism and performance in Poe and Lippard -- "The rule of men entirely great": Richelieu, ritual, and republicanism in Melville's diptychs -- The "child of nature," or the "wonder of the age": Melville's child prodigies -- "Contending for an empire": performing sincerity in Hawthorne's New England -- Epilogue: Louisa May Alcott's theatrical realism.

Call Number

JFE 17-569

ISBN

• 9780472130030
• 047213003X

LCCN

2016007481

OCLC

946987469

Author

Collins, Michael J. (Michael James), 1984- author.

Title

The drama of the American short story, 1800-1865 / Michael J. Collins.

Publisher

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2016]

Description

vi, 270 pages ; 24 cm

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Summary

This book argues that to truly understand the short story form, one must look at how it was shaped by the lively, chaotic, and deeply politicized world of 19th-century transatlantic theater and performance culture. By resurrecting long-neglected theatrical influences on representative works of short fiction, Michael J. Collins demonstrates that it was the unruly culture of the stage that first energized this most significant of American art forms. Whether it was Washington Irving's first job as theater critic, Melville's politically controversial love of British drama, Alcott's thwarted dreams of stage stardom, Poe and Lippard's dramatizations of peculiarly bloodthirsty fraternity hazings, or Hawthorne's fascination with automata, theater was a key imaginative site for the major pioneers of the American short story. The book shows how perspectives from theater studies, anthropology,and performance studies can enrich readings of the short story form. Moving beyond arbitrary distinctions between performance and text, it suggests that this literature had a social life and was engaged with questions of circumatlantic and transnational culture. It suggests that the short story itself was never conceived as a nationalist literary form,but worked by mobilizing cosmopolitan connections and meanings. In so doing, the book resurrects a neglected history of American Federalism and its connections to British literary forms.

Chronological Term

1800-1899

Research Call Number

JFE 17-569