num_pages: 256
description: What makes a literary classic? In "Sensational Designs" Jane Tompkins argues that it is not the intrinsic merit of a text, but rather the circumstances of its writing. Against the modernist belief that art, in order to be art, must be free from propaganda, Tompkins contends that writers like Brockden Brown, Cooper, Stowe, and Warner wrote in order to alter the face of the social world, not to elicit aesthetic appreciation.Thus, the value and significance of the novels, for readers of their time, depended on precisely those characteristics that formalist criticism has taught us to stereotyped characters, sensational plots, and cliched language.
language: English
title: Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860
titlecomplete: Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860
genres: 20th Century, History, Criticism, Lit Crit, American History, 19th Century, Grad School, Research, Literary Criticism, Nonfiction
ratings_count: 112
publisher: Oxford University Press