Title: American writers and the picturesque tour : the search for national identity, 1790-1860 /
Authors: Lueck, Beth Lynne.
Publisher: Garland Pub.,
Year: 1997
Subjects: Travelers' writings, American History and criticism.; American prose literature History and criticism.; Americans Travel United States History; National characteristics, American, in literature.; Picturesque, The, in literature.; Group identity in literature.; Landscapes in literature.; Travelers in literature.; Travel in literature.
Abstract: Even before the age of the Romantics, travel literature was a favorite genre of English and American writers and readers. After the War of 1812, Americans' passion for scenic beauty inspired them to take the picturesque tour of America as well as going to Europe for the requisite Grand Tour. The written American version of the popular British tour in various guidebooks helped shape the literature of the new nation as nearly every major writer of the first half of the 19th century contributed to it from Poe, who provided several comic pieces, and Irving to Thoreau, for whom the tour symbolized moral and spiritual growth, and Margaret Fuller. --Publisher description.