The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America
Subtitle: Main Currents in American Thought
By: Vernon Parrington
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 484
ISBN-13: 9781351305365
Subjects: American literature; History and criticism; Realism in literature; Littérature américaine; Histoire et critique; Réalisme dans la littérature
Description: "This final volume of Vernon Louis Parrington's Pultzer Prize-winning study deals with the decay of romantic optimism. It shows that the cause of decay is attributed to three sources: stratifying of economics under the pressure of centralization; the rise of mechanistic science; and the emergence of a spirit of skepticism which, with teachings of the sciences and lessons of intellectuals, has resulted in the questioning of democratic ideals. Parrington presents the movement of liberalism from 1913 to 1917, and the reaction to it following World War I. He notes that liberals announced that democratic hopes had not been fulfilled; the Constitution was not a democratic instrument nor was it intended to be; and while Americans had professed to create a democracy, they had in fact created a plutocracy. Industrialization of America under the leadership of the middle class and the rise of critical attitudes towards the ideals and handiwork of that class are examined in great detail. Parrington's interpretation of the literature during this time focuses on four divisions of development: the conquest of America by the middle class; the challenge of that overlordship by democratic agrarianism; the intellectual revolution brought about by science and the appropriation of science by the middle class; and the rise of detached criticism by younger intellectuals. A new introduction by Bruce Brown highlights Parrington's life and explains the importance of this volume."--Provided by publisher.
Table of contents: title: Cover; Half Title; Title Page; Copyright Page; PREFACE: VERNON LOUIS PARRINGTON; FOREWORD; INTRODUCTION: THE GREAT REVOLUTION; INTRODUCTION TO THE TRANSACTION EDITION; Table of Contents; BOOK I: CHANGING AMERICA; PART I The Gilded Age; I THE AMERICAN SCENE; I. Free America; II. Figures of Earth; III. Politics and the Fairy Godmother; IV. The Great Barbecue; V. Folk Heroes; 1. General Grant; 2. Jay Cooke; 3. Charles A. Dana; II. THE CULTURE OF THE SEVENTIES; I. New England in Decay; 1. Thomas Bailey Aldrich and the Genteel; 2. The New England Scene.; title: II. The Afterglow of the Enlightenment-Walt WhitmanIII. The Backwash of the Frontier-Mark Twain; III. CHANGING THEORY; I. Winds of Economic Theory; 1. Henry C. Carey; 2. Francis A. Walker; II. The Conscription of Political Theory; 1. Theodore Woolsey; 2. [John W. Burgess]; IV. [Buttressing the Democratic Theory]; 1. A Democratic Economics-Henry George; IV. THE BEGINNING OF CRITICSM; I. The New England Conscience and Capitalism-Wendell Phillips; II. Morality and Politics-George William Curtis; III. English Liberalism and Politics-Edwin Lawrence Godkin and the Nation.; title: IV. Fiction Considers the State of the Country1. The Political Novel: The Gilded Age; Democracy; An American Politicia; 2. [The Economic Novel: The Bread-winners]; 3. The Beginnings of the Sociological Novel; PART II New Patterns of Thought; I. DISINTEGRATION AND REINTEGRATION; I. The Victorian Mood; 1. Sociology and the Enlightenment; 2. Biology and the Enlightenment; 3. The End of the Hopes of the Enlightenment; II. The School of Spencer; II. THE SKEPTICISM OF THE HOUSE OF ADAMS; I. Charles Francis Adams-The Business Failure; II. Henry Adams-Intellectual; III. Brooks Adams-Rebel.; title: III. VICTORIAN REALISMII. Henry James and the Nostalgia of Culture; III. William Dean Howells and the Realism of the Common place; BOOK TWO: THE OLD AND THE NEW: STORM CLOUDS; PART I The Middle Border Rises; I. THE PLIGHT OF THE FARMER; I. Democratic Reactions to Plutocracy; II. The Farmer Considers Politics; Ill. The Greenback Movement; IV. Greenbackism and Peter Cooper; II. THE DEMOCRACY OF THE AGE OF INNOCENCE; I. Capitalistic Encroachments; II. Third-party Movements; III. LITERATURE AND THE MIDDLE BORDER; III. Hamlin Garland and the Middle Border; PART II Proletarian Hopes.; title: III. THE QUEST OF UTOPIAI. Edward Bellamy and Looking Backward; IV. THE DARKENING SKIES OF LETTER; ADDENDA; Naturalism in American Fiction; 1. Stephen Crane; 2. Frank Norris; "McTeague"; "Vandover and the Brute"; "The Octopus"; Sidney Lanier; The Incomparable Mr. Cabell; The Problem Novel and the Diversion from Naturalism ; Jack London: The Novelist of the Proletariat; Upton Sinclair.