Nineteenth-century American romance
Subtitle: genre and the construction of democratic culture
By: Emily Miller Budick.
Series: Studies in literary themes and genres ;; no. 8
Publisher: Twayne Publishers; Prentice Hall International
Published: 1996
Place of publication: New York; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 186
Subjects: American fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism.; Romanticism -- United States.; National characteristics, American, in literature.; Democracy in literature.; Fiction -- Technique.; Myth in literature.; Literary form -- History -- 19th century.
Other titles: 19th-century American romance
Description: Nineteenth-century American romance, as a genre, is defined by the writings of a particular group of authors - James Fenimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Henry James - all of whom are associated with one another in time and place. In this volume, Emily Miller Budick examines the genre both as a style and within a historical context.

She interprets American romance as an evolving literary aesthetic and cultural philosophy - as an effort by a group of writers to produce what Noah Webster called an "American tongue," a language imbued with the values of democracy and pluralism.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 138-173) and index.