The dark stain
Subtitle: the role of innate depravity in American literature, 1620-1940
By: Michael J. Mages.
Publisher: Austin & Winfield
Published: 1996
Place of publication: Bethesda, MD
Language: eng
Number of pages: 363
Subjects: American literature -- History and criticism.; Free will and determinism in literature.; American literature -- Puritan authors -- History and criticism.; National characteristics, American, in literature.; Christianity and literature -- United States.; Sin, Original, in literature.; Degeneration in literature.; Pessimism in literature.; Vices in literature.; Evil in literature.
Description: A major theme in American literature, beginning with the Puritans of the seventeenth century and extending into the first half of the current century, has been the perception of human nature as innately depraved. In this study, Michael Mages employs a history of ideas approach to his subject that results in a book which resembles some of the classics of American literary history.

Covering over 300 years of American literary history, Mages shows the continuing influence of a theme that originated even before this country was a nation. Strong linkages are made with the nature of American puritanism, the Indian frontier, romanticism and decadence as literary modes. Authors as disparate as Cotton Mather, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry James, Hart Crane, D. H. Lawrence, and William Faulkner are explored and imaginatively discussed.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [319]-345) and index.