American realism and the canon
By: edited by Tom Quirk and Gary Scharnhorst.
Contributors: Quirk, Tom, 1946-; Scharnhorst, Gary.
Publisher: University of Delaware Press; Associated University Presses
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Newark; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 227
Subjects: American literature -- Minority authors -- History and criticism.; American literature -- Women authors -- History and criticism.; American literature -- History and criticism -- Theory, etc.; Minorities -- United States -- Intellectual life.; Women -- United States -- Intellectual life.; Women and literature -- United States.; Ethnic groups in literature.; Minorities in literature.; Realism in literature.; Canon (Literature)
Description: This collection of twelve essays focuses on a variety of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century texts to illustrate the unprecedented flexibility of the realist mode in American fiction and poetry. As the volume demonstrates, the realist era was hospitable to a multitude of writers - including Mark Twain, W. D.

Howells, and Bret Harte, as well as such newly canonized figures as Marietta Holly, Abraham Cahan, Frances Ellen Harper, Sui Sin Far, and Zitkala-Sa - who voiced the most urgent concerns of race and ethnicity, gender, class, and region. In all, these essays not only participate in the ongoing recanonization of American literature but reconstruct the literary history of the period by raising theoretical questions, addressing social and ideological issues, and revaluing literary tradition.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.