200 Pages
by
Routledge
200 Pages
by
Routledge
200 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
Focusing on the role of genre in the formation of dominant conceptions of death and dying, Desirée Henderson examines literary texts and social spaces devoted to death and mourning in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century America. Henderson shows how William Hill Brown, Susanna Rowson, and Hannah Webster borrowed from and challenged funeral sermon conventions in their novelistic portrayals of the... Read more
Contents: Introduction: grief and genre; The imperfect dead: funeral sermons, fallen women, and the early American novel; American eulogy: William Apess and national mourning; Geographies of loss: Frederick Douglass and the slave cemetery; Lincoln's unrest: Walt Whitman and the Civil War cemetery; Mourning books: the conduct literature of Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Emily Dickinson; Afterword; the modern genres of grief; Bibliography; Index.
Biography
Desirée Henderson is Associate Professor of English and Interim Director of Women's Studies at University of Texas Arlington, where she specializes in early American and women's literature.
'Desirée Henderson's Grief and Genre in American Literature, 1790-1870 presents a series of lucid and carefully crafted case studies of the intersection of mourning and genre in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American literary texts. While drawing intelligently on non-literary materials, such as nineteenth-century mourners manuals and the history and design of cemeteries and public monuments, each chapter ultimately results in novel and compelling close readings of key literary texts. A must read for scholars and teachers of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American literature.' Melissa J. Homestead, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA 'Using literary terminology to describe cultural phenomena, Henderson cleverly allows herself to interpret them as if they were works of literature. She chooses apt examples of many so-called genres and then provides what amounts to a New Critical explication de texte for each.' Notes and Queries 'Henderson’s well researched, clearly written work is rich with information and includes an afterword on the modern genres of grief, 11 black and white illustrations, a 21-page bibliography, and an index.' Emily Dickinson International Society Bulletin
