
American Sympathy
Men, Friendship, and Literature in the New Nation
Caleb Crain(Author)
Yale University Press
Will be published approx. on 13. June 2001
Book
Hardback
320 pages
978-0-300-08332-3 (ISBN)
Description
"A friend in history," Henry David Thoreau once wrote, "looks like some premature soul." And in the history of friendship in early America, Caleb Crain sees the soul of the nation's literature.
In a sensitive analysis that weaves together literary criticism and historical narrative, Crain describes the strong friendships between men that supported and inspired some of America's greatest writing--the Gothic novels of Charles Brockden Brown, the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the novels of Herman Melville. He traces the genealogy of these friendships through a series of stories. A dapper English spy inspires a Quaker boy to run away from home. Three Philadelphia gentlemen conduct a romance through diaries and letters in the 1780s. Flighty teenager Charles Brockden Brown metamorphoses into a horror novelist by treating his friends as his literary guinea pigs. Emerson exchanges glances with a Harvard classmate but sacrifices his crush on the altar of literature--a decision Margaret Fuller invites him to reconsider two decades later. Throughout this engaging book, Crain demonstrates the many ways in which the struggle to commit feelings to paper informed the shape and texture of American literature.
In a sensitive analysis that weaves together literary criticism and historical narrative, Crain describes the strong friendships between men that supported and inspired some of America's greatest writing--the Gothic novels of Charles Brockden Brown, the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the novels of Herman Melville. He traces the genealogy of these friendships through a series of stories. A dapper English spy inspires a Quaker boy to run away from home. Three Philadelphia gentlemen conduct a romance through diaries and letters in the 1780s. Flighty teenager Charles Brockden Brown metamorphoses into a horror novelist by treating his friends as his literary guinea pigs. Emerson exchanges glances with a Harvard classmate but sacrifices his crush on the altar of literature--a decision Margaret Fuller invites him to reconsider two decades later. Throughout this engaging book, Crain demonstrates the many ways in which the struggle to commit feelings to paper informed the shape and texture of American literature.
Reviews / Votes
"One of those rare books that change the way we think about things that matter. Either as an indispensable text or as a cult classic, it will endure." Michael Zuckerman, University of Pennsylvania "Remarkable and engagingly written, this book is a major contribution to the rethinking of the deeper origins of American prose style and substance." Jay Fliegelman, Stanford University"More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
11 b-w illus.
Dimensions
Height: 242 mm
Width: 164 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
590 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-300-08332-3 (9780300083323)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
10/2008
1st Edition
Yale University Press
€96.95
Available for download
Person
Caleb Crain is a contributing editor for Lingua Franca magazine and writes for The New Republic and The New York Times Book Review.