The Complicity of Imagination
The American Renaissance, Contests of Authority, and Seventeenth-Century English Culture
Published on 13. April 1997
Book
Hardback
310 pages
978-0-521-49538-7 (ISBN)
Description
The Complicity of Imagination examines the rich and complex relationship between four nineteenth-century authors and the culture and politics of seventeenth-century England. Challenging the notion that antebellum Americans were burdened by a sense of cultural inferiority in both their thought and their writing, this 1997 study portrays an American Renaissance whose writers were deeply enough read in the literature and controversies of seventeenth-century England to appropriate its cultural artifacts for their own purposes. By exploring the broader cultural implications of intertextual relationships, this book demonstrates how literary texts participate in the artistic, political and theological tensions within American culture.
Reviews / Votes
"The Complicity of Imagination provides some excellent insights into certain aspects of the American Renaissance's reception of seventeenth-century English Literature....it will prove worth the while of all those interested in the sources from which antebellum New England drew its inspiration." K.P. Van Anglen, The New England Quarterly "The Complicity of Imagination should be read by anyone who wishes to understand the seventeenth-century allusiveness built into the works of Emerson, FUller, Thoreau, and Melville." Matthew A. Fike, College Literature "The Complicity of Imagination is a refreshing look at one of the sources of the American Renaissance: seventeenth-century English literature...well-documented and thought out. This is an informed, original, and very useful study that not only places the four authors solidly within the larger English literary tradition, but also allows us to understand their literary art better than we did before." Journal of English and Germanic Philology "...thoroughly researched, well written, and genuinely compelling...This fascinating study is highly reccomended." Christianity and LiteratureMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
656 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-49538-7 (9780521495387)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Robin Grey
The Complicity of Imagination
The American Renaissance, Contests of Authority, and Seventeenth-Century English Culture
Book
03/2009
Cambridge University Press
€49.30
Shipment within 15-20 days
Person
Content
1. Cultural predicaments and authorial responses; 2. A Seraph's Eloquence: Emerson's inspired language and Milton's apocalyptic prose; 3. Margaret Fuller's The Two Herberts: Emerson and the disavowal of sequestered virtue; 4. As If a Green Bough were Laid Across the Page: Thoreau's seventeenth-century landscapes and extravagant personae; 5. Melville's Mardi and Moby-Dick: marvelous travel narratives, and seventeenth-century methods of inquiry; 6. Surmising the infidel: Melville reads Milton.