
Writing Against Reform
Aesthetic Realism in the Progressive Era
Arielle Zibrak(Author)
University of Massachusetts Press
Will be published approx. on 31. January 2024
Book
Hardback
280 pages
978-1-62534-772-5 (ISBN)
Description
Throughout the Progressive Era, reform literature became a central feature of the American literary landscape. Works like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper," and Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives topped bestseller lists and jolted middle-class readers into action. While realism and social reform have a long-established relationship, prominent writers of the period such as Henry James, Edith Wharton, James Weldon Johnson, Rebecca Harding Davis, and Kate Chopin resisted explicit political rhetoric in their own works and critiqued reform aesthetics, which too often rang hollow. Arielle Zibrak reveals that while these writers were often seen as indifferent to the political currents of their time, they actively engaged in reform work in their private lives. Examining the critique of reform aesthetics within the tradition of American realist literature of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Writing against Reform promises to change the way we think about the fiction of this period and many of America's leading writers.
Reviews / Votes
Writing against Reform is an engagingly written and persuasively argued piece of scholarship that is a pleasure to read. This is the work of a scholar widely and comfortably knowledgeable in her field of study, and a model of how scholarship should be done: deeply researched, coherently reasoned, and always eloquent." - MarIa Carla SAnchez, author of Reforming the World: Social Activism and the Problem of Fiction in Nineteenth-Century America"An engrossing and compelling study, Writing against Reform uses an impressive range of references and thorough understanding of publishing and social contexts to offer a convincing argument that is as satisfying as it is provocative." - Keith Newlin, author of Hamlin Garland: A LifeMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Massachusetts
United States
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
6 illus.
Dimensions
Height: 226 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
517 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-62534-772-5 (9781625347725)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Arielle Zibrak is associate professor of English at the University of Wyoming and author of Avidly Reads Guilty Pleasures.