Confounding Images
Photography and Portraiture in Antebellum American Fiction
1st Edition
Published on 11. November 2016
264 pages
978-1-5128-0887-2 (ISBN)
Description
Susan Williams recovers the literary and cultural significance of early photography in an important rereading of American fiction in the decades preceding the Civil War.The rise of photography occurred simultaneously with the rapid expansion of magazine publication in America, and Williams analyzes the particular role that periodicals such as Godey's Lady's Book, Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, and Atkinson's Casket played in defining how photography was received. At the center of the book are readings of a stunning array of fiction by forgotten and canonical writers alike, including Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa May Alcott, and Sarah Hale, as well as extended interpretations of Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables and The Marble Faun and Herman Melville's Pierre.In a concluding section, Williams offers a view of the fictional portrait in the later nineteenth century, when the proliferation of illustrated books once again transformed the relation between word and image in American culture.
More details
Series
Edition
Reprint 2016
Language
English
Place of publication
Pennsylvania
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Illustrations
27 illus.
27 illus.
ISBN-13
978-1-5128-0887-2 (9781512808872)
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
Book
05/1997
1st Edition
University of Pennsylvania Press
€79.00
Shipment within 10-20 days
Person
WilliamsSusan S.:
Susan S. Williams is Professor of English, and Vice Dean of the College of Art and Sciences, at The Ohio State University.
Susan S. Williams is Professor of English, and Vice Dean of the College of Art and Sciences, at The Ohio State University.
Content
- Intro
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction: Confounding Images
- 1. The Portrait and the Social Construction of Ekphrasis
- 2. "The Inconstant Daguerreotype": The Narrative of Early Photography
- 3. The Haunted Portrait and Models of Authorship in Periodicals and Gift Books
- 4. Hawthorne, Daguerreotypy, and The House of the Seven Gables
- 5. Melville's Pierre and the Burden of Imitation
- 6. The Photography of Travel: Reading The Marble Faun
- Afterword: Photography and Portraiture in the Later Nineteenth Century
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
