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Still the New World: American Literature in a Culture of Creative Destruction
In this bold reinterpretation of American culture, Philip Fisher describes generational life as a series of renewed acts of immigration into a new world. Along with the actual flood of immigrants, technological change brings about an immigration of objects and systems, ways of life and techniques for the distribution of ideas.
A provocative new way of accounting for the spirit of literary tradition, "Still the New World" makes a persuasive argument against the reduction of literature to identity questions of race, gender, and ethnicity. Ranging from roughly 1850 to 1940, when, Fisher argues, the American cultural and economic system was set in place, the book reconsiders key works in the American canon--from Emerson, Whitman, and Melville, to Twain, James, Howells, Dos Passos, and Nathanael West, with insights into such artists as Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins. With striking clarity, Fisher shows how these artists created and recreated a democratic poetics marked by a rivalry between abstraction, regionalism, and varieties of realism--and in doing so, defined American culture as an ongoing process of creative destruction.
A provocative new way of accounting for the spirit of literary tradition, "Still the New World" makes a persuasive argument against the reduction of literature to identity questions of race, gender, and ethnicity. Ranging from roughly 1850 to 1940, when, Fisher argues, the American cultural and economic system was set in place, the book reconsiders key works in the American canon--from Emerson, Whitman, and Melville, to Twain, James, Howells, Dos Passos, and Nathanael West, with insights into such artists as Winslow Homer and Thomas Eakins. With striking clarity, Fisher shows how these artists created and recreated a democratic poetics marked by a rivalry between abstraction, regionalism, and varieties of realism--and in doing so, defined American culture as an ongoing process of creative destruction.
304 pages, Paperback
First published May 30, 1999
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June 2, 2008
makes the argument that america will always be 'the new world', due to its reliance on creative destruction - a way of life that is constantly reinventing itself, mainly through technology, and therefore making every new generation tantamount to a new wave of immigration.
i thought fisher delved into some fascinating concepts about poly-identities in the political process and how literature (particularly whitman and twain) has accounted for these layers of 'membership'.
overall, though, it felt unfocused; often it seemed he mentioned books to prove points as they came into his head as opposed to methodically organising the texts he was drawing his ideas from. infinitely more readable than most lit crit i've tackled, though, for which i was especially thankful.
i thought fisher delved into some fascinating concepts about poly-identities in the political process and how literature (particularly whitman and twain) has accounted for these layers of 'membership'.
overall, though, it felt unfocused; often it seemed he mentioned books to prove points as they came into his head as opposed to methodically organising the texts he was drawing his ideas from. infinitely more readable than most lit crit i've tackled, though, for which i was especially thankful.
Displaying 1 of 1 review