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Old Style - Unoriginality and Its Uses in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature (Hardcover)
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Old Style - Unoriginality and Its Uses in Nineteenth-Century U.S. Literature (Hardcover)
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An aesthetic of unoriginality shaped literary style and reader
taste for decades of the nineteenth century. While critics in the
twentieth century and beyond have upheld originality and innovation
as essential characteristics of literary achievement, they were not
features particularly prized by earlier American audiences, Claudia
Stokes contends. On the contrary, readers were taught to value
familiarity, traditionalism, and regularity. Literary originality
was often seen as a mark of vulgar sensationalism and poor quality.
In Old Style Stokes offers the first dedicated study of a forgotten
nineteenth-century aesthetic, explicating the forms, practices,
conventions, and uses of unoriginality. She focuses in particular
on the second quarter of the century, when improvements in printing
and distribution caused literary markets to become flooded with new
material, and longstanding reading practices came under threat. As
readers began to prefer novelty to traditional forms, advocates
openly extolled unoriginality in an effort to preserve the old
literary ways. Old Style examines this era of significant literary
change, during which a once-dominant aesthetic started to give way
to modern preferences. If writing in the old style came to be
associated with elite conservatism—a linkage that contributed to
its decline in the twentieth century—it also, paradoxically
provided marginalized writers—people of color, white women, and
members of the working class—the literary credentials they needed
to enter print. Writing in the old style could affirm an aspiring
author's training, command of convention, and respectability. In
dismissing unoriginality as the literary purview of the untalented
or unambitious, Stokes cautions, we risk overlooking something of
vital importance to generations of American writers and readers.
General
Imprint: |
University of PennsylvaniaPress
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Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
November 2021 |
First published: |
2022 |
Authors: |
Claudia Stokes
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Dimensions: |
229 x 152mm (L x W) |
Format: |
Hardcover
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Pages: |
272 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8122-5353-5 |
Categories: |
Books
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LSN: |
0-8122-5353-1 |
Barcode: |
9780812253535 |
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