History, Abolition, and the Ever-Present Now in Antebellum American Writing (Paperback)

The Ever-Present Now examines the meaning and possibilities of the present and its relationship to history and historicity in a number of literary texts; specifically, the writings of several figures in antebellum US literary history, some, but not all of whom, associated with the period's romantic movement. Focusing on nineteenth-century writers who were impatient for social change, like those advocating for the immediate emancipation of slaves, as opposed to those planning for a gradual end to slavery, the book recovers some of the political force of romanticism. Through close readings of texts by Washington Irving, John Neal, Catharine Sedgwick, Frederick Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Herman Melville, Insko argues that these writers practiced forms of literary historiography that treat the past as neither a reflection of present interests nor as an irretrievably distant 'other', but as a complex and open-ended interaction between the two. In place of a fixed and linear past, these writers imagine history as an experience rooted in a fluid, dynamic, and ever-changing present. The political, philosophical, and aesthetic disposition Insko calls 'romantic presentism' insists upon the present as the fundamental sphere of human action and experience-and hence of ethics and democratic possibility.

General

Imprint:	Oxford UniversityPress
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Oxford Studies in American Literary History
Release date:	September 2022
Authors:	Jeffrey Insko
Dimensions:	234 x 156 x 14mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	272
ISBN-13:	978-0-19-287143-5
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > 19th century Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Novels, other prose & writers > General Books > Humanities > History > World history > 1750 to 1900 Books > History > World history > 1750 to 1900 Promotions
LSN:	0-19-287143-9
Barcode:	9780192871435

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