The american western novel

Fülszöveg

THE AMERICAN WESTERN NOVEL
by James K. Folsom
One of the most virulent—or perhaps virile—genres of popular modern American art is the Western. On the nation's television screens stories of doctors, psychiatrists, steamboat captains, private eyes, and spies may come and go, but always there is a cowboy to be found somewhere. And- the Western novel continues to be read and enjoyed, its popularity undiminished despite the low critical esteem in which it is held. Yet when the imaginative literary record of the Western experience is approached at all, it is usually with condescension.
It is the contention of this book that the Western has been ignored or treated with condescension largely because its essential nature has been misunderstood. It has ^ not been sufficiently recognized that the Western is usually a myth of a fable and not a realistic explication of a colorful chapter of American past. Rather, it is a metaphorical parable of the inconsistencies and contradictions... Tovább

Fülszöveg

THE AMERICAN WESTERN NOVEL
by James K. Folsom
One of the most virulent—or perhaps virile—genres of popular modern American art is the Western. On the nation's television screens stories of doctors, psychiatrists, steamboat captains, private eyes, and spies may come and go, but always there is a cowboy to be found somewhere. And- the Western novel continues to be read and enjoyed, its popularity undiminished despite the low critical esteem in which it is held. Yet when the imaginative literary record of the Western experience is approached at all, it is usually with condescension.
It is the contention of this book that the Western has been ignored or treated with condescension largely because its essential nature has been misunderstood. It has ^ not been sufficiently recognized that the Western is usually a myth of a fable and not a realistic explication of a colorful chapter of American past. Rather, it is a metaphorical parable of the inconsistencies and contradictions inherent in the American's paradoxical views about himself, his country, and his destiny. Here, then, is a fresh approach to the Western novel, from its beginnings with Cooper and Timothy Flint to such current practitioners as Walter Van Tilburg Clark and A. B. Guthrie, Jr. The reader with preconceived ideas about the place of the Western in American literature will find ample reason for reconsideration in this study.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
James K. Folsom is an assistant professor of English and American Studies at Yale University. After receiving his B.A. from Northwestern University, he attended Karl-Franzens Universität in Graz, Austria, and later Princeton University where he received his Ph.D. Professor Folsom is also the author of Man's Accidents and God's Purposes, a study of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Timothy Flint in Twayne's United States Authors Series. At present he is editing Flint's Biographical Memoir of Daniel Boone for the Masterworks of Literature Series. Vissza