The American Epic Transforming a Genre, 17701860 [Paperback]

In this 1990 book, McWilliams shows how and why the epic had to be transformed from imitative narrative poetry into new, open genres.John McWilliams's 1990 book was the first thorough account of the many attempts to fashion an epic literature (the anxiously anticipated 'American Epic') from a wide range of potentially heroic New World subjects.John McWilliams's 1990 book was the first thorough account of the many attempts to fashion an epic literature (the anxiously anticipated 'American Epic') from a wide range of potentially heroic New World subjects.This is the first thorough account of the many attempts during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to fashion a distinctly American epic literature from a wide range of potentially heroic New World subjects. McWilliams considers the cultural, political and literary implications of adapting Enlightenment news of republican progress to a genre that had traditionally celebrated the greatness of warriors. He shows how and why the epic in America had to be transformed from imitative narrative poetry into the new genres of prose history (Irving, Prescott, Parkman), fictional romance (Cooper, Melville), and free verse (Whitman).Introduction; Part I. Imitations: Homer's Tyrannous Eye: 1. Invocations; 2. Freedom's heroes; 3. Freedom's fools; 4. A white achilles for the West?; Part II. Transformations: The Epic in New Genres: 5. Red Achilles, red Satan; 6. The destroying angel; 7. Till a better epic comes along; 8. 'An epic of democracy?'; Prospect; Notes; Index. ...an important book that fills a gap in our knowledge and strengthens our understanding of 19th-century literary culture. Choice McWilliams surveys the work of Barlow, Dwight, and Trumbull with a sharp eye toward the rhetorical work each must perform introducing his epic to the public, revealing the discomforts each feels in suiting vehicle to message. David S. Shields, The Eighteenth Century