The Dream of the Great American Novel

The First Book In Many Years To Take In The Full Sweep Of National Fiction, The Dream Of The Great American Novel Explains Why This Supposedly Antiquated Idea Continues To Thrive. It Shows That Four G.a.n. Scripts Are Keys To The Dynamics Of American Literature And Identity--and To The Myth Of A Nation Perpetually Under Construction. Front Matter -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Part One The Unkillable Dream -- 1. Birth, Heyday, And Seeming Decline -- 2. Reborn From The Critical Ashes -- Part Two. Script One: Made Classic By Retelling -- 3. The Reluctant Master Text -- Part Three. Script Two: Aspiration In America -- Introduction -- 4. Success Stories From Franklin To The Dawn Of Modernism -- 5. Belated Ascendancy: Fitzgerald To Faulkner, Dreiser To Wright And Bellow -- 6. Up- From Narrative In Hyphenated America: Ellison, Roth, And Beyond -- Part Four. Script Three: Romancing The Divides -- Introduction -- 7. Uncle Tom's Cabin And Its Aftermaths -- 8. The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn And Its Others -- 9. Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!, Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, And Literary Interracialism North And South -- 10. Morrison's Beloved As Culmination And Augury -- Part Five. Script Four: Improbable Communities -- Introduction -- 11. Moby- Dick: From Oblivion To Great American Novel -- 12. The Great American Novel Of Twentieth- Century Breakdown: Dos Passos's U.s.a.- Or Steinbeck's Grapes Of Wrath? -- 13. Late Twentieth- Century Maximalism: Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow- And Its Rainbow -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index Lawrence Buell. Description Based Upon Print Version Of Record. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. English