Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Scenes of Nature, Signs of Men
  • Cited by 12
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      01 June 2011
      25 December 1987
      ISBN:
      9780511597695
      9780521311557
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511597695
      Dimensions:
      Weight & Pages:
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.47kg, 288 Pages
      • Series:
      Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture (31)
      Subjects:
      Literature, Area Studies, American Literature, American Studies, Literary Theory
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Series:
    Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture (31)
    Subjects:
    Literature, Area Studies, American Literature, American Studies, Literary Theory
    Information

    Book description

    This book is about the relationship of the American writer to his land and language - to the 'scene' and the 'sign', to the natural landscape and the inscriptions imposed upon it by men. Among the questions considered in the first section of the book are how does American Romantic writing differ from European; what are the peculiar problems faced by the American artist, and what roles does he adopt to tackle them; what kind of writing results when authors as different as Henry Adams and Mark Twain lament the vanishing of an earlier America, or when Adams and Henry James review their complex relationship to their homeland, or when W. D. Howells and Stephen Crane seek to define their themes in a specifically American setting. The second section of the book examines similar concerns in a number of contemporary writers, notably Thomas Pynchon, John Barth, Donald Barthelme, John DeLillo, and William Gass.

    Reviews

    ‘What brings the book together, of course, is the extraordinarily inventive, creative and coherent consciousness of one of our most distinguished literary critics. Everything Tanner touches seems to me somehow newer and fresher. He reminds me of a kind of critical alchemist who is able to take the most used and jaded of literary materials and turn them into brilliant objects.’

    Source: American Literary Realism

    ‘Always, Mr Tanner is sensitive, subtle, surprising … From Walt Whitman to William Gass, Mr Tanner beautifully illuminates, in Emily Dickinson’s words, all these Continents of Light.’

    Source: The New York Times Book Review

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.