Letters from an American Farmer - Couverture souple

Crevecoeur, J. Hector St. John De

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0192832344 ISBN 13 : 9780192832344

Editeur : Oxford Paperbacks, 1998

Synopsis

Book by St John de Crvecoeur J Hector

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur

`to the European, the American is first and foremost a dollar-fiend. We tend to forget the emotional heritage of Hector St John de Crèvecoeur' When D.H. Lawrence made this statement in his Studies in Classic American Literature, he was thinking of the Letters from an American Farmer. First published in England in 1782, the Letters came at a timely moment as attention was focused on America in the closing year of the Revolutionary War of Independence. Crèvecoeur's famous question `What, then, is the American, this new man?' was a matter of great interest, as it became evident that America, that new nation, was taking shape before the eyes of the world. Some of American literature's most pressing and recurrent concerns are adumbrated in the substance and style of the Letters: in addition to the question of American identity, they celebrate the largeness and fertility of the land, personal determination, and freedom from institutional oppression. Darker and more symbolic elements complicate the initially sunny picture, however: the issue of slavery is raised in a particularly disturbing episode, and the final Letter, `Distresses of a Frontier Man,' dramatizes the disintegration of the rational enlightened society of agrarian America into a nightmare of confusion, incomprehension and premonitions of unspeakable evil. Written by an emigrant French aristocrat turned farmer, the Letters from an American Farmer has a good claim to be regarded as the first work of American literature, at once intensely interesting in its own right, and casting a long shadow of influence on both subsequent American writers and European travel accounts of the moral, spiritual and material topography of the new nation. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Présentation de l'éditeur

There are at least two good reasons why I should have the honor and pleasure of writing a short preface to this new edition of Crevecoeur s Letters from an American Farmer, which makes a tardy appearance one hundred and eleven years after Matthew Carey shomely reprint of the first London edition. It was partly in consequence of some praise of mine that the present publishers made an examination of the book and determined to try to give it a new lease of life; it was also in consequence of my interest in the matter that Mr. Lewisohn undertook the task of editing the volume. That such a task should be undertaken has been very clear to me since I read an article by Professor Selden L. Whitcomb on Nature in Early American Literature, which was published in The Sewanee Review for February,
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À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Oxford Paperbacks
• Date d'édition: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0192832344
• ISBN 13: 9780192832344
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 281