In this important first study of the fictional half-blood, William J. Scheick examines works ranging from the enormously popular "dime novels" and the short fiction of such writers as Bret Harte to the more sophisticated works of Irving, Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, and others. He discovers that ambivalence characterized nearly all who wrote of the half-blood. Some writers found racial mixing abhorrent, while others saw more benign possibilities. The use of a "half-blood in spirit"—a character of untainted blood who joined the virtues of the two races in his manner of life—was one ingenious literary strategy adopted by a number of writers, Scheick also compares the literary portrayal of the half-blood with the nineteenth-century view of the mulatto.
This pioneering examination of an important symbol in popular literature of the last century opens up a previously unexplored repository of attitudes toward American civilization. An important book for all those concerned with the course of American culture and literature.
In this important first study of the fictional half-blood, William J. Scheick examines works ranging from the enormously popular "dime novels" and the short fiction of such writers as Bret Harte to the more sophisticated works of Irving, Cooper, Poe, Hawthorne, and others. He discovers that ambivalence characterized nearly all who wrote of the half-blood. Some writers found racial mixing abhorrent, while others saw more benign possibilities. The use of a "half-blood in spirit"—a character of untainted blood who joined the virtues of the two races in his manner of life—was one ingenious literary strategy adopted by a number of writers, Scheick also compares the literary portrayal of the half-blood with the nineteenth-century view of the mulatto.
This pioneering examination of an important symbol in popular literature of the last century opens up a previously unexplored repository of attitudes toward American civilization. An important book for all those concerned with the course of American culture and literature.
The Half-Blood: A Cultural Symbol in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction
128The Half-Blood: A Cultural Symbol in Nineteenth-Century American Fiction
128Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780813113906 |
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Publisher: | University Press of Kentucky |
Publication date: | 12/31/1979 |
Pages: | 128 |
Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d) |
Age Range: | 18 Years |