The Afterlife of Sympathy : Reading American Literary Realism in the Wake of 'Uncle Tom’s Cabin'

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Title: The Afterlife of Sympathy : Reading American Literary Realism in the Wake of 'Uncle Tom’s Cabin'
Description: Literary realism rose to prominence in postbellum America with what the realists heralded as artful and accurate depictions of the world. Realism is thought to have replaced sentimentality—an earlier mode of writing the realists disparaged, which has often been seen as antithetical to realism. Literary scholar Faye Halpern challenges this apparent binary by uncovering how and why William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, Henry James, Constance Fenimore Woolson, and Charles Chesnutt incorporated sentimental elements into their most famous works. With its distinctively narratological approach, The Afterlife of Sympathy offers a more rhetorical way to understand sentimentality and assess the ethical complexity of sympathy. Halpern demonstrates how sentimentality enables authors to form intimate relationships between their characters and readers to supplement the critical distance that realist writers otherwise celebrate and that has remained a key value in literary studies today. In reassessing American literary realism, Halpern seeks not only to understand why these writers adopted sentimental techniques but to provide insight into contemporary arguments in literary studies about critical distance and sympathetic identification.
Authors: Faye Halpern
Resource Type: eBook.
Subjects: Realism in literature, American fiction--19th century--History and criticism, Sentimentalism in literature
Categories: LITERARY CRITICISM / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form
Database: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)
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  – Type: ebook-pdf
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  Availability: 0
Header DbId: nlebk
DbLabel: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)
An: 3962659
RelevancyScore: 1123
AccessLevel: 6
PubType: eBook
PubTypeId: ebook
PreciseRelevancyScore: 1122.83581542969
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  Data: The Afterlife of Sympathy : Reading American Literary Realism in the Wake of 'Uncle Tom’s Cabin'
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  Label: Description
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  Data: Literary realism rose to prominence in postbellum America with what the realists heralded as artful and accurate depictions of the world. Realism is thought to have replaced sentimentality—an earlier mode of writing the realists disparaged, which has often been seen as antithetical to realism. Literary scholar Faye Halpern challenges this apparent binary by uncovering how and why William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, Henry James, Constance Fenimore Woolson, and Charles Chesnutt incorporated sentimental elements into their most famous works. With its distinctively narratological approach, The Afterlife of Sympathy offers a more rhetorical way to understand sentimentality and assess the ethical complexity of sympathy. Halpern demonstrates how sentimentality enables authors to form intimate relationships between their characters and readers to supplement the critical distance that realist writers otherwise celebrate and that has remained a key value in literary studies today. In reassessing American literary realism, Halpern seeks not only to understand why these writers adopted sentimental techniques but to provide insight into contemporary arguments in literary studies about critical distance and sympathetic identification.
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  BibEntity:
    Classifications:
      – Code: 813.40912
        Scheme: ddc
        Type: prePub
    Languages:
      – Code: eng
        Text: English
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Realism in literature
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: American fiction--19th century--History and criticism
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Sentimentalism in literature
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: The Afterlife of Sympathy : Reading American Literary Realism in the Wake of 'Uncle Tom’s Cabin'
        Type: main
  BibRelationships:
    HasContributorRelationships:
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Faye Halpern
      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Faye Halpern
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          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 01
              Type: published
              Y: 2024
            – D: 02
              M: 07
              Type: profile
              Y: 2024
          Identifiers:
            – Type: isbn-print
              Value: 9781625347855
            – Type: isbn-print
              Value: 9781625347862
            – Type: isbn-electronic
              Value: 9781685750558
          Titles:
            – TitleFull: The Afterlife of Sympathy : Reading American Literary Realism in the Wake of 'Uncle Tom’s Cabin'
              Type: main
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