Writers and Miners : Activism and Imagery in America

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Writers and Miners : Activism and Imagery in America
Description: Coal miners evoke admiration and sympathy from the public, and writers—some seeking a muse, others a cause—traditionally champion them. David C. Duke explores more than one hundred years of this tradition in literature, poetry, drama, and film. Duke argues that as most writers spoke about rather than to the mining community, miners became stock characters in an industrial morality play, robbed of individuality or humanity. He discusses activist-writers such as John Reed, Theodore Dreiser, and Denise Giardina, who assisted striking workers, and looks at the writing of miners themselves. He examines portrayals of miners from The Trail of the Lonesome Pine to Matewan and The Kentucky Cycle. The most comprehensive study on the subject to date, Writers and Miners investigates the vexed political and creative relationship between activists and artists and those they seek to represent.
Authors: David C. Duke
Resource Type: eBook.
Subjects: Coal miners in literature, American literature--History and criticism, Mines and mineral resources in literature, Coal mines and mining in literature
Categories: LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / Regional, LITERARY CRITICISM / Subjects & Themes / Politics
Database: eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)
Description
Abstract:Coal miners evoke admiration and sympathy from the public, and writers—some seeking a muse, others a cause—traditionally champion them. David C. Duke explores more than one hundred years of this tradition in literature, poetry, drama, and film. Duke argues that as most writers spoke about rather than to the mining community, miners became stock characters in an industrial morality play, robbed of individuality or humanity. He discusses activist-writers such as John Reed, Theodore Dreiser, and Denise Giardina, who assisted striking workers, and looks at the writing of miners themselves. He examines portrayals of miners from The Trail of the Lonesome Pine to Matewan and The Kentucky Cycle. The most comprehensive study on the subject to date, Writers and Miners investigates the vexed political and creative relationship between activists and artists and those they seek to represent.
ISBN:9780813122373
9780813193472
9780813148212
9780813184029
9780813129600