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Overview
Augusta Rohrbach broadens our understanding of the American literary tradition by showing how African American literature and culture greatly influenced the development of realism. Rohrbach traces the influences of the slave narratives—such as the use of authenticating details, as well as dialect, and a frank treatment of the human body—in writings by Howells, Wharton, and others, and explores questions about the shifting relationship between literature and culture in the US from 1830-1930. Beginning with the question, “How might slave narratives—heralded as the first indigenous literature by Theodore Parker—have influenced the development of American Literature?” Rohrbach develops connections between an emerging literary marketplace, the rise of the professional writer, and literary realism.
Synopsis
Noticing how often money and financial problems featured in American fiction after the Civil War, Rohrbach began following the representation of legal tender. The journey led her back before the war to advertisements and slave narratives, to a conclusion that money was a defining element of nascent realism, and to push back the origins of realism a half century before its conventional birth. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Henry Louis Gates
It is a ground-breaking study, essential to the understanding of the history of American fictional realism.