Allegory in America

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

   PDF

2. Introduction

   • Deborah L. Madsen

   Pages 1-5

3. Allegory in the Old World

   • Deborah L. Madsen

   Pages 6-37

4. Allegory in Colonial New England

   • Deborah L. Madsen

   Pages 38-57

5. Captivity Narratives: Mary Rowlandson, Harriet Jacobs and the Rhetoric of Exceptionalism

   • Deborah L. Madsen

   Pages 58-81

6. Allegory and American Romanticism

   • Deborah L. Madsen

   Pages 82-102

7. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Rappaccini’s Daughter and the Sovereignty of the Self

   • Deborah L. Madsen

   Pages 103-121

8. The Fate of Allegory in the Twentieth Century

   • Deborah L. Madsen

   Pages 122-144

9. John Barth’s Giles Goat-Boy and Post-Romantic Allegory

   • Deborah L. Madsen

   Pages 145-166

10. Conclusion

    • Deborah L. Madsen

    Pages 167-170

11. Back Matter

    Pages 171-193

    PDF

Allegory in America surveys the history of American allegorical writing from the Puritans through the period of American romanticism to postmodernism. In a series of theoretical chapters the cultural function of allegory is discussed in relation to the mythology of American exceptionalism. Each theoretical chapter is followed by a chapter that analyzes a specific text or group of texts. Allegorical indeterminacy is seen to produce a literary tradition that both represents and subverts the ideals of American orthodoxy.

• postmodernism
• rhetoric
• Romanticism
• Tradition
• British and Irish Literature

• University of Leicester, UK

  Deborah L. Madsen

DEBORAH L. MADSEN

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