Spinsters, cowboys, and cosmopolites: Short story representations of America in late-Victorian periodicals

"This dissertation examines how short story representations of America published in English periodicals between 1880 and 1900 shaped perceptions of America and American literature. As arbiters of the discursive field provided by Victorian periodicals, English magazine editors and reviewers controlled and indeed constructed a dominant ""American"" short story, a construction often independent of an author's national origin but clearly grounded in certain modes of presentation. After 1880 the most prevalent ""American"" short story emerging from the short fiction discourse in English magazines is one marginalized by an editorial and critical emphasis on the primitivism of short story features usually considered distinctly American: native humor, local color, and dialect. The resulting construct contributed to England's imperialist self-presentation by implying that the United States, though independent, was still little more than a colonial outpost--a provincial wilderness peopled by the unsophisticated and sometimes uncivilized. Confined within this representation, short stories by Americans were not likely to have an impact on British short fiction development; only a change in English perspective and policy towards the United States could create an environment conducive to constructive, rather than exploitive, Anglo-American literary exchange."

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Windholz, Anne Marie

Contributors dc:contributor

• Baym, Nina

• Literature, American
• Literature, English

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 1990 Windholz, Anne Marie

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

AAI9114465
(UMI)AAI9114465

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/21351