Description
Book SynopsisIn this study of the rhetoric of American writings on language, Michael Kramer argues that the prevalent critical distinction between imaginative and nonimaginative writing is of limited theoretical use. Breaking down the artificial, disciplinary barriers between two areas of scholarly inquiry--the literature of the American Renaissance and the stu
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Table of Contents*FrontMatter, pg. i*Contents, pg. vii*Preface, pg. ix*Acknowledgments, pg. xv*Abbreviations of Frequently Cited Works, pg. xvii*Introduction: The Study of Language and the American Renaissance, pg. 1*Chapter One. "NOW is the Time, and This is the Country": How Noah Webster Invented American English, pg. 35*Chapter Two. "A Fine Ambiguity": Longfellow, Language, and Literary History, pg. 64*Chapter Three. "A Tongue According": Whitman and the Literature of Language Study, pg. 90*Chapter Four. Consensus through Ambiguity: Why Language Matters to The Federalist, pg. 119*Chapter Five. Language in a "Christian Commonwealth": Horace Bushnell's Cultural Criticism, pg. 137*Chapter Six. Beyond Symbolism: Philosophy of Language in The Scarlet Letter, pg. 162*Conclusion: From Logocracy to Renaissance, pg. 198*Notes, pg. 203*Index, pg. 235
