Description
Book SynopsisRecent poems and fictions set in the early Americas are typically read as affirmations of cultural norms, as evidence of the impossibility of genuine engagement with the historical past, or as contentious repudiations of received histories. Inspired particularly by Mihai Spariosu’s arguments regarding literary playfulness as an opening to peace, Rewriting Early America: The Prenational Past in Postmodern Literature adopts a different perspective, with the goal of demonstrating that many recent literary texts undertake more constructive and hopeful projects with regard to the American past than critics usually recognize. While honoring writers' pervasive critiques of hegemony, this volume trades a preoccupation with antagonism for an interest in restoration and recuperation. It describes how texts by John Barth, John Berryman, Susan Howe, Toni Morrison, Paul Muldoon, Thomas Pynchon, and William T. Vollmann harness the ambiguities of the colonial past to find sociocultural possibilities that operate beyond the workings of power and outside the politics of difference. Throughout, this book remains devoted to uncovering the moments at which contemporary writers proffer visions of American communities defined not by marginalization and oppression, but by responsive understanding and inclusion.
Trade ReviewPostmodernist literature has typically been viewed as lacking the ability to engage productively with the past. Theorists, Fredric Jameson among them, have seen postmodernist literature as nostalgic and marked by pastiche. Now Coffman argues for a revised understanding of the postmodernist project, an understanding of it as presenting a 'more reparative' historical interaction that accounts for previous blind spots with regard to American literary historiography. Coffman shows how selected authors—John Berryman, John Barth, Paul Muldoon, Thomas Pynchon, William T. Vollmann, Susan Howe, Toni Morrison—look back to early American history to address contemporary concerns. Throughout, Coffman makes his case with erudition and sensitivity to ongoing debates in the field about inclusivity in the cultural life of the US. One of the nice surprises for this reviewer was finding an Irish writer studied alongside American contemporaries, an inclusion that provides a unique perspective. . . . [A] welcome addition to the literature. Summing Up: Highly recommended. * CHOICE *
This is a brilliant book, whose scope ranges beyond literary criticism, even as it excels at it. Coffman combines luminous close-reading with well-digested, comprehensive theoretical background to analyze the way very different writers address the colonial past and pre-conquest history, questioning the often unacknowledged preconceptions that still underlie our contemporary views. . . . This critical reprise of how writers revise their mythologized, national, transnational or adopted past makes for a refreshing read. It is no small prowess to have written a page-turner of such intellectual scope. -- Françoise Palleau-Papin, Professor of American Literature at the University of Paris XIII
Across the six chapters of this insightful – and surprisingly provocative – monograph, Christopher K. Coffman builds a case for seeing our contemporary moment as being uniquely suited to the composition of works engaged with the colonial era. Alongside the critical theory, there is some wonderful writing to be found in this book.
* American Book Review *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Introduction: Contemporary American Literature and Early America
Chapter 1: Berryman’s Bradstreet and the End(s) of New Criticism
Chapter 2: John Barth’s Metanarrative Critique, or, History as Literature as Reenactment
Chapter 3: Tradition and Critique in Paul Muldoon’s “Madoc: A Mystery”Chapter 4: Material Values in Pynchon and VollmannChapter 5: The New World(s) of Thomas Pynchon
Chapter 6: Silence and Places beyond Power in the Poetry of Susan Howe
Conclusion: The Problem of American Origins, Freedom from Power, and Toni Morrison’s A Mercy
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
