This dissertation examines the influence of romantic aesthetics on the development of literary writing as a profession in America during the 1840s and 1850s. In opposition to the new historical claim that literary texts ...

Male authors intent on critiquing American racism, specifically William Faulkner and Richard Wright, have been more successful in defining the parameters surrounding the discussion of violence in American society than have ...

Literary utopianism and naturalism present apparently polar views regarding the possibilities and limitations of human agency: the former portrays humanity as having created a communal society based upon rationality, while ...