Reviews
Wide-ranging... Through close readings of major and minor writers, and their friends and critics, Phillips argues that the term 'epic' was increasingly applied over many genres and mixes of genres as a subjective signifier of value... Highly recommended.
Phillips's Epic in American Culture is an essential polemic for the new direction of epic-centered studies.
A thought-provoking and significant contribution to our understanding of early-American literary culture.
Phillips persuasively and eloquently recovers works that have been paid little or no scholarly attention in order to redress an imbalance in American studies, as is the case elsewhere, towards the canon.
A major new interpretation of epic in American literature and culture.
Book Details
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Epic Travels
Prologue: Reading Epic
1. Diffusions of Epic Form in Early America
2. Constitutional Epic
3. Epic on Canvas
4. Transcendentalism and the "New" Epic Traditions
5
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Epic Travels
Prologue: Reading Epic
1. Diffusions of Epic Form in Early America
2. Constitutional Epic
3. Epic on Canvas
4. Transcendentalism and the "New" Epic Traditions
5. Tracking Epic through The Leatherstocking Tales
6. Lydia Sigourney and the Indian Epic's Work of Mourning
7. Longfellow's Pantheon
8. Melville's Epic Career
Epilogue: Invisible Epic
Notes
Bibliography
Index