About this title: This study, originally published in 1964, explores the role of machines and technology in 19th-century American literature, analyzing, among other examples, Thoreau's attention to the sound of trains in the woods of Walden, and Captain Ahab's similarity to an industrial mogul. In so doing, Marx investigates the possibility of a true 19th-century ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: 1972
ISBN-13:9780195007381ISBN:0195007387
Description: Fair. Wear on extremities to include chipping on front cover and slight soiling on back, cover and page curl, underlining and notes in ink, otherwise, tight bound, complete, good readable copy. read more
Binding: PAPERBACK
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN-13:9780195007381ISBN:0195007387
Description: Fair. 0195007387 Oxford Univ Press trade paperback, 26th printing, clean/tight, two pages have some hi-lighting o/w only minor wear...Near Fine...mailed in a Box w/delivery confirmation. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: 1967-12-31
ISBN-13:9780195007381ISBN:0195007387
Description: Good. Tight, bright, creased spine, shelf and edge wear, corners bumped, page corners creased, underlining and marking, ships in a box with delivery confirmation. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Oxford University Press, London
Date Published: 1970
Description: Good with no dust jacket. Softbound, light wear/soil, crease at spine, note on inside cover, pgs clean/white, reprint; 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date Published: 1967
ISBN-13:9780195007381ISBN:0195007387
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Pages are clean, though edge sunned; wraps have minor edge wear. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 392 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: Reprint.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, New York
Date Published: 1970
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Signed by previous owner. Moderate cover soiling, top pages foxed. Tightly bound. 392 p. Chapter Notes. Acknowledgments. Index. B&W photo frontispiece & 2 others: railroad. An American Studies classic based on the pastoral bent in defining this nation, and the influences of technology into that imagery. Concentration on 19th century. read more
Description: Very Good. 8vo 0195007387 previous owner's name blacked inside front cover else clean and firm, shows a little cover edge wear and very slight cover curl. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date Published: 1964
ISBN-13:9780195007381ISBN:0195007387
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 400 p. Audience: General/trade. very good condition with some underlining. Copyright 1964 First issued as an Oxford University Press, paperback in 1967. read more
Description: Good. 1970 Oxford University Press softcover; no writing or markings wihtin text; crease in spine; rip on front cover near spine; RTB454. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Date Published: 1964
Description: Good/Good. 5 x 8 Dust jacket intact and covered with mylar. Has some chipping and small tears around the edges and some faint discoloring/staining on the spine. Boards have little discoloring or staining on the spine. Binding still fairly tight. Underlining throughout. read more
Edition: 1st Paper, 1st Printing
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr, Cary, North Carolina, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1967
ISBN-13:9780195007381ISBN:0195007387
Description: Fair-Used. Academic Press. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Old warhorse in the study of American Literature. One inch long dark spots on first four pages and minor underlining and margin notes. Perfectly good copy for reading/research...needs to be on the bookshelf of American Lit. Grad Student. read more
"According to Marx (Leo, not Karl) the pastoral - an ideal place balanced between capricious wilderness and urban despair - has been praised in Western arts since Virgil. So compelling was this vision of man's ideal habitat that after Europeans discovered an "empty" wilderness continent notable men (such as Jefferson) wished to create a society based on that which was for so long dreamt of in art. Hence the Jeffersonian plan to create a nation of small landowners, dispersed across the land and enjoying the benefits of clean air, fertile soil, handcrafted quilts, wheelbarrows, sex with animals, NASCAR, or whatever it is that simple folks in the heartland do that keeps them so pure.
Somewhere around the middle of the 19th century the nation's prosperity became increasingly tied to its industrialization, and your average future important white male writer couldn't spend more than a few moments staring slack-jawed at wildflowers or a canopy of leaves without being rudely interrupted by the shriek of a locomotive. At this point American literature began to wrestle with the incipient failure of the pastoral. The nation's forge was hammering out cities - which back then were full of awful things like soot, cholera, and orphans - and nothing was going to stop it. Marx shows how the tension created by this new industrial order supplanting the old was used in literature of the time, both high and low.
If you are interested in some of the major writers of that time (Melville, Hawthorne, Twain, Thoreau) and how their place and time affected their work then you will probably enjoy this. The treatment of the pastoral ("Et in Arcadia ego" and whatnot) was informative too."
"excellent analyses. especially the chapter about the tempest. funny, though, that he doesn't ever acknowledge the fact that certain professions (i.e. architecture, landscape, planning, etc.) directly engage with these issues, and actively *shape* the world. (for example, thomas jefferson's writings on pastoralism and a unique american identity can be seen in a quite different light if you think about the building styles he advocated for our nation's capital...imported directly from france."
"An interesting bout of literary criticism that seeks to tease out the thread of emerging industrialization as it threatened the Arcadian dream in 19th and 20th century American novels/art. Launching from Irving's Sleepy Hollow note to notice a train whistle toot off in the distance of Walden, Marx introduces some profound critical insights into how America is imagined.
Marx's chapter on Shakespeare's THE TEMPEST is an amazing exercise in critical extension, as he laces together a maze of speculation and careful reading to introduce us to a wonderful new potentiality encoded in the subtext of Prospero's sad journey - that it comments on the wilderness potential of the New World, America.
The progression from Jefferson's chapter, The Garden, into the chapter, The Machine, which deals with lesser known Coxe is a seamless maneavouer which makes narrative sense. Marx's careful study needs to be credited for such linear coherency.
The bits on Melville and Twain are brilliant too.
All in all, it had a good beat and I totally danced to it."
"Everytime I re-read this book, I'm impressed with it all over again. Perhaps I'm supposed to launch into the standard critiques of the myth and symbol school here, but I think this is a really useful work and significantly contributed to my understanding of the roles of nature and technology in the American Literary Imaginary."
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