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Ouvrages Année : 2023

The Artifice of Affect. American Realist Literature and Emotional Truth

Résumé

Is emotional truth a damaging literary and cultural ideal? The Artifice of Affect proposes that valuing affective authenticity risks creating a homogenized self, encouraged to comply only with accepted moral beliefs. Similarly, when emotional truth is made the primary value of literature, literary texts too often become agents of conformity. Nowhere is this risk explored more fully than in the work of a range of American realist authors from the Cold War to the twentieth century’s end. For the works of writers such as Saul Bellow, Paula Fox, Ralph Ellison, Richard Yates, or John Cheever, formulate trenchant critiques of true feeling’s aesthetic and social imperatives. The arguments at the heart of this book aim to encourage readers to re-frame emotional processes as visceral constructions, which should not be held to the standards of static ideals of accuracy, legitimacy, or veracity.
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Dates et versions

hal-03926911 , version 1 (06-01-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-03926911 , version 1

Citer

Nicholas Manning. The Artifice of Affect. American Realist Literature and Emotional Truth. Edinburgh University Press, 2023, Modern American Literature and the New Twentieth Century, Martin Halliwell; Mark Whalan, 9781399507998. ⟨hal-03926911⟩

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