This essay examines a group of literary works (poetry, photo-essay books, scripts of documentary films) written in the U.S. during the Great Depression (1929-1941) in the light of their recurrent use of the catalogue, both as trope and narrative strategy. After an introduction outlining the historical importance of the catalogue within 19th-century American literature and culture (early explorers’ journals; Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia; the Puritan jeremiad; almanacs and rural diaries; R. W. Emerson’s aesthetic theories; Walt Whitman’s poetic catalogues and H. D. Thoreau’s inventories in Walden), the essay argues that in the 1930s, a decade deeply marked by economic crisis and witness to a physical and symbolic remapping of the country, the catalogue is chosen as a mimetic narrative strategy apt to encompass America’s hard times as juxtaposed with the abundance of its origins.
Dei cataloghi nello stile documentario della Grande Depressione; ovvero della loro fortuna nella letteratura degli Stati Uniti / C. Scarpino. - In: ENTHYMEMA. - ISSN 2037-2426. - 4:(2011), pp. 107-132. [10.13130/2037-2426/1192]
Dei cataloghi nello stile documentario della Grande Depressione; ovvero della loro fortuna nella letteratura degli Stati Uniti
C. ScarpinoPrimo
2011
Abstract
This essay examines a group of literary works (poetry, photo-essay books, scripts of documentary films) written in the U.S. during the Great Depression (1929-1941) in the light of their recurrent use of the catalogue, both as trope and narrative strategy. After an introduction outlining the historical importance of the catalogue within 19th-century American literature and culture (early explorers’ journals; Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia; the Puritan jeremiad; almanacs and rural diaries; R. W. Emerson’s aesthetic theories; Walt Whitman’s poetic catalogues and H. D. Thoreau’s inventories in Walden), the essay argues that in the 1930s, a decade deeply marked by economic crisis and witness to a physical and symbolic remapping of the country, the catalogue is chosen as a mimetic narrative strategy apt to encompass America’s hard times as juxtaposed with the abundance of its origins.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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