Revisionist approaches to American realism and naturalism

The present volume responds to the paradoxical situation that, in recent decades, U. S. realism and naturalism have been treated as “a stepchild of American literary history” (Fluck), but have also generated an enormous body of innovative scholarship. In keeping with the collection’s title, the contributors both react and add to the revisionist endeavor of this new and exciting material. Modes of inquiry include meta-analyses, readings of little-known texts, revaluations of canonical authors, alternative takes on naturalism’s relationship to genre, and transdisciplinary perspectives. Subjects covered range from William Dean Howells, Mark Twain, Mary Wilkins Freeman, Henry James, Jack London, Frank Norris, and Theodore Dreiser to Robert Frost, Richard Wright, and Edward Steichen.