Before the West was West : critical essays on pre-1800 literature of the American frontiers

Resource Information

The work Before the West was West : critical essays on pre-1800 literature of the American frontiers represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in University of Missouri Libraries. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

Before the West was West : critical essays on pre-1800 literature of the American frontiers

Title remainder

critical essays on pre-1800 literature of the American frontiers

Statement of responsibility

edited and with an introduction by Amy T. Hamilton and Tom J. Hillard ; foreword by Michael P. Branch

Contributor

• Hamilton, Amy T.
• Hillard, Tom J.

Editor

• Hamilton, Amy T.
• Hillard, Tom J.

Subject

• 1600 - 1799
• American literature
• American literature -- 17th century -- History and criticism
• American literature -- 18th century -- History and criticism
• Criticism, interpretation, etc
• Frontier and pioneer life in literature
• Frontier and pioneer life in literature
• Literature
• United States, West
• West (U.S.) -- In literature

Genre

• Criticism, interpretation, etc

Language

eng

Summary

Before the West Was West examines the extent to which scholars have engaged in-depth with pre-1800 western texts and asks what we mean by western American literature in the first place and when that designation originated. Calling into question the implicit temporal boundaries of the American West in literature, a literature often viewed as having commenced only at the beginning of the 1800s, Before the West Was West explores the concrete, meaningful connections between different texts as well as the development of national ideologies and mythologies. Examining pre-nineteenth-century writings that do not fit conceptions of the Wild West or of cowboys, cattle ranching, and the Pony Express, these thirteen essays demonstrate that no single, unified idea or geography defines the American West. Contributors investigate texts ranging from the Norse Vinland Sagas and Mary Rowlandson s famous captivity narrative to early Spanish and French exploration narratives, an eighteenth-century English novel, and a play by Aphra Behn. Through its examination of the disparate and multifaceted body of literature that arises from a broad array of cultural backgrounds and influences, Before the West Was West apprehends the literary West in temporal as well as spatial and cultural terms and poses new questions about westernness and its literary representation. --Provided by publisher

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

810.9/002

Index

index present

LC call number

PS169.W4

LC item number

B44 2014

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography