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Author Hoeller, Hildegard, 1960-

Title From gift to commodity : capitalism and sacrifice in nineteenth-century American fiction / Hildegard Hoeller
Published Durham : University of New Hampshire Press, ©2012

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Description 1 online resource (xiii, 279 pages) : illustrations
Series Becoming modern : new nineteenth-century studies
Becoming modern.
Contents Nineteenth-century American fiction and the inevitable, (im)possible, maddening importance of the gift -- Sacrifices of a nation. The new republic and the aporia of responsibility: prudent economy, speculation, and (ir)responsible sacrifice in Hannah Foster's Coquette -- Self-sacrifice or preservation: Lydia Maria Child's reflections on the gift in Hobomok and The American Frugal Housewife -- Panic fictions. Panics, gifts, and faith in Susan Warner's Wide, Wide World -- From grateful slave to greedy banker: William Wells Brown's Clotel and the circulation of shinplaster fiction -- From Typee to The Confidence-Man: Herman Melville and the (im)possibility of the gift -- Fading gifts and rising profits. Gifts and markets: grotesque economic confusions in William Dean Howells's portrayal of the "incorporation of America" -- Enigma and precision: the Golden Tooth and the horrors of the end of the gift in Frank Norris's McTeague
Summary "Fascinating analysis of the significance of the gift, and its increasingly complicated role in an emerging capitalist order, in nineteenth-century American fiction In this rich interdisciplinary study, Hildegard Hoeller argues that nineteenth-century American culture was driven by and deeply occupied with the tension between gift and market exchange. Rooting her analysis in the period's fiction, she shows how American novelists from Hannah Foster to Frank Norris grappled with the role of the gift based on trust, social bonds, and faith in an increasingly capitalist culture based on self-interest, market transactions, and economic reason. Placing the notion of sacrifice at the center of her discussion, Hoeller taps into the poignant discourse of modes of exchange, revealing central tensions of American fiction and culture."--Project Muse
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes English
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL
Print version record
digitized 2011 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL
Subject American fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism
Economics in literature.
Generosity in literature.
Capitalism in literature.
Sacrifice in literature.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
American fiction
Capitalism in literature
Economics in literature
Generosity in literature
Sacrifice in literature
Literatur
Geschenk Motiv
Schenken
Wirtschaft Motiv
Kapitalismus Motiv
Littérature américaine -- 19e siècle -- Histoire et critique.
Économies -- Dans la littérature.
Générosité -- Dans la littérature.
Capitalisme -- Dans la littérature.
Sacrifice -- Dans la littérature.
USA
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Form Electronic book
LC no. 2012004005
ISBN 9781611683110
1611683114
1283540703
9781283540704
9786613853158
6613853151