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Author Williams, Susan S

Title Confounding Images : Photography and Portraiture in Antebellum American Fiction / Susan S. Williams
Published Philadelphia, Pa. : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2016]
©1997

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Description 1 online resource : 27 illustrations
Contents Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Introduction: Confounding Images -- 1. The Portrait and the Social Construction of Ekphrasis -- 2. "The Inconstant Daguerreotype": The Narrative of Early Photography -- 3. The Haunted Portrait and Models of Authorship in Periodicals and Gift Books -- 4. Hawthorne, Daguerreotypy, and The House of the Seven Gables -- 5. Melville's Pierre and the Burden of Imitation -- 6. The Photography of Travel: Reading The Marble Faun -- Afterword: Photography and Portraiture in the Later Nineteenth Century -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index
Summary Susan Williams recovers the literary and cultural significance of early photography in an important rereading of American fiction in the decades preceding the Civil War. The rise of photography occurred simultaneously with the rapid expansion of magazine publication in America, and Williams analyzes the particular role that periodicals such as Godey's Lady's Book, Burton's Gentleman's Magazine, and Atkinson's Casket played in defining how photography was received. At the center of the book are readings of a stunning array of fiction by forgotten and canonical writers alike, including Edgar Allan Poe, Louisa May Alcott, and Sarah Hale, as well as extended interpretations of Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables and The Marble Faun and Herman Melville's Pierre. In a concluding section, Williams offers a view of the fictional portrait in the later nineteenth century, when the proliferation of illustrated books once again transformed the relation between word and image in American culture
Notes In English
Online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed Dec. 09, 2016)
Subject Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864. House of the seven gables.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 1804-1864. Marble faun.
Melville, Herman, 1819-1891. Pierre.
SUBJECT House of the seven gables (Hawthorne, Nathaniel) fast
Marble faun (Hawthorne, Nathaniel) fast
Pierre (Melville, Herman) fast
Subject American fiction -- 19th century -- History and criticism
Literature and photography -- United States -- History -- 19th century
Portrait photography -- United States -- History -- 19th century
Art and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century
Ekphrasis.
ekphrasis.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
American fiction
Art and literature
Ekphrasis
Literature and photography
Portrait photography
United States
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781512808872
1512808873