| Description |
1 online resource (238 pages) : illustrations |
| Contents |
Cover; Contents; Introduction; Part I: General Assessments; 1. Janus-Faced Jennie; 2. The Biographical Significance of Jennie Gerhardt; 3. Jennie Gerhardt: Naturalism Reconsidered; 4. Chill History and Rueful Sentiments in Jennie Gerhardt; 5. Jennie One-Note: Dreiser's Error in Character Development; 6. Dreiser's Ideal of Balance; 7. Triangulating Desire in Jennie Gerhardt; Part II: Critical and Historical Contexts; 8. Jennie Gerhardt: A Spencerian Tragedy; 9. Jennie Through the Eyes of Thorstein Veblen; 10. Labor and Capital in Jennie Gerhardt; 11. Dreiser and the Genteel Tradition |
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12. ""Housework Is Never Done"": Domestic Labor in Jennie Gerhardt13. Self-Sacrifice and Shame in Jennie Gerhardt; 14. Jennie, Maggie, and the City; 15. Jennie Gerhardt and the Dream of the Pastoral; 16. How German Is Jennie Gerhardt?; 17. Samuel E. [G]ross: Dreiser's Real Estate Magnate; 18. The Hotel World in Jennie Gerhardt; 19. Death and Dying in Jennie Gerhardt; Checklist: Criticism of the 1911 Text; Contributors; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; R; S; T; U; V; W; Y |
| Summary |
In 1992 the University of Pennsylvania Press published a new edition of Theodore Dreiser's second novel, Jennie Gerhardt. The original published text was altered significantly from the author's intentions: its sexual energy was short-circuited, its criticisms of organized religion were blunted, its language was smoothed and sentimentalized, and, most important, Jennie Gerhardt was reduced to a less thoughtful, less womanly character. The restored edition brings back the sexual charge, reinstates the social and religious criticism, and makes the language Dreiser's again.This volume brings together 19 fresh readings, together with an introduction, of the Pennsylvania edition by three generations of Dreiser critics. The volume includes general assessments, analysis of main characters, treatments of the autobiographical roots of the narrative, views of various traditions (realistic, sentimental, ethnic) on which Dreiser drew, and investigations of historical contexts that inform his story |
| Notes |
Includes index |
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Print version record |
| Subject |
Dreiser, Theodore, 1871-1945. Jennie Gerhardt -- Criticism, Textual
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| SUBJECT |
Dreiser, Theodore, 1871-1945. Jennie Gerhardt -- Criticism, Textual
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| Subject |
LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
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| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| Author |
West, James L. W., editor
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| ISBN |
9780812291551 |
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0812291557 |
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