The American Short Story Cycle

Constructs a history of community, family and temporality in American culture through one of the nation's most popular, yet unrecognized genres
The American Short Story Cycle spans two centuries to tell the history of a genre that includes both major and marginal authors, from Washington Irving through William Faulkner to Jhumpa Lahiri. The short story cycle rose and proliferated because its form compellingly renders the uncertainties that emerge from the twin pillars of modern America culture: individualism and pluralism. Short story cycles reflect how individuals adapt to change, whether it is the railroad coming to the small town in Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (1919) or social media revolutionizing language in Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010). Combining new formalism in literary criticism with scholarship in American Studies, this book gives a name and theory to the genre that has fostered the aesthetics of fragmentation, as well as recurrence, that characterize fiction today.Key Features:

Spans two centuries to tell the history of a neglected genre that includes major and marginal authorsCombines new formalism in literary criticism to scholarship in American StudiesConstructs a history of community, family, and temporality in American culture

“Jennifer Smith offers an excellent examination of the relationship between literary innovation and the experience of modernity. She persuasively demonstrates how the American short story cycle, from Anderson to Egan, has served as a vehicle for exploring the passage of time, the desire for nostalgia and the illusion of authenticity.”

-- "Paul March-Russell, University of Kent"

Jennifer J. Smith is an Assistant Professor of English at Franklin College.

APPROVEDPPC 15mm, 274 x 367mm 'Jennifer Smith offers an excellent examination of the relationship between literary innovation and the experience of modernity. She persuasively demonstrates how the American short story cycle, from Anderson to Egan, has served as a vehicle for exploring the passage of time, the desire for nostalgia and the illusion of authenticity.'Paul March-Russell, University of KentConstructs a history of community, family and temporality in American culture through one of the nation's most popular, yet unrecognised genresThe American Short Story Cycle spans two centuries to tell the history of a genre that includes both major and marginal authors, from Washington Irving through William Faulkner to Jhumpa Lahiri. The short story cycle rose and proliferated because its form compellingly renders the uncertainties that emerge from the twin pillars of modern America culture: individualism and pluralism. Short story cycles reflect how individuals adapt to change, whether it is the railroad coming to the small town in Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio (1919) or social media revolutionising language in Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010). Combining new formalism in literary criticism with scholarship in American Studies, this book gives a name and theory to the genre that has fostered the aesthetics of fragmentation, as well as recurrence, that characterise fiction today.Jennifer J. Smith is an Assistant Professor of English at Franklin College. Her research and teaching focus on American literature and culture from the nineteenth century to the present, with special interests in narrative theory, gender studies, and comparative ethnic approaches.Cover design:[EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.comISBN 978-1-4744-2393-9Barcode

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