Politics, Satire, and Historical Consciousness in Contemporary American Novel

Politics, Satire, and Historical Consciousness in Contemporary American Novel PDF Author: Olena Boylu
Publisher: Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH
ISBN: 3832555560
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 136

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Book Description
What is the role of the historical and political novel in our lives? Is it just a story from the past, or does it shape our historical consciousness? Can we rely on the information within this type of fiction? According to many historicists, we cannot. However, we can also question numerous ideologically shaped history books that look more like fiction than scientific sources. Hence, historically and politically loaded fiction has an equal chance in the formational process of our historical consciousness. Besides, through satire and humor, which a scientist omits in a history book, a novelist manages to affect its reader on a different scale and leave a deeper trace. As E.,L. Doctorow once stated, ``The historian tells you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.'' Hence, this study analyzes several significant concepts such as historiography, historical consciousness, power, its elements, and the way it operates; traces major characteristics of historical and political fiction, and determines the role of satire within them. Eventually, through the analysis of several prominent contemporary novels, it provides vivid examples of all the concepts that have been discussed.

Politics, Satire, and Historical Consciousness in Contemporary American Novel

Politics, Satire, and Historical Consciousness in Contemporary American Novel PDF Author: Olena Boylu
Publisher: Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH
ISBN: 3832555560
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 136

Get Book Here

Book Description
What is the role of the historical and political novel in our lives? Is it just a story from the past, or does it shape our historical consciousness? Can we rely on the information within this type of fiction? According to many historicists, we cannot. However, we can also question numerous ideologically shaped history books that look more like fiction than scientific sources. Hence, historically and politically loaded fiction has an equal chance in the formational process of our historical consciousness. Besides, through satire and humor, which a scientist omits in a history book, a novelist manages to affect its reader on a different scale and leave a deeper trace. As E.,L. Doctorow once stated, ``The historian tells you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.'' Hence, this study analyzes several significant concepts such as historiography, historical consciousness, power, its elements, and the way it operates; traces major characteristics of historical and political fiction, and determines the role of satire within them. Eventually, through the analysis of several prominent contemporary novels, it provides vivid examples of all the concepts that have been discussed.

The Political Demagogue in Six Contemporary American Novels

The Political Demagogue in Six Contemporary American Novels PDF Author: Louise Battin Fry
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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The American Political Novel

The American Political Novel PDF Author: Gordon Milne
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Politics in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Democracy

Democracy PDF Author: Henry Adams
Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub
ISBN: 9781482578867
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
Democracy: An American Novel is a political novel written by Henry Adams. Democracy is a novel about political power, its acquisition, use and abuse. It is set at the beginning of a new administration, with the election campaign just over and the new President of the United States just having been elected. However, all the characters depicted are entirely fictitious. The new president's Christian name is Jacob, while his full name is never revealed. In a 1961 foreword to the novel, Henry D. Aiken states that the U.S. president of the novel "bears some resemblance to Andrew Johnson, to Garfield, and to Grant". Dates are never mentioned either, but internal evidence (at one point a 25-year-old woman says that she was "almost an infant" during the Civil War) suggests it is set in the late 1870s. In Democracy, the newly-elected President of the United States is depicted as the epitome of provincialism, incompetence and corruption.

Versions of the Past

Versions of the Past PDF Author: Harry B. Henderson
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press
ISBN:
Category : American fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Democracy: an American Novel

Democracy: an American Novel PDF Author: Henry Adams
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781533162120
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Democracy: An American Novel is a political novel written by Henry Brooks Adams and published anonymously in 1880. Only after the writer's death in 1918 did his publisher reveal Adams's authorship although, upon publication, the novel had immediately become popular. Contemporaneous conjecture placed the book under the joint authorship of Clarence King, John Hay and Henry Adams and their spouses who lived side by side on H street in Washington, D.C. and were collectively sometimes called "the Five of Hearts."Democracy is a novel about political power, its acquisition, use and abuse. It is set at the beginning of a new administration, with the election campaign just over and the new President of the United States just having been elected. However, all the characters depicted are entirely fictitious. The new president's Christian name is Jacob, while his full name is never revealed. In a 1961 foreword to the novel, Henry D. Aiken states that the U.S. president of the novel "bears some resemblance to Andrew Johnson, to Garfield, and to Grant". Dates are never mentioned either, but internal evidence (at one point a 25-year-old woman says that she was "almost an infant" during the Civil War) suggests it is set in the late 1870s.Henry Brooks Adams (February 16, 1838 - March 27, 1918) was an American historian and member of the Adams political family, being descended from two U.S. Presidents.As a young Harvard graduate, he was secretary to his father, Charles Francis Adams, Abraham Lincoln's ambassador in London, a posting that had much influence on the younger man, both through experience of wartime diplomacy and absorption in English culture, especially the works of John Stuart Mill. After the American Civil War, he became a noted political journalist who entertained America's foremost intellectuals at his homes in Washington and Boston.In his lifetime, he was best known for his History of the United States During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, a 9-volume work, praised for its literary style.His posthumously published memoirs, The Education of Henry Adams, won the Pulitzer Prize and went on to be named by The Modern Library as the top English-language nonfiction book of the twentieth century.

The Unfolding

The Unfolding PDF Author: A.M. Homes
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 0735225354
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"In this much-anticipated, wickedly funny and sharply observed political satire, Homes takes readers inside the homes and meeting rooms of a dyed-in-the-wool conservative with big plans for change. This novel of politics and family brings readers to the fault line of American politics, giving voice to the fears and fantasies of the old Republican plutocracy." —The New York Times Book Review "Beyond being good or bad, the characters in this impressive book are, above all things, unpredictable."—Wall Street Journal In her first novel since the Women’s Prize award-winning May We Be Forgiven, A.M. Homes delivers us back to ourselves in this stunning alternative history that is both terrifyingly prescient, deeply tender and devastatingly funny. The Big Guy loves his family, money and country. Undone by the results of the 2008 presidential election, he taps a group of like-minded men to reclaim their version of the American Dream. As they build a scheme to disturb and disrupt, the Big Guy also faces turbulence within his family. His wife, Charlotte, grieves a life not lived, while his 18-year-old daughter, Meghan, begins to realize that her favorite subject—history—is not exactly what her father taught her. In a story that is as much about the dynamics within a family as it is about the desire for those in power to remain in power, Homes presciently unpacks a dangerous rift in American identity, prompting a reconsideration of the definition of truth, freedom and democracy—and exploring the explosive consequences of what happens when the same words mean such different things to people living together under one roof. From the writer who is always “razor sharp and furiously good” (Zadie Smith), a darkly comic political parable braided with a Bildungsroman that takes us inside the heart of a divided country.

Democracy. An American Novel

Democracy. An American Novel PDF Author: Henry Adams
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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American Fiction, 1865-1940

American Fiction, 1865-1940 PDF Author: Brian Lee
Publisher: London ; New York : Longman
ISBN:
Category : American fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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States of Reclamation

States of Reclamation PDF Author: Timothy L. Glenn
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description