The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of the American Renaissance

The American Renaissance has been a foundational concept in American literary history for nearly a century. The phrase connotes a period as well as an event an iconic turning point in the growth of a national literature and a canon of texts that would shape American fiction poetry and oratory for generations. F. O. Matthiessen coined the term in 1941 to describe the years 18501855 which saw the publications of major writings by Hawthorne Melville Emerson Thoreau and Whitman. This Companion takes up the concept of the American Renaissance and explores its origins meaning and longevity. Essays by distinguished scholars move chronologically from the formative reading of American Renaissance authors to the careers of major figures ignored by Matthiessen including Stowe Douglass Harper and Longfellow. The volume uses the best of current literary studies from digital humanities to psychoanalytic theory to illuminate an era that reaches far beyond the Civil War and continues to shape our understanding of American literature.