By the Law of Nature: Form and Value in Nineteenth-century AmericaThis provocative study examines nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American writing in conjunction with economic and political developments in order to elucidate conceptions of value and identity in liberal culture. Horwitz explores work by Emerson, Twain, Howells, Norris, Dreiser, and Cather, as well as painting by the Hudson River School, alongside debates about tariffs, laissez-faire policies, stock speculation, corporate trusts, homesteading, and the nature of property and value. These aesthetic performances and public debates typically invoked nature as the ground of value. Horwitz argues that appealing to nature was a central strategy of the liberal tradition in the United States and that literary and other aesthetic artifacts helped evolve the semantic and conceptual field in which historical developments and debates occurred. Interlacing close textual analyses and rigorous historical interpretation, this interdisciplinary work will interest students of American culture and literature. |
Contents
Nature as Protean Ground | 3 |
Natures Nation Of Course | 9 |
Sublime Possession American Landscape | 20 |
Copyright | |
11 other sections not shown
Common terms and phrases
achieved action acts aesthetic agency American appeal appropriate argued authority become called capital chapter character claim condition constitute contracts conventional corporate course critics culture debate Debs desire discussion divine economy Edited effect Emerson essay example exchange experience expression fact feel figure finally forces formal freedom harmony historical homestead Howells human ideal identity imagination independence individual industry interest interpretation labor land liberal logic Mark material means mind Mississippi moral movement nature never notion novel objects observed once organic particular person piloting political possession practice precisely principle problem production question reason relation represent representation rhetoric river romance seems sense social specific speculation Standard structure sublime suggests theory things thought tion trade tradition transcendence trust Twain unionism University University Press virtue vision writes York