Paris in American Literature

ISBN: 0807818038

Author: Mral, Jean

Condition: New

From Library Journal Smoothly written, superbly translated, this anecdotal bibliography lists views of Paris provided by writers from Poe to Baldwin. Meral acknowledges the help of the Centre national des Recherches scientifiques in documentation, but his approach is old-fashioned scientism: he arranges by theme within chronology and eschews interpretation. Some chapter titles ("From the Imaginary to the Real," "Cities of the Interior") hint at myth, Marxism, and post-modernism, but all Meral does is recover forgotten writers and integrate them in the canon, making them available to scholars while entertaining the general reader. A fine feat, but not until the last two paragraphs of his five-and-a-half-page conclusion does he venture that his catalog tells more about Americans than about Paris.- Marilyn Gaddis Rose, SUNY at BinghamtonCopyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. Product Description Meral explores the ways in which Paris constitutes an authentic literary subject and analyzes the differing responses to the city of such American writers as Henry James, Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Pasos, and Henry Miller. Central is that idea that, although literary Paris reflects the changing fortunes of real Paris, the Paris depicted remains a uniquely American one because the heroes of the works are expatriate Americans, who apprehend the city through a foreign sensibility.Originally published in 1989.A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value. Review Meral is an exhaustive, meticulous reader who imparts his encyclopedic knowledge in a succinct, highly readable, and clear style. He succeeds admirably in demonstrating how this vast array of disparate writers has responded to the myth of a foreign culture.--French Review