Research Catalog

Title

Transgression and redemption in American fiction / Thomas J. Ferraro.

Author

Ferraro, Thomas J.

Publication

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2020.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 263 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

Transgression and Redemption in American Fiction is a critical study of classic American novels. Ferraro returns to Hawthorne's closet of secreted sin to reveal The Scarlet Letter as a deviously psychological turn on the ancient Meditererranean Catholic folk tales of female wanderlust, cuckolding priests, and demonic revenge. This lights the way to explore what Ferraro calls "the Protestant temptation to Marian Catholicism" in seven modern American masterworks, including Chopin's The Awakening, Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Cather's The Professor's House, and Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. 0Transgression and Redemption in American Fiction explores stories of forbidden passion and sacrificial violence, with ultra-radiant women (and sometimes men) at their focus. It examines how these novels speak to readers across religious and social spectrums, generating an inclusive mode of address and near-universal relevance. Ferraro breaks the codes of contemporary criticism in his thematic focus and critical style, going beyond Protestantism and even Judeo-Christian Orthodoxy itself. Transgression and Redemption in American Fiction encourages the attentive reader to think about the American imagination, the myriad arts of writing about the passion plays of love, and even our canonical structures for reading and thinking about literature in new ways.

Series Statement

Oxford Studies in American Literary History

Uniform Title

Oxford studies in American literary history.

Subject

• 1900-1999
• American fiction > 20th century > History and criticism
• Religion and literature > History > 20th century
• Transgression (Ethics) in literature
• Redemption in literature
• American fiction
• Religion and literature

Genre/Form

• Criticism, interpretation, etc.
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Call Number

JFE 21-4906

ISBN

• 9780198863052
• 0198863055

LCCN

2020945729

OCLC

1154554466

Author

Ferraro, Thomas J., author.

Title

Transgression and redemption in American fiction / Thomas J. Ferraro.

Publisher

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2020.

Edition

First edition.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Oxford Studies in American Literary History

Oxford studies in American literary history.

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Chronological Term

1900-1999

Research Call Number

JFE 21-4906