American Snobs: Transatlantic Novelists, Liberal Culture and the Genteel Tradition

Description

Arguing that Henry Adams, Henry James and Edith Wharton articulated their political thought in response to the liberalism that reigned in Boston and, more specifically, at Harvard University, this book shows how each of these authors interrogated that liberalism's arguments for education, democracy and the political duties of the cultivated elite. Coit shows that the works of these authors contributed to a realist critique of a liberal New England idealism that fed into the narrative about 'the genteel tradition', which shaped the study of US literature during the twentieth century. Acknowledgements Series Editors’ Preface Introduction Part I: Cultivation After Reconstruction: Impossible Educations 1. Slavery, Subjection and Culture in Adams’s Democracy and Esther The Virgin and the Favourite Beasts and Things that Crawl Struggle for Mastery: Pedagogies, Marriage Plots 2. The Education of the People in James’s The Bostonians and The Princess Casamassima The People and the Freedmen The Schoolmarm and the Southerner The Happier Few and the Miserable Many 3. The Professor and the Mob in Wharton’s The Valley of Decision Born Readers: Race and the Reading Citizenry Idealism and Realism The Learned Lady Part II: The Remnant at Harvard: Whiteness, Higher Education and Democracy 4. Universal White: Discrimination and Selection in James’s American Scene Numbers and the Remnant Diversity, Distinction and the Note of the Exclusive Serene Puritan Crânerie: James and the Genteel Tradition 5. The Tenth Mind: Adams and the Action of the Remnant Better Men: The Talented Tenth and the Remnant at Harvard Bostonian Calm and the Action of the Scholar Education and Power: Schools, Schoolmasters, Truants The Type of Passivity: Adams and the Genteel Tradition 6. Pure English: Wharton and the Elect Aristocracies: The Value of Duration Doctrines of Election: The Puritan Liberal and the Last Calvinist Purement Anglo-Saxonne: Puritans and Patroons Colonial Mansions: Wharton and the Genteel Tradition Conclusion: The Reign of the Genteel Notes Bibliography Index