| Description |
1 online resource (x, 258 pages) : illustrations. |
| Physical Medium |
polychrome |
| Description |
text file |
| Series |
Yale studies in English
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Yale studies in English.
|
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| Contents |
Civil death and carceral life -- Cadaverous triumphs -- The meaning of solitude -- Captivity and consciousness -- Mississippi voices -- Frontiers of captivity. |
| Summary |
How did a nation so famously associated with freedom become internationally identified with imprisonment? After the scandals of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and in the midst of a dramatically escalating prison population, the question is particularly urgent. In this timely, provocative study, Caleb Smith argues that the dehumanization inherent in captivity has always been at the heart of American civil society. Exploring legal, political, and literary texts - including the works of Dickinson, Melville, and Emerson - Smith shows how alienation and self-reliance, social death and spiritual rebirth, torture and penitence came together in the prison, a scene for the portrayal of both gothic nightmares and romantic dreams. Demonstrating how the "cellular soul" has endured since the antebellum age, The Prison and the American Imagination offers a passionate and haunting critique of the very idea of solitude in American life. |
| Local Note |
eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America |
| Subject |
American literature -- History and criticism.
|
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American literature. |
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Imprisonment in literature.
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Imprisonment in literature. |
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Prisoners -- United States -- Intellectual life.
|
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Prisoners. |
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United States. |
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Intellectual life. |
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Prisons in literature.
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Prisons in literature. |
| Genre/Form |
Electronic books.
|
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Criticism, interpretation, etc.
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Electronic books.
|
| Other Form: |
Print version: Smith, Caleb, 1977- Prison and the American imagination. New Haven : Yale University Press, ©2009 9780300141665 (DLC) 2009002868 (OCoLC)300463093 |
| ISBN |
9780300156300 (electronic book) |
|
0300156308 (electronic book) |
|
0300141661 (hardcover ; alkaline paper) |
|
9780300141665 (hardcover ; alkaline paper) |
|
9780300141665 (hardcover ; alkaline paper) |
|
1282353241 |
|
9781282353244 |
|
