- Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi
- Issue: 34
- Confronting the Modern Literary Marketplace: William Dean Howells Between 1900-1920
Confronting the Modern Literary Marketplace: William Dean Howells Between 1900-1920
Authors : Işıl Özcan
Pages : 99-116
View : 11 | Download : 4
Publication Date : 2015-04-20
Article Type : Research
Abstract :Although William Dean Howells is a canonical American novelist and one of the foremost theorists of American literary realism, his later phase receives little scholarly attention. In this period, Howells experiences the negative effects of the rapidly changing literary marketplace on both the artist and the literary critic, realizes the defining force of the advertiser on literary taste, and revises his own artistic status, which he now calls "prosperous slavery to a salary.” Ironically, the epithet ‘Dean of American Letters’ is bestowed upon him in this final period, rendering Howells’s private literary self more at odds with his public literary persona which has assumed iconic properties. In this analysis, Howells’s selected later fiction and non-fiction will be considered. Many of his later critical essays will help define his literary program in the twentieth century as he confronts the modern literary marketplace. This confrontation, in the manner of an intellectual, moral, and artistic crisis, must frame any investigation of what constitutes the belatedness of later Howells.Keywords : William Dean Howells, William Dean Howells, Yirminci Yüzyıl Amerikan Edebiyatı, Edebiyatın Ticarîleşmesi, Edebî Beğeni, Edebiyat Eleştirisi, Amerikan Demokrasisi, Gerçekçilik