Solitude and society in the works of Herman Melville and Edith Wharton /
[Book]
Linda Costanzo Cahir.
Westport, Conn. :
Greenwood Press,
1999.
1 online resource (xv, 155 pages)
Contributions to the study of American literature,
no. 3
1092-6356 ;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 143-149) and index.
Acknowledgments; Preface; 1. Melville and Wharton: The American Diptych; 2. The Devil's Children: The Isolation of Self-Reliance; 3. The Mysterious Stranger; 4. The Sociable Isolato; 5. The Sexual Transgressor; Bibliography; Index.
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The interplay between solitude and society was a particularly persistent theme in nineteenth-century American literature, though writers approached this theme in different ways. Poe explored the metaphysical significance of isolation and held solitude in high esteem; Hawthorne viewed the theme in moral terms and examined the obligation of each individual to the larger community; and Emerson maintained that the contradictory states of self-reliance and solidarity are fundamental to human happiness. Herman Melville emerged with an ontological response to this issue. Questioning the nature of bei.
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Solitude and society in the works of Herman Melville and Edith Wharton.