American Literary Realism and the Failed Promise of ContractIn law, the late nineteenth century is often called the Age of Contract; in literature, the Age of Realism. Brook Thomas's new book brings contract and realism together to offer groundbreaking insights into both while exploring the social and cultural crises that accompanied America's transition from industrial capitalism to the corporate capitalism of the twentieth century. Thomas argues that, radically conceived, contract promised to generate an equitable social order--one organized around interpersonal exchange rather than conformity to a transcendental standard. But as the idea of contract took center stage in American culture after the Civil War, the law failed to deliver on this promise, instead legitimating hierarchies of race, class, and gender. Moving expertly from legal analysis to social history, to profoundly recontextualized literary critique, Thomas shows how writers like Twain, James, Howells, and Chopin took up contract as a model, formally and thematically, evoking its possibilities and dramatizing its failures. Thomas investigates a host of issues at the forefront of public debate in the nineteenth century: race and the meaning of equality, miscegenation, marriage, labor unrest, economic transformation, and changes in notions of human agency and subjectivity. Cross-examining a wide range of key literary and legal texts, he rethinks the ways they relate to each other and to their social milieu. As recent political rhetoric demonstrates, the promise of contract is still very much alive. American Literary Realism and the Failed Promise of Contract challenges conventional critical wisdom and makes a broad, provocative, and nuanced contribution to legal and literary studies, as well as to intellectual and social history. It promises to revise and enrich our understanding of American culture, law, and letters. In law, the late nineteenth century is often called the Age of Contract; in literature, the Age of Realism. Brook Thomas's new book brings contract and realism together to offer groundbreaking insights into both while exploring the social and cultural crises that accompanied America's transition from industrial capitalism to the corporate capitalism of the twentieth century. Thomas argues that, radically conceived, contract promised to generate an equitable social order--one organized around interpersonal exchange rather than conformity to a transcendental standard. But as the idea of contract took center stage in American culture after the Civil War, the law failed to deliver on this promise, instead legitimating hierarchies of race, class, and gender. Moving expertly from legal analysis to social history, to profoundly recontextualized literary critique, Thomas shows how writers like Twain, James, Howells, and Chopin took up contract as a model, formally and thematically, evoking its possibilities and dramatizing its failures. Thomas investigates a host of issues at the forefront of public debate in the nineteenth century: race and the meaning of equality, miscegenation, marriage, labor unrest, economic transformation, and changes in notions of human agency and subjectivity. Cross-examining a wide range of key literary and legal texts, he rethinks the ways they relate to each other and to their social milieu. As recent political rhetoric demonstrates, the promise of contract is still very much alive. American Literary Realism and the Failed Promise of Contract challenges conventional critical wisdom and makes a broad, provocative, and nuanced contribution to legal and literary studies, as well as to intellectual and social history. It promises to revise and enrich our understanding of American culture, law, and letters. |
Contents
Contract and the Road from Equity | 25 |
Henry James and the Construction of Privacy | 53 |
In the Hands of The Silent Partner | 88 |
The Rise of Silas Lapham and the Hazards | 122 |
Race and | 156 |
Twain Tourgée and the Logic | 191 |
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14th Amendment action aesthetic Albion W American Arendt argues argument Aspern Aspern Papers Basil belief Bread-Winners business plot C. B. Macpherson challenge character Chesnutt claim complicated corporate Court critics Dumont economic equal equity evoke exchange fiction forces freedom Hay's Henry James Holmes Howells Howells's human identity important individual instance interests James's justice labor laissez-faire lawyer liberalism literary literary realism literature logic Lynde marriage modern moral mugwumps Murvale narrator nature Nonetheless notion novel Olive Pactolus Perley person Phelps Phillips Phillips's Plessy plot political Press principles promise of contract Pudd'nhead Pudd'nhead Wilson question race racial readers realism realm relations republican responsibility role Scarborough seems sense sentimental Silas Lapham Silas's simply slavery social society South Southern sphere status Tourgée Tourgée's traditional transcendental Twain Univ Verena vision Walter Benn Michaels William Dean Howells York