Writing of America: Literature and Cultural Identity from the Puritans to the Present

Acknowledgements vi

Introduction: Paradise™ 1

1 Maps and Legends 11

2 American Literature and the Body Electric 31

3 Melville: Crises in Representation 67

4 ‘Eden is burning’: Literature of the Popular Imagination 93

5 Going Fishing: Harry Smith, the Anthology of American Folk Music, and the Fan 136

6 Modernism and the Subversive Imagination 158

7 ‘Dedicated to America, whatever that is’: Contemporary Literature and the Egress 188

Afterword: Meditations in an Emergency 213

Notes 215

Select Bibliography 224

Index 230