Counterfeit Culture: Truth and Authenticity in the American Prose Epic since 1960 (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture #181)
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- Synopsis
- Counterfeit Culture explores the possibility of writing epic in an age of alternative facts. Examining six attempts to forge an American prose epic since 1960, this study goes on to trace a national tradition of inauthenticity, stretching back across four centuries. In works by authors such as Pynchon, Gaddis and Burroughs, the contemporary turn away from truth and authenticity can be seen as a return to an established line of literary tricksters and confidence men, with tropes of fraud and artifice running deep in the American grain. Combining archival work with historically-inflected analysis of literary narrative, this book ranges through questions of identity, technology, history, and music in its engagement. From Marguerite Young's inquiry into psychological disintegration to William T. Vollmann's ongoing cycle of false histories, the study introduces a new reading of the American epic.
- Copyright:
- 2019
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9781108589475
- Related ISBNs:
- 9781108428484, 9781108428484
- Publisher:
- Cambridge University Press
- Date of Addition:
- 06/11/19
- Copyrighted By:
- Rob Turner
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Literature and Fiction, Language Arts
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.