American Culture Studies

Business as a Motif in American Fiction, 1865-1929

Erhan Simsek

• Publisher: transcript Verlag
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783839447994
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Business is woven into the very fabric of American life, yet rarely surfaces in the nation's literary history. Even in novels about business, it proves an elusive motif that fails to mirror actual business organizations.This book argues that literary representations of business remain ineffable because business serves potential aesthetic functions, subtly yet meaningfully impacting readers. Exploring the complex representation of business in realist, naturalist and modernist works, Erhan Simsek reveals these functions by analyzing how the motif intertwines with social developments, literary movements and author biographies. He thus illuminates the motif itself while highlighting the utility of a focus on the changing functions of literature.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 The Loss of Reality in Late Nineteent-Century America
• 2 Business in American Romance and Realism
• 3 The Realist Business in The Rise of Silas Lapham
• 4 The Naturalist Business in The Financier
• 5 Business in American Modernism
• Conclusion
• Works Cited