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Frantic Panoramas : American Literature and Mass Culture, 1870-1920 by ebrary, Inc.;Bentley, Nancy is a history book available to read on EtoBox.

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<p>Late nineteenth-century America saw an explosion in mass culture&mdash;from sensationalist tabloid newspapers to amusement parks to Wild West shows. Historians and critics have traditionally observed the advent of mass culture as undermining literature's central role in the public sphere. Literary writers of the time either reacted with a public show of disdain or retreated to conduct their own private experiments in style and form. In <i>Frantic Panoramas</i>, Nancy Bentley questions these narratives of opposition.<br><br>For literary writers, Bentley explains, the confrontation with mass culture was less a retreat than a transformation, an ordeal through which habits of contemplative appreciation could be refashioned into new forms of critical thought. By grappling with the energies that marked mass culture, authors came to recognize kinds of human experience that were only then becoming visible as public. William Dean Howells shaped the plots of his novels around tabloid events like rail and trolley accidents and the public chaos of apartment house fires. Although Henry James was distressed at the way dime fiction had changed the very definition of literature, his meditations

Who reads Frantic Panoramas : American Literature and Mass Culture, 1870-1920?

Author

ebrary, Inc.;Bentley, Nancy

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.

Published

2009

Language

EN

ISBN

9780812241747

Category

history

Subjects

Literary Criticism, Literary Fiction, Fiction

Rating

4 / 5 (5 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-13