Time and mobility in the writing of Charles W. Chesnutt
Datos Bibliográficos
| ID | 3852311 |
|---|---|
| Autores | Otto Heim (University of Hong Kong) |
| Año | 2003 |
| Volumen | 1 |
| Número | 2 |
| Páginas | 222-246 |
| Fecha de publicación | 2003-06-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Tipo | ARTICLE |
| Revista | Comparative American Studies An International Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Identificadores de la revista | ISSN: 1477-5700 • E-ISSN: 1741-2676 |
| Editorial | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1477570003001002006 |
| OpenAlex | W2072948805 |
| Idioma | EN |
| Referencias citadas | 15 |
This article considers the elusiveness and ambivalence that characterize Chesnutt's writing in terms of the author's imaginative efforts to probe beyond the historical circumstances that condition and frame his authorship. Noting the focus on figures of absence and illegibility in recent criticism of Chesnutt, I examine the notion of a self in the process of uprooting itself that appears to preoccupy much of his fiction. In a close reading of Chesnutt's journals and his essay on 'Superstitions and Folklore of the South', I elaborate Chesnutt's conception of a literary voice as emerging from a context of commodification and contestation and oriented on a moment of posterior reception. I then discuss how this concept of a detachable voice informs Chesnutt's exploration of a transplantable self and an understanding of freedom in terms of a re-imagined social bond. This discussion focuses on the ways Chesnutt, in some of his short stories and in The House Behind the Cedars, evokes a passage from a condition of bondage to a capacity for multiple and variable attachments
Ambivalence · Art · Commodification · Criticism · Folklore · Linguistics · Literary criticism · Literature · Psychoanalysis · Sociology · Canadian Identity and History · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · History · Philosophy · Psychology
| Altamente citado | No |
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