Fighting words polemics and social change in literary naturalism

Wells, Ira 1981- (Author).

Summary: Fighting Words offers an entirely new understanding of what literary naturalism is and why it matters. Ira Wells, countering the standard narrative of literary naturalism's much-touted concern with environmental and philosophical determinism, draws attention to the polemical essence of the genre and demonstrates how literary naturalists engaged instead with explosive political and cultural issues that remain fervently debated today. Naturalist writers, Wells argues in Fighting Words, are united less by a coherent philosophy than by an attitude, a postur.

Record details

ISBN: 9780817386771 (electronic bk.)
ISBN: 0817386777 (electronic bk.)
ISBN: 9780817317997 (trade cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN: 0817317996 (trade cloth : alk. paper)
Physical Description: electronic resource
remote
1 online resource (206 p.)
Publisher: Tuscaloosa : University of Alabama Press, c2013.

Content descriptions

General Note:	Multi-User.
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	Acknowledgments; Naturalism: A Polemical Introduction; Chapter 1: An Education; Chapter 2: The Polemical Nature of Naturalism in America; Chapter 3: Against the Grain: Ecology, Environmentalism, and Frank Norris's 'The Octopus'; Chapter 4: Crimes of Art and Nature: An American Tragedy and the Problem of Abortion; Chapter 5: "What I Killed for, I Am" : Domestic Terror in Richard Wright's America; Epilogue: Why Norman Mailer Hates Plastic; Notes; Works Consulted; Index.
Source of Description Note:	Description based on print version record.