Bücher der Reihe American University Studies Series 24: American Literature

In this ground-breaking comparative study of the major works of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walker Percy, Elzbieta Oleksy explores the intrinsic affinities between the two writers that transcend regional and historical barriers. Fully researched, the book investigates the development of the writers' visions. Both Hawthorne and Percy gradually came to view the subjectivity of an individual as a form of self-realization inferior to the intersubjective communion between persons. Focusing on the personal encounters between Hawthorne's and Percy's female and male characters, the study re-examines gender roles in the two writers' fiction.

Despite Stephen Crane's great interest in social themes of his time, few critics have analyzed the historical and political significance of his work. This book demonstrates that only an analysis capable of grasping the politics of Crane's texts can adequately account for their stylistic and aesthetic qualities. Focusing on Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and The Red Badge of Courage, as well as on seldom studied bestsellers of the American 1890s such as R.H. Davis's Soldiers of Fortune and F.M. Crawford's Via Crucis, it offers new insights into the formal and ideological relationship of Crane's fiction to popular literature.