Performatively Speaking: Speech and Action in Antebellum American Literature

by Debra J. Rosenthal

Book Overview

In Performatively Speaking, Debra Rosenthal draws on speech act theory to open up the current critical conversation about antebellum American fiction and culture and to explore what happens when writers use words not just to represent action but to constitute action itself. Examining moments of discursive action in a range of canonical and noncanonical works-T. S. Arthur's temperance tales, Fanny Fern's Ruth Hall, Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0813936969
• ISBN13: 9780813936963
• Release Date: May 2015
• Publisher: University of Virginia Press
• Length: 148 Pages
• Weight: 0.79 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.8" x 9.2"