Special relationshipsJanet Beer, Bridget Bennett Manchester University Press, 2018 M07 30 - 288 pages This electronic version has been made available under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) open access license. This book addresses the special relationship from the perspective of post-Second World War British governments. It argues that Britain's foreign policy challenges the dominant idea that its power has been waning and that it sees itself as the junior partner to the hegemonic US. The book also shows how at moments of international crisis successive British governments have attempted to re-play the same foreign policy role within the special relationship. It discusses the power of a profoundly antagonistic relationship between Mark Twain and Walter Scott. The book demonstrates Stowe's mis-reading and mis-representation of the Highland Clearances. It explains how Our Nig, the work of a Northern free black, also provides a working-class portrait of New England farm life, removed from the frontier that dominates accounts of American agrarian life. Telegraphy - which transformed transatlantic relations in the middle of the century- was used by spiritualists as a metaphor for the ways in which communications from the other world could be understood. The story of the Bolton Whitman Fellowship is discussed. Beside Sarah Orne Jewett's desk was a small copy of the well-known Raeburn portrait of Sir Walter Scott. Henry James and George Eliot shared a transatlantic literary network which embodied an easy flow of mutual interest and appreciation between their two milieux. In her autobiography, Gertrude Stein assigns to her lifelong companion the repeated comment that she has met three geniuses in her life: Stein, Picasso, and Alfred North Whitehead. |
Contents
1 | |
8 | |
Stowes sunny memories of Highland slavery | 28 |
Jane Eyre in Elizabeth Stoddards New England | 42 |
fetters of an American farmgirl | 65 |
spiritualism and the Atlantic divide | 89 |
Walt Whitman and the Bolton Whitman Fellowship | 110 |
Sarah Orne Jewett The Tory Lover and Walter Scott Waverley | 139 |
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American appeared argues Atlantic become Bolton Britain British Brontë Cambridge century character Charles Charlotte Civil Criticism cultural death described early Eliot England English essay example experience fact farm female fiction figure final George Gilman give Gothic Grand hand Henry heroine History human imagination influence interest J.W. Wallace James Jane Jewett John labour later Leaves less Letters literary Literature lives London male Mark marriage means mind mother narrative nature never notes novel offers origins Oxford political published question readers relation relationship Review Sarah Grand Scott seems sense sexual side slave social society spiritualism Stein Stoddard story Stowe Studies suggest thought tion tradition transatlantic Traubel Twain University Press Walt Whitman Wharton Whitehead Whitman woman women Woolf writing York young