National Dreams and Rude Awakenings: Essays on American Literature, from the Puritans to the Postmodern

'National Dreams and Rude Awakenings' brings together twenty important essays by the late Emory Elliott, a leading scholar of American literature and American Studies for the past forty years. Representing the key areas of Elliott's prolific career, this collection includes essays on the Puritans and their legacy, politics and art in Melville and Twain, the relationship between multiculturalism, aesthetics, and the literary canon, and the importance of diversity and transnationalism in American literary history and in the field of American Studies. With classic essays from Elliott's career that helped transform American literary studies along with his more recent essays that take the study of American literature and culture in still new directions, this tribute to Elliott's work serves also as his final contribution to the many ongoing scholarly conversations that he influenced so significantly during his career.