Confounding images : photography and portraiture in antebellum American fiction / Susan S. Williams.

Author
Williams, Susan S. [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, ©1997.
Description
xiv, 245 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Availability

Available Online

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks PS374.P43 W55 1997 Browse related items Request
    Marquand Library - PhotographyPS374.P43 W55 1997 Browse related items Request

      Details

      Subject(s)
      Summary note
      In an important rereading of American fiction in the decades preceding the Civil War, Williams (English, Ohio State University) recovers the literary and cultural significance of early photography. Williams contends that in reaction to photography's challenge to the pictorial function of narrative, authors filled their pages with descriptions of fictional portraits--fanciful and romantic, often haunted, magic, or demonic, and generally resistant to straightforward representation. She provides readings and interpretations from forgotten as well as canonical writers as examples. c. Book News Inc.
      Bibliographic references
      Includes bibliographical references (p. [225]-240) and index.
      Contents
      • Introduction: Confounding Images
      • 1. The Portrait and the Social Construction of Ekphrasis
      • 2. "The Inconstant Daguerreotype": The Narrative of Early Photography
      • 3. The Haunted Portrait and Models of Authorship in Periodicals and Gift Books
      • 4. Hawthorne, Daguerreotypy, and The House of the Seven Gables
      • 5. Melville's Pierre and the Burden of Imitation
      • 6. The Photography of Travel: Reading The Marble Faun
      • Afterword: Photography and Portraiture in the Later Nineteenth Century.
      ISBN
      • 0812233972 ((alk. paper))
      • 9780812233971 ((alk. paper))
      LCCN
      96029728
      OCLC
      36074297
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