Melodrama and the Myth of AmericaIn nineteenth-century America, popular theatre acted as the vehicle for the construction of a national ideology. Melodrama and the Myth of America looks at five popular plays that took as their subjects important issues in American life: Metamora and the "Indian" Question, The Drunkard and the temperance movement, Uncle Tom's Cabin and slavery, My Partner and the American West, and Shenandoah and the Civil War. These plays present American history as a grand melodrama. |
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Page 159
... military spies - honorable gentlemen all - look clever and daring by empha- sizing disguises and last - minute rescues . In contrast , Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty ( 1867 ) , a novel by John William De Forest , a ...
... military spies - honorable gentlemen all - look clever and daring by empha- sizing disguises and last - minute rescues . In contrast , Miss Ravenel's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty ( 1867 ) , a novel by John William De Forest , a ...
Page 160
... military strategy . In The Blue and the Grey ( 1883 ) , Theodore Gerrish and John S. Hutchinson offered stories and anecdotes that made heroes out of generals and private soldiers alike . After the battle of the Wilderness , a burial ...
... military strategy . In The Blue and the Grey ( 1883 ) , Theodore Gerrish and John S. Hutchinson offered stories and anecdotes that made heroes out of generals and private soldiers alike . After the battle of the Wilderness , a burial ...
Page 219
... military aspirations than actual battle conditions . 3. The novel was originally intended for serialization in Harper's Monthly but its realism discouraged the editor . 4. Appleby also points out that while the war and related issues ...
... military aspirations than actual battle conditions . 3. The novel was originally intended for serialization in Harper's Monthly but its realism discouraged the editor . 4. Appleby also points out that while the war and related issues ...
Contents
Constructing American Ideology | 1 |
Metamora 1829 and the Indian Question | 23 |
The Drunkard 1844 and the Temperance Movement | 61 |
Copyright | |
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abolitionism abolitionist action actual Aiken American antebellum antislavery argued assures audience battle become California characters Christian civilization Clare colonial concept Confederate convention Cribbs culture death defined depicted discourse drama drinking drunkard Edward Edwin Forrest English evil experience fight flag Forrest George gold Howard idea ideology Indian Indian removal individual interaction Joe Saunders Kerchival King Philip's War land Legree Mary melodrama Metacomet Metamora miners moral myth Nahmeokee narrative nation natives New-York Evening Post nineteenth-century North northern novel offered performance play playwright political popular position present production race readers refer reform reinforce response rhetoric role romantic sachem savage scene Scraggs sentimental Sheridan slave system slavery social society South southern stage story Stowe Stowe's sympathy teetotalism temperance temperance movement theatre theatrical Topsy tradition Uncle Tom Uncle Tom's Cabin Union villain virtually virtue vision Wampanoag Washingtonian West woman writer York