Democratic Taste and Mid-Nineteenth Century American Literature

• This paper looks at the high/low brow paradigm in a period rich in cultural life and literary creation, 1845-1855. In America, more than anywhere else at that time, taste was intimately connected with democracy. In discussing this relationship at the level of literary works, I focus on successful American writers’ often conflicting views on democratic aspirations in connection with their literary achievement. The paper further traces the politics of taste at the level of the American public and addresses several questions among which: Was the mid-19th century audience less segmented than it has been since the Gilded Age? And if so, to what extent did participatory culture account for it? What role did nationalism play in shaping American literary taste between 1845 and 1855?

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturstudier (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- Specific Literatures (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)