Background
Smith, Henry Nash was born on September 29, 1906 in Dallas, Texas, United States. Son of Loyd Bond and Elizabeth (Nash) Smith.
(Examines the significance and impact of the nineteenth-ce...)
Examines the significance and impact of the nineteenth-century Westward movement on American literature. Bibliogs.
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( The spell that the West has always exercised on the Am...)
The spell that the West has always exercised on the American people had its most intense impact on American literature and thought during the nineteenth century. Smith shows, with vast comprehension, the influence of the nineteenth-century West in all its variety and strength, in special relation to social, economic, cultural, and political forces. He traces the myths and symbols of the Westward movement such as the general notion of a Westward-moving Course of Empire, the Wild Western hero, the virtuous yeoman-farmer--in such varied nineteenth-century writings as Leaves of Grass, the great corpus of Dime Novels, and most notably, Frederick Jackson Turner's The Frontier in American History. Moreover, he synthesizes the imaginative expression of Western myths and symbols in literature with their role in contemporary politics, economics, and society, embodied in such forms as the idea of Manifest Destiny, the conflict in the American mind between idealizations of primitivism on the one hand and of progress and civilization on the other, the Homestead Act of 1862, and public-land policy after the Civil War. The myths of the American West that found their expression in nineteenth-century words and deeds remain a part of every American's heritage, and Smith, with his insight into their power and significance, makes possible a critical appreciation of that heritage.
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(Book by Smith, Henry Nash)
Book by Smith, Henry Nash
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(This book deals with the beliefs and attitudes that most ...)
This book deals with the beliefs and attitudes that most Americans took for granted, that is, popular culture of the post-Civil War period, a significant event being the change in mass media of communication; steam-powered presses lowered the cost or producing printed matter; literacy rates improved; railway transport made possible transmission of books and newspapers.
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( The spell that the West has always exercised on the Ame...)
The spell that the West has always exercised on the American people had its most intense impact on American literature and thought during the nineteenth century. Henry Nash Smith shows, with vast comprehension, the influence of the nineteenth-century West in all its variety and strength, in special relation to social, economic, cultural, and political forces. He traces the myths and symbols of the Westward movement such as the general notion of a Westward-moving Course of Empire, the Wild Western hero, the virtuous yeoman-farmer―in such varied nineteenth-century writings as Leaves of Grass, the great corpus of Dime Novels, and most notably, Frederick Jackson Turner’s The Frontier in American History. Moreover, he synthesizes the imaginative expression of Western myths and symbols in literature with their role in contemporary politics, economics, and society, embodied in such forms as the idea of Manifest Destiny, the conflict in the American mind between idealizations of primitivism on the one hand and of progress and civilization on the other, the Homestead Act of 1862, and public-land policy after the Civil War. The myths of the American West that found their expression in nineteenth-century words and deeds remain a part of every American’s heritage, and Smith, with his insight into their power and significance, makes possible a critical appreciation of that heritage.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674939557/?tag=2022091-20
(The American west as symbol and myth.)
The American west as symbol and myth.
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Smith, Henry Nash was born on September 29, 1906 in Dallas, Texas, United States. Son of Loyd Bond and Elizabeth (Nash) Smith.
lieutenant was the first Doctor of Philosophy thesis of the History of American Civilization course of the Harvard University, therefore its publication can be seen as the hour of birth of American studies.
He was also a noted Mark Twain scholar, and the curator of the Mark Twain Papers. He taught at University of Minnesota, University of Texas, Southern Methodist University, and University of California, Berkeley, from 1953 to 1960, becoming professor emeritus. His book Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth (1950) gave name to the Myth and Symbol School, which provided the paradigm of the American Studies until the 1980s.
The book"s topic was the collective perception of the American West of the 19th century.
Smith used sources such as dime novels and other popular culture material. In his essay Can American Studies Develop a Method? (American Quarterly 9, 1957: 197-208), to date frequently anthologized, Smith expressed influential objectives and methodology of the Myth and Symbol School.
He died on June 6, 1986, following a car accident on May 30 near Elko, Nevada.
(This book deals with the beliefs and attitudes that most ...)
( The spell that the West has always exercised on the Am...)
( The spell that the West has always exercised on the Ame...)
(Examines the significance and impact of the nineteenth-ce...)
(The American west as symbol and myth.)
(History, American Studies)
(Book by Smith, Henry Nash)
Member editorial board John Harvard Library., 1959-1969. Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences. Member Modern Language Association (president 1969).
Married Elinor Lucas, April 10, 1936. Children: Loyd Mayne, Janet Carol, Harriet Elinor.
