Melodrama! The Mode of Excess from Early America to Hollywood

The Mode of Excess from Early America to Hollywood
1. Auflage 2007
ISBN: 978-3-8253-5327-8
Verlag: Universitätsverlag Winter

Buch, Englisch, Band 145, 377 Seiten, GB, Format (B × H): 147 mm x 219 mm, Gewicht: 529 g

Reihe: American Studies

This volume explores the current status quo of 'melodrama studies' with respect to theater, prose writing, film, and other genres and forms, spanning a historical range from the eighteenth century to the present time. It starts from the observation that what used to be regarded as a lower form of cultural expression in the first half of the twentieth century, came to be reevaluated markedly in the last decades. These days, melodrama tends to be invoked as a serious and central category to assess the modern cultural imagination and imaginary. Moreover, at a time in which generic classification is becoming increasingly problematical, because genres, be they literary or filmic, are identified less with stable norms, and are understood increasingly as processes, melodrama gains an especially prominent function in literary and cultural studies, since it is seen as cutting across the field of generic identification. The contributions to this volume investigate different manifestations of melodrama and emphasize the multifaceted and heterogeneous character of the melodramatic mode.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Kelleter, Frank

Krah, Barbara

Mayer, Ruth

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmgattungen, Filmgenre
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Filmwissenschaft, Fernsehen, Radio Filmtheorie, Filmanalyse
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Amerikanische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

FRANK KELLETER/RUTH MAYER: The Melodramatic Mode Revisited. An Introduction. -
WINFRIED HERGET: Villains for Pleasure? The Paradox of Nineteenth-Century (American) Melodrama. -
MARTIN KLEPPER: 'Treacherous Heart': Excess and Control in Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple -
MARYANN SNYDER-KÖRBER: The Melodrama of Reason: Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland -
WOLFGANG HOCHBRUCK: Flashover! The Firefighter as one of American Melodrama's Favorites -
BARBARA KRAH: Melodramatic Reconstruction in Caroline Lee Hentz's The Planter's Northern Bride -
UWE JURAS: Melodramatic Tactics and the Issue of Slavery in Dion Boucicault's The Octoroon -
NADJA GERNALZICK: Tragedy of Autocratic Rule, Melodrama of Republicanism: Genealogy of Dramatic and Political Forms in John Augustus Stone's Metamora; or, the Last of the Wampanoags -
RALPH J. POOLE: Moonlight Blossoms and White Chrysanthemums: Madame Butterfly's Excessive Array of Japoniste Accessories -
NASSIM W. BALESTRINI: The Scarlet Letter as Centennial Melodrama and Contemporary Opera: Between the Threat and the Promise of a Shared Puritan Past -
SHANE DENSON: Incorporations: Melodrama and Monstrosity in Whale's Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein -
VANESSA KÜNNEMANN: 'Staging the Chinese for the West': Melodramatic Dimensions in Pearl S. Buck's Novels and the Film Adaptation of The Good Earth -
RUTH MAYER: 'A story must have a plot, otherwise it's not a story': Anzia Yezierska's Melodramatic Meaning-Making -
DANIEL STEIN: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Legacy of Race Melodrama in African-American Fiction -
SABINE SIELKE: The Movie of Manners, or: Visualizing Realism, Post-Producing Melodrama. -
CHRISTOF DECKER: 'Unusually Compassionate': Melodrama, Film and the Figure of the Child. -
MARGIT PETERFY: Ken Burns's Civil War: Documentary and the Melodramatic Representation of History. -
LINDA WILLIAMS: Melancholy Melodrama: Almodóvarian Grief and Lost Homosexual Attachments. -
List of Contributors