The Proletarian Novel in America, 1900-1940
Author
Hummers, Herbert Jackson
Subject
Washington and Lee University -- Honors in English
Proletarian fiction
American fiction
Twentieth century
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
Metadata
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In this thesis I have tried to give what I think is an accurate picture of the proletarian novel. I have tried to trace the origins, motives and developments of this form in the years from 1900 to 1940. It has been necessary for me to consult a great deal of secondary source material in order to trace down material on novels which are either no longer publishied or inaccessible to me. I do not claim to have considered all of the novels written within the forty-year period that this thesis covers, for I believe that many books thought to be "radical literature" do not fall under my definition of proletarian literature. I have used some of the non-proletarian novels as examples of the development of t he proletarian form of novel. In certain cases I have discussed matters that do not lie entirely within my forty-year boundary, but I have tried to restrict this overlapping to matters of the utmost importance. What is the importance of this topic when the attempt to form a "proletarian literature" was a failure in America? I believe that in the future we may see a revival of this form. Certainly that the attempt failed once does not mean that another attempt will necessarily fail. Furthermore, I believe that this movement affected American literature in many ways which are not immediately noticeable.
[From Preface]