American Writers and the Picturesque Tour
American Writers and the Picturesque Tour

Author: Beth L. Lueck

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-28

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 1135813590

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Explores a beloved genre Even before the age of the Romantics, travel literature was a favorite genre of English and American writers and readers. After the War of 1812, Americans' passion for scenic beauty inspired them to take the picturesque tour of America as well as going to Europe for the requisite Grand Tour. The written American version of the popular British tour in various guidebooks helped shape the literature of the new nation as nearly every major writer of the first half of the 19th century contributed to it from Poe, who provided several comic pieces, and Irving to Thoreau, for whom the tour symbolized moral and spiritual growth, and Margaret Fuller. Offers new perspectives American writers adapted the picturesque to express their nationalistic sentiments; picturesque discourse offered a flexible series of conventions that enable writers to celebrate the places, people, and legends that set America apart. This volume demonstrates the vital role of this genre in the formation of national literary taste and national culture and offers fresh and exciting perspectives on the topic. Includes index. Also includes maps.

Erie Railway Tourist, 1854–1886
Erie Railway Tourist, 1854–1886

Author: Herbert Gottfried

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-10-31

Total Pages: 121

ISBN-13: 1611462711

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This book explores how the Erie Railway, in developing a series of sophisticated travel guides, made significant contributions to nineteenth-century visual culture and shaped the social life of Americans. The Erie Railway emerged during a time in which a societal response to the production of landscape paintings and prints led to a concurrent development of tourism. The era promoted a visual culture that encouraged scenic thinking in which closely viewed scenes and deep prospects became the basis for engaging physical landscapes and their representations. Revealing how visual culture apprehends aspects of reality that texts only partially grasp, the Erie guides became an important part of the commentary on the role of landscape in nineteenth-century American life. Their images and texts are worth our attention as annotations on the production of culture.