Retoriche antifondamentaliste in The Damnation of Theron Ware e Elmer Gantry

Authors

  • Simone Francescato Università Ca' Foscari di Venezia

Keywords:

1880-1930, fondamentalismo cristiano, evangelicalismo, anticattolicesimo, Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware, Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry

Abstract

Questo saggio presenta una lettura intertestuale di due romanzi classici sulle origini del fondamentalismo evangelico americano, The Damnation of Theron Ware di Harold Frederic (1896) e Elmer Gantry (1927) di Sinclair Lewis. Il saggio trae spunto da alcuni studi sull’influenza di Frederic su Lewis (Schorer 1961, Bennet 1997 e in particolare Genthe 1964) per rileggere entrambi i romanzi alla luce di recenti contributi sui rapporti tra protestantesimo e anti-cattolicesimo in America (Mislin 2011) e per identificare nuove connessioni tra di essi.


Anti-fundamentalist Rhetorics in The Damnation of Theron Ware and Elmer Gantry
This essay offers an intertextual reading of two classic novels about the origins of American fundamentalist evangelicalism in Harold Frederic’s The Damnation of Theron Ware (1896) and Sinclair Lewis’s Elmer Gantry (1927). Drawing from studies on Lewis’s debt to Frederic (Schorer 1961, Bennet 1997 and in particular Genthe 1964), the essay reads the two novels relying on recent historical interpretations of US protestantism and anti-catholicism (Mislin 2011) in order to unveil new connections between these works.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Adams, R. B. (2012): Harold Frederic’s Social Drama and the Crisis of the 1890’s Evangelical Protestant Culture. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen.

Buruma, I. (2012): Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents. Princeton: Princeton University.

Bennett, B. (1997): The Damnation of Harold Frederic: His Lives and Works. Syracuse: Syracuse Univ.

Bramen, C. T. (1997): The Americanization of Theron Ware. Novel: A Forum on Fiction, 31, 1, pp. 63-86.

Ferraro, Th. J. (2005): Of Lascivious Mysticism and Other Hibernian Matters. U.S. Catholic Historian, 23, 3, pp. 1-17.

Frederic, H. (2002): The Damnation of Theron Ware. Introduzione di J. C. Oates. New York: Modern Library.

Genthe, Ch. V. (1964): The Damnation of Theron Ware and Elmer Gantry. Research Studies, 32, pp. 334-343.

Hempton, D. (2008): Evangelical Disenchantment: Nine Portraits of Faith and Doubt. New Haven: Yale University.

Hutchisson, J.M. (1997): The Rise of Sinclair Lewis, 1920-1930. University Park: Pennsylvania State University.

Killough, G. (2007): German Catholicism, Sauk Centre, and Sinclair Lewis. American Literary Realism, 39, 2, pp. 109-125.

Lewis, S. (2007): Elmer Gantry. J. Stevens (Ed.). New York: Signet Classics.

Marsden, G. (2006): Fundamentalism and American Culture. New York: Oxford UP.

Mencken, H. L. (1917): A Book of Prefaces. New York: Knopf.

Mislin, D. (2011): Never Mind the Dead Men: The Damnation of Theron Ware and the Salvation of American Protestantism. Journal of The Historical Society, 11, 4, pp. 463-491.

Myers, R. M. (1994): Antimodern Protest in The Damnation of Theron Ware. American Literary Realism, 1870-1910, 26, 3, pp. 52-64.

Tricomi, A. H. (2011): Missionary Positions: Evangelicalism and Empire in American Fiction. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Walrath, D. A. (2010): Displacing the Divine: The Minister in the Mirror of American Fiction. New York: Columbia University.

Weaver, J. A. (2013): Evangelicals and the Arts in Fiction: Portrayals of Tension in Non-Evangelical Works Since 1895. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.

Williams, P. W. (2007): Religion in the United States in the Twentieth Century: 1900-1960. In Ch. Bigsby. (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Modern American Culture (pp. 96-112). Cambridge: Cambridge University.

Published

2021-05-10

How to Cite

Francescato, S. (2021). Retoriche antifondamentaliste in The Damnation of Theron Ware e Elmer Gantry. Oltreoceano - Rivista Sulle Migrazioni, (14), 121–132. Retrieved from https://riviste.lineaedizioni.it/index.php/oltreoceano/article/view/77