Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

12-2001

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

English

Major Professor

Mary E. Papke

Abstract

Almost as soon as a certain movement in early twentieth-century American literature began to be labeled "proletarian," numerous literary critics defined the genre as propagandistic, formulaic, and prescribed by a hegemonic and totalitarian American Communist Party. Recently, scholars of 1930s leftist literature have challenged previous dismissals of proletarianism by noting the diversity of participants and the complexity of individual works. Frequently, however, too much emphasis is placed upon the Communist Party, shared political and literary projects, and temporal parameters, all of which would suggest that proletarianism was an isolated phenomenon within the history of American literature. This study reveals that the major proponents of American proletarian literature portrayed the movement as the successor to progressive and radical tendencies throughout the history of American literature. Furthermore, during the 1930s proletarianism was a term open to debate, one whose advocates presented vastly different definitions. Similarly, those novelists whom contemporary critics most often labeled "proletarian," although they shared a support of labor and socialism, utilized disparate and frequently experimental techniques and held varied positions toward the Communist Party.

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