Sport and the spirit of play in American fiction : Hawthorne to Faulkner

Bibliographic Information

Sport and the spirit of play in American fiction : Hawthorne to Faulkner

Christian K. Messenger

Columbia University Press, 1981

  • : pbk

Available at  / 76 libraries

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Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In this comprehensive and insightful study, Christian K. Messenger contends that American writers have always created characters at play in the sure knowledge that to be active in sport in America is to be in touch with its people, their traditions, and their fantasy lives. This is the first inclusive critical study of sport in American fiction with chapters on individual authors such as Hawthorne, Lardner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, and Faulkner, as well as studies of sport in the literature of the frontier and in boys' formula fiction. A work of literary criticism, Sport and the Spirit of Play in American Fiction also draws on the cultural history of American sport and leisure and on a century of American literature.

Table of Contents

Preface Introduction Play, Game, Sport Models of Sports Heroism Part I: Play, Game, Sport: Classic American Literature 1. Hawthorne: The Play Spirit 2. Sport and Society Part II: The Popular Sports Hero 3. Sport and the Frontier 4. Organized Sport and Its Reporters 5. Lardner: The Popular Sports Hero Part III: The School Sports Hero 6. The Incarnation of the College Athletic Hero 7. The Boys' School Sports Story 8. Fitzgerald: The School Sports Hero 9. The School Sports Hero as Satiric Emblem: Hemingway and Faulkner Part IV: The Modern Ritual Sports Hero 10. Hemingway: Exemplary Heroism and Heroic Witnessing 11. Faulkner: The Play Spirit 12. Sports Approaches the Sacred: Hemingway and Faulkner Conclusion Notes Index

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