American Trajectories

“Berthoff writes with theoretical sophistication and a critical gift based on enormously wide reading and clear humane convictions. American Trajectories stands out as exceptional scholarly work.” —J. C. Levenson, University of Virginia

“As someone who has depended heavily on Berthoff's earlier books (especially The Ferment of Realism and A Literature Without Qualities) as guides for reading and teaching, I feel a profound sense of gratitude for this new book, which is as full of provocative judgments, discoveries, and rediscoveries as its distinguished predecessors. The interior chapters span, chronologically, the whole extent of the literature of the United States, continually asking whether American books do in fact constitute a single, unfolding tradition, and examining claims pro and con. The synthesizing essays that open and close the book set the theoretical groundwork, in lucid and jargon-free terms, for the analysis of individual works and careers.” —Christopher Benfey, Mount Holyoke