Plagiarama! : William Wells Brown and the aesthetic of attrations /
Geoffrey Sanborn.
- New York : Columbia University Press, 2016.
- 1 online resource
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Plagiarama! -- The spirit of capitalization -- The aesthetic of attractions -- The beautiful slave girl -- The sound of fame.
William Wells Brown (1814-1884) was a vocal abolitionist, a frequent antagonist of Frederick Douglass, and the author of Clotel, the first known novel by an African American. He was also an extensive plagiarist, copying at least 87,000 words from close to 300 texts. In the first full-length critical study of Brown in almost fifty years, Geoffrey Sanborn offers a novel reading of Brown's plagiarism, arguing the act was a means of capitalizing on the energies of mass-cultural entertainments. By creating the textual equivalent of a variety show, Brown animated antislavery discourse and evoked the prospect of a pleasurably integrated world. Brown's key dramatic protagonists were the "spirit of capitalization"--The unscrupulous double of Max Weber's spirit of capitalism-and the "beautiful slave girl," a light-skinned African American woman on the verge of sale and rape. The unsettling portrayal of these figures, unfolding within a riotous patchwork of second-hand texts, upset convention and provoked the imagination. Could a slippery upstart lay the groundwork for a genuinely interracial society' Could the fetishized image of a not-yet-sold woman hold open the possibility of other destinies' Sanborn's analysis of pastiche and plagiarism adds new depth to the study of nineteenth-century cultural history and African American literature, suggesting modes of African American writing that extend beyond narratives of necessity and purpose. Brown's use of plagiarized texts and play with ownership are also important precursors to the work of such later authors as Pauline Hopkins, Nathaniel West, and Kathy Acker.
In English.
0231540582 9780231540582 9780231174428 023117442X
10.7312/sanb17442 doi
EB00640449 Recorded Books
902970 MIL 748A8F8D-C475-48C7-B733-FA02F05456EC OverDrive, Inc. http://www.overdrive.com
Brown, William Wells, 1814?-1884 --Criticism and interpretation. Brown, William Wells, 1814?-1884.
1800-1899
Plagiarism--History--United States--19th century. American literature--African American authors--History and criticism. Abolitionists--History--United States--19th century. American literature--History and criticism.--19th century LITERARY CRITICISM--American--African American. LITERARY CRITICISM--American--General. Abolitionists. American literature. American literature--African American authors. Plagiarism.
United States.
Electronic books. Criticism, interpretation, etc. History.