TY - BOOK AU - Davis,David Brion TI - Homicide in American Fiction, 1798-1860: A Study in Social Values SN - 9781501726217 AV - PS374.H6 .D385 1968eb U1 - 813.209 PY - 2018///] CY - Ithaca, NY : PB - Cornell University Press, KW - American fiction KW - 19th century KW - History and criticism KW - Didactic fiction, American KW - Homicide in literature KW - Literature and society KW - United States KW - History KW - Murder in literature KW - Social values in literature KW - Literary Studies KW - U.S. History KW - LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General KW - bisacsh N1 - Frontmatter --; PREFACE --; CONTENTS --; PART ONE. Homicide and the Nature of Man --; PART TWO. The A bnormal Heart and Mind --; PART THREE. The Fundamental Motive --; PART FOUR. Homicide and Society --; CONCLUSION --; BIBLIOGRAPHY --; INDEX N2 - Homicide has many social and psychological implications that vary from culture to culture and which change as people accept new ideas concerning guilt, responsibility, and the causes of crime. A study of attitudes toward homicide is therefore a method of examining social values in a specific setting. Homicide in American Fiction, 1798-1860 is the first book to contrast psychological assumptions of imaginative writers with certain social and intellectual currents in an attempt to integrate social attitudes toward such diverse subjects as human evil, moral responsibility, criminal insanity, social causes of crime, dueling, lynching, the "unwritten law" of a husband's revenge, and capital punishment. In addition to works of literary distinction by Cooper, Hawthorne, Irving, and Poe, among others, Davis considers a large body of cheap popular fiction generally ignored in previous studies of the literature of this period. This is an engrossing study of fiction as a reflection of and a commentary on social problems and as an influence shaping general beliefs and opinions UR - https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501726217?locatt=mode:legacy UR - https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9781501726217 UR - https://www.degruyter.com/document/cover/isbn/9781501726217/original ER -