| dc.description.abstract | This study examines the formulation of Erskine Caldwell's reputation in American literary studies, arguing that his status as a worthwhile subject for scholarly consideration has been limited by the various labels employed to describe his work during the first two decades of his career. The study focuses on responses to Caldwell's fiction from 1929, when he first gained notice as one of the promising new voices in American literature, to 1950, when he was, almost universally, declared "dead" as a serious writer. Throughout this period, reviewers and critics relied on traditional literary labels to categorize Caldwell, and while this was often (but not always) meant to bring praise, it was a practice which ultimately devalued his work. The labels which were applied were narrowly insufficient for denoting the fullest sense of his achievement, and what is more, they identified him with modes of writing which were even then negligible as "art." In Chapter One, I discuss the importance of reputation studies within the movement to revise the traditional canon(s) of American literature and establish Caldwell's case as a viable one for such study. In Chapters Two, Three, and Four, I overview and analyze the most common labels which were used to identify, value, and claim or dismiss Caldwell's fiction. Respectively, I present discussions of him as a Humorist and a Folklorist, labels marking genres of literature that have themselves always had image problems among scholars; as a Realist and a Naturalist, once respected literary modes, but during the years of their application to Caldwell's work, commonly seen as outdated or pedestrian; and as a Propagandist and a Sensationalist, labels which concretely identified him as a writer of transient or aliterary interest. Chapter Five traces the various attempts to correct problems with Caldwell's reputation from the mid-1940s to the present, demonstrating that these, while of a sometimes admirable spirit, have never overcome merely mixing and repackaging what had been said earlier, and on the same categorical terms. I conclude briefly with some suggestions for the further, more adequate scholarship which Caldwell's fiction is due. | |
