Politics and the Literary Imagination in America: From Adams to Mailer

Surprisingly, two of the most influential theorists of American literature have been a French sociologist and a transplanted English poet: Alexis de Tocqueville and W. H. Auden. In teaching American literature and intellectual history, especially in respect to the political novel, I have found myself engaged in a critical dialogue with their closely associated views. Permit me to explain by beginning with a small piece of autobiography.</jats:p