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The primal scene of all nineteenth-century Western thought might well be the moment an observer gazed at someone poor, most commonly on the streets of a great metropolis, and wondered what the spectacle meant in human, moral, political, and metaphysical terms. In Russia, where so much of the population was impoverished, the moment held special significance. David Herman examines how Russian writers portrayed this poverty and what their portrayal reveals and articulates about core values of Russian culture.Focussing on specific texts but addressing the literary tradition as a whole, Herman begins with Karamzin's immensely popular story "Poor Liza", the first in a sequence of poverty narratives that self-consciously address one another. He then considers Pushkin's "Egyptian Nights"; Gogol's "Overcoat", Petersburg tales, and Selected Passages; and Dostoevsky's Idiot and 1880 "Pushkin speech".With a series of innovative readings, Poverty of the Imagination teases out a Russian discourse on lack which owes its peculiar richness to an insistence on solving simultaneously problems of social justice, national identity, and the ethics of the human imagination. As prominently as poverty figures in Russian literature, this is the first sustained analysis of its literary, conceptual, and cultural implications. As such, it deepens our understanding and appreciation of some of the most widely read literature of all time.

Russian literature --- Poor in literature. --- Poverty in literature. --- History and criticism.

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In this ground-breaking study, Anne Cruz examines the treatment of poverty, prostitution, war, and other social concerns in the cultural and literary discourses of early modern Spain. This book investigates the polemics on poor relief through religious charity and secularized reform articulated not only in the Spanish picaresque canon - Lazarillo de Tormes, Guzm¯n de Alfarache, El busc3/4n - but also in female picaresque narratives and soldiers' tales. Emphasizing Bakhtin's notion that discursive practices must be assessed as they intersect and become textualized in history, the book also looks at this literature in relation to normative writings such as royal decrees, regulations, economic proposals, synods, and sermons. Through these discourses, authors and authorities alike debated their theories of poor assistance for both men and women, from the critique of unregulated prostitution in works such as La lozana andaluza to the control of impoverished youths through military conscription as in Alonso de Contreras and Estebanillo Gonz¯lez. The rupture of the feudal system and the economic devastation of the country precipitated a dramatic rise in the number of poor, who were increasingly perceived as delinquents by an anxious populace. The book employs Foucault's paradigms of confinement and control to study the various suggestions for the social containment of Spain's marginalized elements. Positing that the literary p¦caros and p¦caras assume the role of scapegoats for this disenfranchised social Other, Cruz further argues that the picaresque novels respond dialectically to the growing demonization of the poor in early modern Spanish culture.

Armoede in de literatuur --- Pauvreté dans la littérature --- Poverty in literature --- Picaresque literature, Spanish --- Spanish fiction --- Poor in literature --- Social problems in literature --- History and criticism --- Picaresque literature [Spanish ] --- Classical period, 1500-1700 --- Poverty in literature. --- Poor in literature. --- Social problems in literature. --- History and criticism.

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American culture has long had a conflicted relationship with assistance to the poor. Cotton Mather and John Winthrop were staunch proponents of Christian charity as fundamental to colonial American society, while transcendentalists harbored deep skepticism towards benevolence in favor of Emersonian self-reliance and Thoreau's insistence on an ascetic life. Women in the 19th century, as these essays show, approached issues of benevolence far differently than their male counterparts, consistently promoting assistance to the impoverished, in both their acts and their writings. <

American literature --- 19th century --- History and criticism --- Literature and society --- United States --- History --- Women and literature --- Women authors --- Benevolence in literature --- Charity in literature --- Poor --- Poor in literature. --- Poverty in literature. --- Charity in literature. --- Benevolence in literature. --- English literature --- Agrarians (Group of writers) --- History and criticism.

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In the United States, perhaps no minority group is considered as "model" or successful as the Asian American community, which is often described as residing in positive-sounding ""ethnic enclaves."" Yoonmee Chang's Writing the Ghetto helps clarify the hidden or unspoken class inequalities faced by Asian Americans, while insightfully analyzing the effect such notions have had on their literary voices.

American literature --- Asian Americans in literature. --- Asian Americans --- Poverty in literature. --- Ethnic groups in literature. --- Social classes in literature. --- Model minority stereotype. --- Littérature américaine --- Américains d'origine asiatique dans la littérature --- Américains d'origine asiatique --- Pauvreté dans la littérature --- Groupes ethniques dans la littérature --- Classes sociales dans la littérature --- Stéréotype de la minorité modèle --- Asian American authors --- History and criticism. --- Intellectual life. --- Ecrivains américains d'origine asiatique --- Histoire et critique --- Vie intellectuelle --- Américains aziatiques dans la littérature --- Asian Americans in literature --- Aziatische Amerikanen in de literatuur --- History and criticism --- Intellectual life --- Stereotypes (Social psychology) --- Asians --- Ethnology