La crise de l’urbain et la condition moderne dans les romans de Saul Bellow

This paper proposes to study the correspondence that Saul Bellow’s novels establish between the urban crisis and the human condition in the United States of the second half of the twentieth century, which will eventually entail a discussion of the writer’s conception of the modern world in its socia...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Timea Lönhardt
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses Universitaires du Midi 2009-12-01
Series:Anglophonia
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/acs/1663
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1832579182587019264
author Timea Lönhardt
author_facet Timea Lönhardt
author_sort Timea Lönhardt
collection DOAJ
description This paper proposes to study the correspondence that Saul Bellow’s novels establish between the urban crisis and the human condition in the United States of the second half of the twentieth century, which will eventually entail a discussion of the writer’s conception of the modern world in its social, political and intellectual aspects. After defining the place and the role of the city in Bellow’s fictional universe, we will note the influence of the research conducted at the Chicago School of Sociology in the first decades of the twentieth century on Bellow’s view of the modern urban environment. We will then analyze in more detail the Bellovian critique of the urban crisis which is the core of the writer’s "city novel", Dean’s December, and which created a lot of controversy in the highly politicized American letters of the 1980s. We will close this analysis with a discussion of the accusations of "cultural conservatism" that Bellow sustained during the 1970s and 1980s, and we will offer an interpretation of the writer’s resistance to contemporary canons as a modern literary requirement.
format Article
id doaj-art-58a62178e5f449cba51caefa550ed722
institution Kabale University
issn 1278-3331
2427-0466
language English
publishDate 2009-12-01
publisher Presses Universitaires du Midi
record_format Article
series Anglophonia
spelling doaj-art-58a62178e5f449cba51caefa550ed7222025-01-30T12:34:10ZengPresses Universitaires du MidiAnglophonia1278-33312427-04662009-12-012534135210.4000/caliban.1663La crise de l’urbain et la condition moderne dans les romans de Saul BellowTimea LönhardtThis paper proposes to study the correspondence that Saul Bellow’s novels establish between the urban crisis and the human condition in the United States of the second half of the twentieth century, which will eventually entail a discussion of the writer’s conception of the modern world in its social, political and intellectual aspects. After defining the place and the role of the city in Bellow’s fictional universe, we will note the influence of the research conducted at the Chicago School of Sociology in the first decades of the twentieth century on Bellow’s view of the modern urban environment. We will then analyze in more detail the Bellovian critique of the urban crisis which is the core of the writer’s "city novel", Dean’s December, and which created a lot of controversy in the highly politicized American letters of the 1980s. We will close this analysis with a discussion of the accusations of "cultural conservatism" that Bellow sustained during the 1970s and 1980s, and we will offer an interpretation of the writer’s resistance to contemporary canons as a modern literary requirement.https://journals.openedition.org/acs/1663villecivilisationcondition humainecrise urbainecrise moraleconservatisme
spellingShingle Timea Lönhardt
La crise de l’urbain et la condition moderne dans les romans de Saul Bellow
Anglophonia
ville
civilisation
condition humaine
crise urbaine
crise morale
conservatisme
title La crise de l’urbain et la condition moderne dans les romans de Saul Bellow
title_full La crise de l’urbain et la condition moderne dans les romans de Saul Bellow
title_fullStr La crise de l’urbain et la condition moderne dans les romans de Saul Bellow
title_full_unstemmed La crise de l’urbain et la condition moderne dans les romans de Saul Bellow
title_short La crise de l’urbain et la condition moderne dans les romans de Saul Bellow
title_sort la crise de l urbain et la condition moderne dans les romans de saul bellow
topic ville
civilisation
condition humaine
crise urbaine
crise morale
conservatisme
url https://journals.openedition.org/acs/1663
work_keys_str_mv AT timealonhardt lacrisedelurbainetlaconditionmodernedanslesromansdesaulbellow