The Vernacular Matters of American Literature

Vernacular Matters of American Literature blurs and dissolves existing lines of literary demarcation and responds to the unanswered call to practice a genuinely comparative approach to American Studies. Sieglinde Lemke examines three novels from distinct cultures and times, within their discrete ethnic contexts and with an understanding of their role in the American vernacular literary tradition. From this study of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Ana Castillo’s So Far From God, a new model for analyzing American literature emerges that highlights commonalities. From its focus on a previously ignored literary tradition, Vernacular Matters of American Literature reconfigures the map of American literature.