Melodrama: The Cultural Emergence of a Genre

Using the term "melodrama" as an abstract category to describe almost any literary mode--from nineteenth-century novels to 20th-century films--modern critics have obscured the genre's historical and cultural functions as well as the nature of its specific appeal to working-class audiences. To rectify this situation, the essays in this innovative and international collection redirect attention to the historical, social, and cultural milieu in which melodrama emerged.