![]() | Literary Celebrity and Public Life in the Nineteenth-Century United States Subjects: American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Authors American -- 19th century -- History -- 19th century; Celebrities -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Popular culture -- United States -- History -- 19th century; Through extended readings of the works of P. T. Barnum, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Frederick Douglass, and Fanny Fern, Bonnie Carr O'Neill shows how celebrity culture authorizes audiences to evaluate public figures on personal terms and in so doing reallocates moral, intellectual, and affective authority and widens the public sphere. O'Neill examines how celebrity culture creates a context in which citizens regard one another as public figures while elevating individual public figures to an unprecedented personal fame. Although this new publicity fosters nationalism, it also imbues public life with personal feeling and transforms the public sphere into a site of divisive, emotionally intense debate. BONNIE CARR O'NEILL is an associate professor of English at Mississippi State University. Her work has been published in PMLA , American Literature , and other venues. |
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