Overview

Until quite recently, Asian American literary criticism had little to do with form. Instead, the tendency was to bind the literary tradition to identity formation. For Elda Tsou, however, the distinctions of ethnic writing extend beyond such facile referential practices to incorporate form and aesthetics. In Unquiet Tropes, Tsou reconceptualizes the literature as a set of highly particular classical rhetorical tropes including antanaclasis, rhetorical question, apophasis, catachresis, and allegory. Looking at five canonical works Aiiieeeee!, No-No Boy, China Men, Blu s Hanging, and Native Speaker Tsou shows how these texts use figurative means to confront the problem of race. She also explores how traces of Asian American history live on through these figures. Each case study in Unquiet Tropes considers a different scenario defiance, coercion, necessity, error, and deceit to show how literary representation from the 1950s through 1997 has responded to a specific political condition.

Full Product Details

9781336189935

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available