McTeague as Metafiction?: Frank Norris’ Parodies of Bret Harte and the Dime Novel

Brief narrative, at first thought, connotes the abridged fiction of low grade with which American magazines are now saturated; but as soon as the term is used to cover the whole field in modern literature, it calls to mind a genre which, under various names, has risen to a position of dignity in many places in the world and has worthily engaged the attention of literary historians, particularly in America and in Germany.The chief features in the development of the form in the United States and England have been discussed at length, and there is now a definitive record, with abundant bibliographical apparatus, of its evolution. Poe is looked upon as the pioneer, and his perpetually quoted definition (1842) has set a standard for the majority of the practitioners of the art in the English language. The form suggests, for America, such experts as Hawthorne, Bret Harte, and Henry James; in England it does not gain the attention of writers of the first magnitude until near the end of the century, in the persons of Stevenson and Kipling.

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Frank Norris and the Frontier as Popular Idea in America

Frank Norris and American Naturalism ◽

10.2307/j.ctv11wjwf.7 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 17-32

Keyword(s):

Frank Norris

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Chapter Ten. The Changing Cowboy: From Dime Novel to Dollar Film

10.7560/303757-012 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 115-124

Author(s):

George Bluestone

Keyword(s):

Dime Novel

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Naturalist Smellscapes and Environmental Justice

The Smell of Risk ◽

10.18574/nyu/9781479807215.003.0003 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 56-84

Author(s):

Hsuan L. Hsu

Keyword(s):

Environmental Justice ◽

Frank Norris ◽

Ann Petry ◽

Airborne Particulates ◽

Helena Maria Viramontes

Chapter 2 traces formal and thematic connections between naturalist fiction and environmental justice narratives by analyzing their pervasive, underexamined references to smell. In representative works by Frank Norris, Ann Petry, and Helena María Viramontes, descriptions of noxious odors indicate spaces and experiences of atmospheric intoxication as characters take airborne particulates into their bodies. Thus, olfactory references—whether they take the form of extensive or offhand descriptions, and whether or not characters are fully conscious of their implications—stage the biopolitical effects of unevenly distributed atmospheric risks.

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