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Then, the general introduction acts as the main entryway which describes the floor plans and the range of the exhibits. The overarching essay at the beginning of each section will lead the reader into each of the historical periods, while given the limitations of space, each essay itself will serve not so much as a summary of information on the topic, but as another introduction, another entryway, into specific works, authors, and movements.
So profound have been the transformation of thought and perception that have occurred since 1948 that today we approach our task with a certain skepticism and wariness. In many respects, of course, this volume will have the appearance of a traditional literary history. Although chapters will discuss writers, issues, and genres not treated in earlier projects, there will be single-author essays, and the period divisions will be familiar ones. But in many internal respects, this book will contain much that is subversive to the very notion of a unified narrative of national expression. While recognizing that we cannot fully overcome our own ideological and historical predispositions, we are self-consciously attempting to create a work that will represent in its structure and content the complex and contradictory interplay of cultural forces and human expression that has occurred in something we call American literature. I hope it will capture something of the conflicts and tensions that characterize literary study in the 1980s and will leave its readers more informed and unsettled, rather than comforted and reassured.