“A Garden of Forking Paths”: Reimagining Dreiser (Dreiser’s Path: A View With a Modern Lens. Edited by Irina V. Morozova. Moscow: RSUH Publ., 2023. 206 p.)

Abstract

The review focuses on the collective monograph Dreiser’s Path: A View with a Modern Lens (2023). The scholarly work reevaluates Dreiser's significance as a classic of American literature and offers a contemporary perspective on his legacy through the lens of modern methodologies such as critical race theory, postcolonial theory, gender theory, etc. The attention of prominent researchers in American literature and culture from Russia, the USA, Canada, and the UK is drawn to Dreiser's contradictory and hermetic view of society and its artistic projection. The monograph reevaluates Dreiser's creative legacy, considering both major and well-known works as well as minor forms. The researchers featured in the monograph highlight the reasons why certain laws operate in Dreiser's artistic world, align Dreiser's value system with the social norms prevailing during his time, typologize the components of Dreiser's texts, and theorize them using contemporary methodological tools. They also juxtapose Dreiser's texts with other artifacts of American culture and demonstrate the evolution of Dreiser's perception from the times of the USSR to the present day. The monograph was conceived in 2021 as a special tribute to Theodore Dreiser to mark his 150 anniversary.

Keywords

• review
• american naturalism
• american realism
• social criticism
• dreiser