The transcendentalist turn of the new post-postmodern American literature

Abstract

This article responds to the debate in the field of literary theory around the nature of post-postmodern American novels. While some authors claimed at the turn of the millennium that the novel was dead, a new genera-tion of American writers were responsi-ble for a new engagement with the gen-re on the part of the public. With this in mind, this study seeks to shed light on the nature of the literature written by young novelists seeking to distance themselves from the dead end of post-modernism. Our premise is that during the crisis that brings about a rethinking of the concept of postmodernity, the young American authors turned their gaze towards ideas from American tran-scendentalism as a tool to recover the unfinished Project of modernity.