Henry Nash Smith

Henry Nash Smith (September 29, 1906 – June 6, 1986) was an American culture and literature researcher. He was co-founder of the academic discipline "American studies". He was also a noted Mark Twain scholar, and literary editor of Twain's papers.

His book "Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth" (1950) gave name to the Myth and Symbol School, which provided the paradigm of the "American Studies" until the 1980s. It was the first PhD thesis of the "History of American Civilization" course of the Harvard University, therefore its publication can be seen as the hour of birth of American studies. The book's topic was the collective perception of the American West of the 19^th century. Smith used sources such as dime novels and other popular culture material.

In his essay "Can American Studies Develop a Method?" (American Quarterly 9, 1957: 197-208), to date frequently anthologized, Smith expressed influential objectives and methodology of the "Myth and Symbol School".

He died on June 6, 1986, following a car accident on May 30 near Elko, Nevada.

Opus

*, 1950
*Mark Twain of the Enterprise, 1957
*Popular Culture and Industrialism 1865-1890, 1967
*Democracy and the Novel, 1978.

References

External links

* [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS/home.htm etext of "Virgin Land"]
* [http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/HNS2/synoptic.html Synopsis of "Virgin Land"]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0DE1D7163BF935A35755C0A960948260 New York Times obituary]
*worldcat id|lccn-n50-13433