The Dark Stain: The Role of Innate Depravity in American Literature, 1620-1940

Covering over 300 years of American literary history, Mages shows the continuing influence of a theme that originated even before this country was a nation. Strong linkages are made with the nature of American puritanism, the Indian frontier, romanticism and decadence as literary modes. Authors as disparate as Cotton Mather, Edgar Allen Poe, Henry James, Hart Crane, D. H. Lawrence, and William Faulkner are explored and imaginatively discussed.