American Lonesome: The Work of Bruce Springsteen
Couldn't load pickup availability
About this book
American Lonesome: The Work of Bruce Springsteen begins with a visit to the Jersey Shore and ends with a meditation on the international legacy of Springsteens writing music and performances. Gavin Cologne-Brookess innovative study of this popular musician and his position in American culture blends scholarship with personal reflection providing both an academic examination of Springsteens work and a moving account of how it offers a way out of emotional solitude and the potential lonesomeness of modern life. Cologne-Brookes proposes that the American philosophical tradition of pragmatism which assesses the value of ideas and arguments based on their practical applications provides a lens for understanding the diversity of perspectives and emotions encountered in Springsteens songs and performances. Drawing on pragmatist philosophy from William James to Richard Rorty Cologne-Brookes examines Springsteens formative environment and outsider psychology arguing that the artists confessed tendency toward a self-reliant isolation creates a tension in his work between lonesomeness and community. He considers Springsteens portrayals of solitude in relation to classic and contemporary American writers from Frederick Douglass Nathaniel Hawthorne and Emily Dickinson to Richard Wright Flannery OConnor and Joyce Carol Oates. As part of this critique he discusses the difference between escapist and pragmatic romanticism the notion of multiple selves as played out both in Springsteens work and in our perception of him and the impact of performances both recorded and live. By drawing on his own experiences seeing Springsteen performincluding on tours showcasing the album The River in 1981 and 2016Cologne-Brookes creates a book about the intimate relationship between art and everyday life. Blending research cultural knowledge and creative thinking American Lonesome dissolves any imagined barriers between the study of a songwriter literary criticism and personal testimony.
