Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Sinclair, Upton (Vol. 15) - Jon A. Yoder

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JON A. YODER

[If] literature is an attempt to place ideology before readers in an understandable way, an obvious spokesman becomes a convenient tool rather than a literary liability. In this way Sinclair hoped to produce "propaganda of vitality and importance"—propaganda defined by Sinclair as the spreading of democratic socialism. (pp. 12-13)

Far from a foreign ideology, Sinclair's concept of American socialism retained every significant aspect of an idealism often referred to as the American Dream. Sinclair's sermon was not advocation of dictatorship of an American proletariat by means of violent revolution. Rather than overthrowing traditional American values, he urged his audience to return to the vision that had, in his opinion, made American mankind's noblest attempt to achieve human brotherhood. (p. 13)

[The Jungle] called the attention of the world to Upton Sinclair. For his portrayal of Lithuanian peasants who come to America...

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1. Introduction
2. Van Wyck Brooks
3. Robert Cantwell
4. Granville Hicks
5. Malcolm Cowley
6. George J. Becker
7. Jon A. Yoder
8. Copyright

1. Upton Sinclair