The American television hero as a novelist of himself: language as Tópos in Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men.

Amezcua, David

Publication:
The American television hero as a novelist of himself: language as Tópos in Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men.

dc.contributor.author	Amezcua, David
dc.contributor.department	Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Facultad de Filología. Departamento de Estudios Ingleses, Lingüística y Literatura.	es
dc.date.accessioned	2025-07-16T11:15:09Z
dc.date.available	2025-07-16T11:15:09Z
dc.date.issued	2025
dc.description.abstract	This article tackles the manifestations of American literary themes in Matthew Weiner’s “Mad Men”. I contend that the transmedial alignment of TV series and literature heightens our understanding of fundamental myths of American exceptionalism. This paper studies the role of language at script level as a site or “tópos” where the protagonist’s constant reinvention occurs. Moreover, it provides an interdiscursive analysis of Frank O’Hara’s “Mayakovsky” and John Cheever’s “The Swimmer” to show their thematic connection, which is the transition from old to new life. This theme possesses an axiomatic role in the genesis of this show, suggesting a tight intermedial relationship between the show’s scripts and the two literary works I will analyze. On the basis of my analysis, I suggest that reading this TV series as literature is possible if we consider both the show’s thematic connection with American literary themes and its multiple literary references.	en
dc.format	application/pdf	es
dc.format.extent	16	es
dc.identifier.citation	Amezcua, D. (2025). The American Television Hero as a Novelist of Himself: Language as Tópos in Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men . International Journal of English Studies, 25(1), 203–218. https://doi.org/10.6018/ijes.615291
dc.identifier.doi	https://doi.org/10.6018/ijes.615291
dc.identifier.issn	1578-7044
dc.identifier.issn	1989-6131 (Internet)
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10201/157455
dc.language	eng	es
dc.publisher	Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones.	es
dc.relation	This paper is the result of the research project “Transferences in literature and discourse. Poetics, Rhetoric and Comparative Perspectives. Theoretical construction of a Transferential Critique”. Reference: PID2023-148361NB-I00, funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation ofSpain and the European Union. Acknowledgements are owed to Real Colegio Complutense de Harvard for allowing access to library sources during my funded research stay at Harvard University (July–August 2024).	en
dc.rights	info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess	es
dc.rights	Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional	*
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/	*
dc.subject	Mad Men	en
dc.subject	Transmediality	en
dc.subject	American TV series	en
dc.subject	TV series as literature	en
dc.subject	Literary Transduction	en
dc.subject	American Exceptionalism	en
dc.subject	The Great American Novel	en
dc.subject.other	CDU::8- Lingüística y literatura	es
dc.title	The American television hero as a novelist of himself: language as Tópos in Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men.	en
dc.type	info:eu-repo/semantics/article	es
dspace.entity.type	Publication	es