Nobody knew writing about literature could be so complicated (?)

Okay, in truth I knew full well that writing about it would be plenty complicated. But I hadn't foreseen how much more complicated and tortuous I would find it than writing about my usual subjects.  I feel that it's going well (albeit slowly) as a substantive matter, but I keep getting lost for days at a time because something about my work so far in a given chapter perplexes me or seems wrong.

By contrast, last summer I twice wrote 10,000 word first drafts of tax articles in just three days - and then just had to polish them a bit, without further rethinking any of the basics. (They're available on SSRN here and here.)

Just as an example of the tangled pathways, and struggles to finalize overall framing and perspectives that have continually beset me in my book in progress about literature and high-end inequality, here are the three titles (so far) that I've had for my chapter about Mark Twain's and Charles Dudley Warner's The Gilded Age.

First, "Bleakness at Dawn: The Clang of a New Era in Mark Twain's and Charles Dudley Warner's The Gilded Age."

Then,"Anti-Success Manual?: Mark Twain's and Charles Dudley Warner's The Gilded Age."

Currently (and I'm hoping I finally have it), "Middle-Class Elitism in Mark Twain's and Charles Dudley Warner's The Gilded Age."

The issue here isn't what's the catchiest title, but what would well express the content of the chapter as I develop it. I keep adding layers and changing the angle of view (even though lots of the pieces are the same each way).

UPDATE: "Precociously Anti-Plutocratic Middle-Class Elitism in Mark Twain's and Charles Dudley Warner's The Gilded Age." But this one is too wordy, hence still a work in progress.