Author Description
After the War of 1812, Americans belatedly realized that they lacked national identity. The subsequent campaign to articulate nationality transformed every facet of culture from architecture to painting, and in the realm of letters, literary jingoism embroiled American authors in the heated politics of nationalism. The age demanded stirring images of U.S. virtue, often achieved by contriving myths and obscuring brutalities. Between these sanitized narratives of the nation and U.S. social reality lay a grotesque discontinuity: vehement conflicts over slavery, Indian removal, immigration, and territorial expansion divided the country. Authors such as Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Catharine M. Sedgwick, William Gilmore Simms, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Lydia Maria Child wrestled uneasily with the imperative to revise history to produce national fable. Counter-narratives by fugitive slaves, Native Americans, and defiant women subverted literary nationalism by exposing the plight of the unfree and dispossessed. And with them all, Edgar Allan Poe openly mocked literary nationalism and deplored the celebration of "stupid" books appealing to provincial self-congratulation. More than any other author, he personifies the contrary, alien perspective that discerns the weird operations at work behind the facade of American nation-building.
Menrva's Summary
THE THESIS
This book investigates the tension between the mid-19th-century American imperative to construct a unified national identity through literature and the reality of a fractured, violent social landscape. J. Gerald Kennedy, a scholar of American literature, analyzes how authors navigated the pressure to produce national fables while simultaneously addressing or obscuring the country's internal conflicts. By examining the works of canonical writers alongside counter-narratives from marginalized voices, the text argues that literary nationalism functioned as a mechanism for both myth-making and the suppression of historical brutality.
THE SCOPE MAP
What You Will Find
- Analysis of literary nationalism in the post-War of 1812 era.
- Comparative studies of canonical authors like Cooper and Hawthorne against counter-narratives from fugitive slaves and Native Americans.
- Examination of Edgar Allan Poe’s role as a critic of provincial literary trends.
Scope Limits
- The analysis focuses primarily on the mid-19th century and does not extend to late-century or modern developments in American literary identity.
THE AUTHORITY PERSPECTIVE
Scholars and critics recognize this work as a rigorous examination of the intersection between political nationalism and creative expression in early American history. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose, which provides a nuanced look at how literature was weaponized to shape national consciousness.
Page Count:
448
Publication Date:
2016-01-01
ISBN-10:
0190490616
ISBN-13:
9780190490614
History
Cultural History
Literary Criticism
19th Century
American Studies