19th-Century American Literature

Religious Self-Reliance

by Randy Friedman

Pluralist (Spring 2012)

Self-reliance is too often read as a celebration by Emerson of the secular, self-reliant individual. My reading has... more Self-reliance is too often read as a celebration by Emerson of the secular, self-reliant individual. My reading has Emerson discovering a religiosity which does not depend on an adherence to a particular religious tradition or supernatural revelation. I call this religious self-reliance. Emerson, influenced by James Marsh and William Ellery Channing, rejects the theology which in part follows Locke’s empiricism and leaves the individual in need of spiritual guidance through traditional forms of divine Revelation. Instead, Emerson turns to Reason, identified as the moral or religious sentiment. The Over-soul which the moral sentiment uncovers represents the ultimate grounding of the self, and its revelation serves as the basis for religious self-reliance.

Love, Loss, Death, and Hope: The Egyptian Voice of Edgar Allan Poe.

by Emily James

Masters Thesis. Defended November 1, 2011.

CFP: "Theory Mad Beyond Redemption": The Post-Kantian Poe (Abstracts Due: April 30)

by Jonathan Murphy

Special issue of _The Edgar Allan Poe Review_, forthcoming in Fall 2012, guest-edited by Sean Moreland, Devin Zane Shaw, and Jonathan Murphy

Review Essay: Reading the Republic: Interdisciplinarity on the Barricades

by David M. Stewart

Connecticut History 40: 1 (Spring 2001) 147-159 (on Laura Rigal, The American Manufactory: Art, Labor, and the World of Things in the Early Republic [Princeton UP, 1998]).

Essay on Ideology and Gender in "The Oval Portrait" by Edgar Allan Poe

by benan orhon

Analysis of power of ideologies in the story as a cultural product and as a culture-producing instrument recruiting and naturalizing social gender roles.

Analysis of power of ideologies in the story as a cultural product and as a culture-producing instrument recruiting... more Analysis of power of ideologies in the story as a cultural product and as a culture-producing instrument recruiting and naturalizing social gender roles.

“The old race are all gone”: Transatlantic Bloodlines and English Traits

by Christopher Hanlon

Embodied Eloquence, the Sumner Assault, and the Transatlantic Cable

by Christopher Hanlon

Analogical Medievalism and Transatlantic Races: A Response to Andrew Galloway

by Christopher Hanlon

"Consuming George Thompson"

by David M. Stewart

American Literature 80:2 (June 2008)

“The Disorder of Libraries”

by David M. Stewart

The Library Quarterly 76: 4 (October 2006)

Power Play: Emily Dickinson’s Investigatory Poetics of Gender

by Zoey Wyn Nelson

Currently seeking a journal for publication.

"The Other Heading of America: Derrida and Emerson on the Future of an Illusion"

by Jonathan Murphy

Published in _The Comparatist_ 36 (2012): 43-66.

This essay casts 9/11 as a traumatic site of contestation where the future of American patriotism remains to be... more This essay casts 9/11 as a traumatic site of contestation where the future of American patriotism remains to be decided. I argue that Derrida’s notion of democracy to come is born of his deconstructive critique of Kant’s doctrine of transcendental illusion, and that Emerson’s inoperative approach to America is guided by this same aporetic imperative of thought. What Emerson and Derrida give us pause to consider is that the victims of 9/11 might not be regarded as collateral damage of an ineluctably inhuman nature, but as posthumous martyrs whose more than tragic lives commemorate both an exceptional idea of America and the exceptional event of democracy to come.

Jim’s Language and the Issue of Race in Huckleberry Finn

by Lisa Minnick

Language and Literature 10:2, 2001

"Hawthorne's Illusive Garment of Visibility in 'Monsieur du Miroir.'"

by Jonathan Murphy

Published in _The Nathaniel Hawthorne Review_ 37.1 (2011): 37-61.

Hawthorne was a studied reader of the major philosophical, religious, and literary movements of his time well before... more Hawthorne was a studied reader of the major philosophical, religious, and literary movements of his time well before the official advent of Idealism in New England. In “Monsieur du Miroir” (1836), he pits the claims of dogmatism and skepticism against each other on the redemptive power of reflection. Although “Monsieur du Miroir” closes on an ambiguous note, the author's expressed ambivalence in this tale is internal to American transcendentalism. His vacillation between faith and disbelief in human freedom should not, therefore, be interpreted as his vulgar rejection of this philosophical system. On the contrary, in the years to come, Hawthorne would adopt a decidedly more optimistic resolution to the problem of metaphysics, thereby overcoming the stalemate betwen dogmatism and skepticism, and completing the full circuit of his transcendental conversion in thought.

Judith Hutter’s Stunted Growth in James F. Cooper’s The Deerslayer

by Celestine Woo

Midwest Quarterly 37.4 (1996): 422-433. Published under name Celestine W. Liu.

The Poet of the Merge: Creation Of American Identity and Post-Imperialist Nationalism Through the Poetry of Whitman

by Marc Mancinelli

Master's Thesis, 2005

America in the 19th century was a nation that struggled with divisiveness in its population. Race and class... more America in the 19th century was a nation that struggled with divisiveness in its population. Race and class differences were two central points of division in a country that would endure debates over slavery, contrasting industrial and agrarian lives, chasms between the wealthy and the poor, and racial prejudice and conflict— all of which would contribute to the Civil War. Walt Whitman saw the need for unification and sought to become the “Poet of America” who could unite the various divisions of the United States through his poetry. Whitman’s preface to his original, 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass called the U.S. “the greatest poem,” and lauded the tenets of democracy and equality extended to all peoples wishing to live within its borders. For America to fulfill its great potential, a culture of unity and nationalism would need to be imparted on the people, something that could happen, Whitman hoped, through his poetry.
This study examines the evolution of nationalism as a concept, and various manifestations of nationalism in Europe and America. The tendency of nationalism in the 18th and 19th centuries to devolve into colonialism led the idea of nationalism to become suspect at times. The potential, then, is to use Whitman’s ideals of equality and enthusiasm for democracy to construct a Post-imperial Nationalism which maintains domestic patriotism without mutating into jingoistic colonialism.
Whitman’s question, “Who need be afraid of the merge?” in 1855’s “Song of Myself” challenges the reader to accept the merging of the varied cultures and backgrounds of America into a single, unified American race. Throughout Leaves of Grass, Whitman demonstrates the characteristics of an American living within his idea of this nationalistic “merge.” He celebrates the optimistic, the nature-loving, the egalitarian, and the working-class with deep reverence— creating a kind of “Blue-collar Romanticism,” that can function as the ethos of a unified America.
Whitman’s vision is clouded, however, by contradictions within himself and within America. Both poet and nation were unable to fully move beyond the limitations of racial prejudice that were rampant in the 19th century. While Whitman openly wished to see slavery ended, he could not rectify the presence of blacks— nor Native Americans— in his vision of America’s future. Similarly, the United States spoke of equality, yet struggled to extend full civil rights to blacks, even after slavery was abolished.
Ultimately, this study concludes that it is feasible to use Whitman’s poetry as a starting point for the creation of a unifying American identity. As America’s “experiment” in democracy in 1776 led to a world in which similar democracies are considered the norm, the country can now serve as a model for both unity and a Post-imperial Nationalism which does not seek to enhance itself through the oppression of others, but through domestic perfecting.

“Gender Reversal and Cultural Critique in Frances Osgood’s Poetry.”

by Michael Chaney

from American Transcendental Quarterly 14 (2000): 5-26.

Heartfelt Thanks to Punch for the Picture: Frederick Douglass and the Transnational Jokework of Slave Caricature

by Michael Chaney

“Heartfelt Thanks to Punch for the Picture: Frederick Douglass and the Transnational Jokework of Slave Caricature.” American Literature 82.1 (2010): 57-90.

A Separate Star: Selected Writings of Helen Hunt Jackson (review)

by Raúl Coronado

The Poetics of Descent: Irreversible Narrative in Poe's 'MS. Found in a Bottle'

by Robert Tally

Originally published in "Studies in Irreversibility: Texts and Contexts," ed. Benjamin Schreier (Newcastle, UK : Cambridge Scholars, 2007), 83-98.

Tally argues that Poe's irreversible narrative in "MS. Found in a Bottle" offers an alternative narrative... more Tally argues that Poe's irreversible narrative in "MS. Found in a Bottle" offers an alternative narrative trajectory to that of the popular personal narratives of his day, whose typical trajectory was one of descent-and-return.  In Poe's poetics of descent, the comforting return to the familiar is unavailable, leaving the reader in a perplexing no-place that cannot easily be assimilated into the national imagination.