"For the perusal of the young and thoughtless of the fair sex, this Tale
of Truth is designed; and I could wish my fair readers to consider it as
not merely the effusion of Fancy, but as a reality."
Rowson, Author's
Preface, "Charlotte Temple."
"Reader, be assured this narrative
is no fiction. I am aware that some of my adventures may seem incredible;
but they are, nevertheless, strictly true. I have not exaggerated the wrongs
inflicted by Slavery; on the contrary, my descriptions fall far short of
the facts . . ."
Linda Brent, Preface to "Incidents in the Life of a
Slave Girl"
During the first decades in which American fiction was written, authors frequently claimed that their stories were based on fact and truth. While this was a defensive strategy (deployed in opposition to the charge that novels were harmful fantasies), the appeal to real life suggests a connection between writers and their culture that post-1980 critics have found worthy of study.
This course reads early American fiction by such writers as Rowson (Charlotte TempleandLucy Temple), Murray (The Story of Margaretta), Foster (The Coquette), Brown (Ormond), Sedgwick (A New-England Tale), Poe ("Ligeia"), Hawthorne ("Rappaccini's Daughter"), Melville (Benito Cereno), Douglass ("The Heroic Slave"), and Stowe (Uncle Tom's Cabin) in relation to contemporaneous nonfiction. Such conjunctions lead to an awareness not only of the expanding canon of antebellum fiction but also of the cultural contexts within which it evolved. Topics we will follow across generic boundaries include gender roles, poverty, and slavery. Over the past two or three decades, Americanists have engaged in a lively discussion about the development of both high- and lowbrow writing in a time of western expansion, political compromise and reform, economic opportunity and hardship, and aesthetic conformity and experimentation. We will join this discussion. Resisting the temptation to rush the process of induction by leaping from specific materials to broad generalizations, we will concentrate on reading texts closely with an eye for potential interconnections between them. Since we will plunge directly into obscure but fascinating works (novels of seduction, political essays, reform tracts, newspaper stories and magazine articles), students taking the course should have some familiarity with antebellum literature and culture. Course work will include a 5-6 page research project and seminar presentation that will juxtapose materials from early periodicals with assigned readings, a take-home final exam, and a term essay (15-25 pages).Last Updated: 22-JAN-08