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SoSe 16: Writing the Early Republic: Death, Seduction, Wandering

Mary Ann Snyder-Körber

Comments

"These are the times that try men's souls," wrote the firebrand Thomas Paine in 1776. His more specific reference is to the armed struggle for American independence from Britain. However, Paine's diagnosis of anxiety, trial, and soul-renting struggle in regards to the United States applies long after that political independence was won. This course explores the promises, but even more intently the perils of US-American nation building from the late 18th to the early 19th century. Class meetings alternate between contextualizing sessions in which we explore key issues of the period and case-study sessions in which we focus on specific texts and genres. Our itinerary begins with sentimental narratives of sex and death: the Lucinda episode in Joel Barlow's The Columbiad (1807), Susanna Rowson's Charlotte Temple: A Tale of Truth (1791) and/or Hannah Foster's The Coquette (1797). We then continue with "wandering" tales that map the nation through travel and letter writing such as J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer (1782) along with satiric variations. Fears regarding captivity will consequently concern us as we consider Native American "haunting" of the new nation in Charles Brocken Brown's Edgar Huntly (1799) together with the paranoia regarding foreign contaminations detectible in texts like The Algerine Captive (1797) by Royall Tyler. Our investigation will conclude with the fictions of espionage penned by Peter Markow in The Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania (1787) and James Fenimore Cooper in The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground (1821). Recommendations: As eighteenth-century novels are not just full of tears, rage, deception, and seduction, but are also often rather long, I strongly recommend acquainting yourself with at least a few of the case-study texts before the semester begins: either by purchasing a newer edition or dipping into online collections like HathiTrust Digital Library or archive.org that offer access to a range of historical editions. close

13 Class schedule

Regular appointments

Thu, 08:30 - 10:00 13 Class schedule

Thu, 2016-04-21 08:30 - 10:00

Lecturers:
PD Dr. MaryAnn Snyder-Körber