02 July 2004 at 12:23 PM, post #32

Elizabeth Annotation #6

Beverly R. Voloshin. “Wieland: Accounting for Appearances." The New England Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 3. (Sep., 1986), pp. 341-357.

Beverly R. Voloshin, in “Weiland: Accounting for Appearances” argues that Charles Brockden Brown uses the form of the Gothic novel to critique the new American society. She writes, “Brown renders a world in frightening flux, where appearance, motive, and character are ambiguous, and in representing that world, he expresses some of the uncertainties of his own post-Revolutionary society” (341). Characters, especially the main character of Clara Wieland express a hesitation of both action and narration that leads the reader to question her authority.

Voloshin also points out that the gothic novel was a quite apt form of writing for early Americans because the form, like the society was overly concerned with perceptions of character and society. In his novels, Brown therefore concentrates on the intense sensations of his characters and leads the readers to doubt the channels of communication between not only the characters but also between the narrator and reader. Voloshin also comments that Brown’s novels follow many of the same lines of analysis as does Lockean philosophy, which largely explains why “Brown has brought Clara to a crisis in her attitude toward rationality. If there is no empirical evidence for the fit between mind and nature, Brown asks, what values remain? What sense can be made out of this kind of universe? Clara finds the answer – none” (349).

02 July 2004 at 12:19 PM, post #31

Elizabeth Annotation #5

Looby, Christopher. Voicing America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996.

In Voicing America, Christopher Looby argues that it was less the written word of the American Revolution than the spoken word that defined its political course and aftermath. The book is divided into four parts: chapter one, entitled “Logocracy in America,” speaks to the importance of speech and reason in the infant nation, and chapters two through four discuss how the concept of spoken voice is treated by three influential authors of the day.

In order to explain the profound importance of linguistics eighteenth-century America, Looby points out that speech was one of the few qualities that united Americans. Unlike England, America was not made up of all people of the same general background, race, or religion. Instead of relying on these unifying factors, Americans were forced to find another trait through which they could become a coherent group. Spoken language, according to Looby, was just that link. At the advent of the United States, Americans began creating and speaking American English, in large part to distinguish themselves from the British. Words like “liberty” took on contemporary, more egalitarian (and therefore more American) meanings during the late 1700s. At this time, voice was also conflated more and more with political influence. Looby comments that many founders and historians have noted that America was “spoken into existence.” This influence of language was encouraged by the founding fathers. Like in the French Revolution, it was believed that a new system of language would encourage a complete change of society and also prevent counterrevolution. According to Looby, “linguistic change may be an instrument of political revolution, and … perhaps it is after a revolutionary war that language’s instrumentality is most powerful” (50, emphasis original).

The next three chapters focus on Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, Charles Brockden Brown Wieland, and Henry Brackenridge’s Modern Chivalry, These three chapters examine how these three figures analyzed the importance of voice in the early years of the American Republic. In Autobiography, Franklin emphasizes the social aspect of speech, and lists among its most important qualities that it brings people together and creates cohesion. Although revolution never explicitly mentioned, Franklin believes strongly that the new nation, through its new social and linguistic traditions had set up “a profound antirevolutionary bias” (101). As opposed to Franklin, Brown’s writing is much more explicitly political. Most of the interactions in Wieland are verbal, and it is clear that ability to speak is directly related to one’s political power. In Weiland, there are all sorts of obstructions of speech, most of which result in the diminishment of power of the speaker. Finally, in Brackenridge’s Modern Chivalry, much more allowance is made for difference of voice and opinion than in the works of the other two writers. Differences are not always bad – they can rather create new and better options.

The overall message of Voicing America is that linguistic similarities and the development of a linguistic voice is what came to characterize the people and ideology of America. At the time, it not only unified Americans, but it allowed for the formation of a stable union, one that was able, in a remarkably short time, to grow into a quite mature, united nation.

Updated 2 July 2004, 12:20 PM

02 July 2004 at 12:14 PM, post #30

Elizabeth Annotation #4

Paul M. Spurlin. “The Founding Fathers and the French Language.” The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 60, No. 3. (Mar., 1976), pp. 85-96.

“The Founding Fathers and the French Language,” by Paul M. Spurlin is a study of early Americans’ desire to learn the French language. Spurlin begins his article by explaining historical reception of French in the colonial and early postcolonial years of America. Before the Revolution, he aruges, interest in French was slowly developing largely because of the political animosity between Britain and France. Additionally, many colonials associated French with Catholicism, a moral force that was to be stridently avoided. What’s more, the more classically-based education of most Americans, based on the languages of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, precluded the possibility of any serious study of the more modern and practical language of French.

However, Spurlin writes, as early Americans began to break away from the British in the pre- and post-Revolutionary period, their interest in both the French people and language began to grow. The French gave much aid to the Americans as they were rebelling against the British, and therefore not only were the Americans much more enamored of the French, but they had more day-to-day contact with them. Learning French thus became important for practical and political leaders. As Spurlin points out, because of this new influence, “Countless individuals learned French here in the course of the century, however good, bad, or quaint their pronunciation might have been” (90).

In the second half of his his article, Spurlin goes on to comment on the French education and abilities of several major American Revoltionary figures: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, Governeur Morris, and Benjamin Rush. Although the education and experience of these figures vary, Spurlin points out that all of these men were not only fluent in the language, but had significant exposure to the nation of France during their lifetime.

02 July 2004 at 12:13 PM, post #29

Elizabeth Annotation #3

Robert A. Ferguson. “Literature and Vocation in the Early Republic: The Example of Charles Brockden Brown.” Modern Philology, Vol. 78, No. 2. (Nov., 1980), pp. 139-152.

In “Literature and Vocation in the Early Republic” Robert Ferguson writes in detail of Charles Brockden Brown’s career path. He begins his article by discussing Brown’s original profession – law. Although he quickly grew to disdain the profession, and almost as quickly quit the law in favor of writing, Brown always paid a great deal of attention to lawyers in his writing. Their role in Brown’s novels displays not only Brown’s opinions of the profession, but of the role of law itself in the young United States.

In novels such as Stephen Calvert, the main character (a lawyer) is the only one who is really capable of survival. More than anyone else, Stephen succeeds. However, Brown’s distaste of lawyers wins out in the end when Stephen “eventually loses everything, including his own identity” (145). While lawyers tend to win out (at least in the short term), law itself is usually depicted in its “inapplicability to real problems or its shallowness as a solution to these problems” (146). In this respect, Ferguson points out, Brown advocates a similar position to William Godwin’s in Caleb Williams: good characters are almost completely unable to rely on law for protection. Also as in Caleb Williams, bad characters are able to bend the law for their own evil purposes.

At the end of his article, Ferguson explain the reasoning behind Brown’s apparent contempt of both the law and lawyers. He writes; “The key to … the entire career of America’s first major novelist can be seen in a favorite quotation of Shakespeare that Brown placed on the pen of Arthur Mervyn. Asked to share Welbeck’s commercial schemes, Arthur slowly writes, ‘my poverty, but not my will, consents’ (2:51)” (152).

02 July 2004 at 12:08 PM, post #28

Elizabeth Annotation #2

William C. Spengemann. "American Writers and English Literature." ELH, Vol. 52, No. 1. (Spring, 1985), pp. 209-238.

In "American Writers and English Literature," William Spengemann seeks to redefine American literature in the context of the transatlantic community. While much of American literary tradition rests on the attempt to separate American literature from English literature, Spengemann argues that American literature can not be understood without the context of the British. In the first days of the United States, one of the reasons American literature so desired autonomy was that literay independence was strongly linked with political independence. The reasoning at the time was that if Americans were able to distinguish themselves in the field of literature, they should also be able to do so in the political spectrum.

The problem with this approach to American literature, Spengemann argues, is that it is almost entirely inseparable from English literature. Not only are both written in the same language, but they often explore the same ideas, and are based on the same literary precedents. According to Spengemann, “The tacit agreement among scholars of American literature to study only works written in English and, at the same time, to forget that they are written in English has led to a great deal of nonsense” (214).

This "nonsense" refers to incomplete, or even incorrect interpretations of much literature on both sides of the Atlantic. Spengmann argues that British literature is indispensable in its ability to illuminate American literature, and American literature can be equally helpful in understanding British literature. In order to gain a thorough understanding of writers on both sides of the Atlantic, it's important to understand the context in which these people wrote. And to do this, American literature and British literature must be studied side by side.

02 July 2004 at 12:02 PM, post #27

Elizabeth Annotation #1

Giles, Paul. Transatlantic Insurrections. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.

In Transatlantic Insurrections, Paul Giles argues that "the development of American Literature appears in a different light when read against the grains of British culutural imperatives, just as British literature itself reveals strange and unfamiliar aspects that are brought into play by the reflecting mirrors of American discourse" (1). American literature of the early republic sought to consciously separate itself from the British influence in order to develop a uniquely American genre. In the course of his book, Giles examines the work of British and American authors, and explains how their work not only plays off one another, but the transatlantic political trends of the time.

In the first two chapters, Giles discusses poetry. His main point is that early American poets drew heavily from the work of Alexander Pope. Although Pope's influence has been "smothered by subsequent naturalizations of romantics, as nationalist ideology"(22), Giles points to such early American poets as Mather Byles, Timothy Dwight, and John Trumbull as examples of Pope's sizable influence. The remaining chapters also deal explore the mutual influences of important American and British intellectual figures. These chapters analyze in depth the work of Americans Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Richardson, Thomas Jefferson, and Samuel Hawthorne; and Britons Laurence Sterne, Edmund Burke, Jane Austen, Washington Irving, and Anthony Trollope.

In the conclusion of his book, Giles points out that much of the way in which British writers and thinkers influenced Americans was to provide them with opposition and to give them something against which to argue. Again justifying his comparative approach to literature, he points out that it is "easier to see what American literature embraces and omits by comparing it to British literature, just as American literature from a reverse perspective might have been, but wasn't" (195).

22 June 2004 at 5:44 PM, post #22

Robert A. Ferguson. Literature and Vocation in the Early Republic: The Example of Charles Brockden Brown. Modern Philology, Vol. 78, No. 2. (Nov., 1980), pp. 139-152.

Robert Ferguson, in “Literature and Vocation in the Early Republic” writes in detail of Charles Brockden Brown’s career path. He begins his article by discussing Brown’s original profession – a lawyer. Although he quickly grew to disdain the profession, and almost as quickly quit the law in favor of writing, Brown never really escaped the influence of law. Lawyers appear repeatedly in his writing, and their role in Brown’s novels displays not only Brown’s opinions of the profession, but of the role of law itself in the young United States.
In novels such as Stephen Calvert, the main character (a lawyer) is the only one who is really capable to survive in the world. More than anyone else, Stephen succeeds. However, Brown’s distaste of lawyers wins out in the end when Stephen “eventually loses everything, including his own identity” (145). While lawyers tend to win out (at least in the short term), law itself is usually depicted in its “inapplicability to real problems or its shallowness as a solution to these problems” (146). In this respect, Ferguson points out, Brown advocates a similar position to William Godwin’s in Caleb Williams: good characters are almost completely unable to rely on law for protection. Also as in Caleb Williams, bad characters are able to bend the law for their own evil purposes.
At the end of his article, Ferguson attempts to explain the reasoning behind Brown’s apparent contempt of both the law and lawyers. He writes: “The key to … the entire career of America’s first major novelist can be seen in a favorite quotation of Shakespeare that Brown placed on the pen of Arthur Mervyn. Asked to share Welbeck’s commercial schemes, Arthur slowly writes, ‘my poverty, but not my will, consents’ (2:51)” (152).

22 June 2004 at 5:03 PM, post #20

Just kidding. Replace that article with "Literature and Vocation in the Early Republic: the Example of Charles Brockden Brown" by Robert A. Ferguson. Sorry.

22 June 2004 at 4:50 PM, post #19

Change of pace: instead of the Ziff book, I'm going to to an article by Donald Pease: "New Americanists: Revisionist Interventions into the Canon"

22 June 2004 at 4:37 PM, post #18

Looby, Christopher. Voicing America. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996.

In Voicing America, Christopher Looby argues that it was not so much the written word of the American Revolution as the spoken word that defined its political course and aftermath. The book is divided into four parts: chapter one, entitled “Logocracy in America” speaks to the importance of speech and reason in the infant nation, and chapters two through four discuss how the concept of spoken voice is treated by three influential authors of the day.
In order to explain the profound importance of linguistics eighteenth-century America, Looby points out that speech was one of the few qualities that united Americans. Unlike England, America was not made up of all people of the same general background, race, or religion. Instead of relying on these unifying factors, therefore, Americans were forced to find another trait through which they could become a coherent group. Spoken language, according to Looby, was just that link. At the advent of the United States, Americans began creating and speaking American English, in large part to distinguish themselves from the British. Words like “liberty” took on new, more egalitarian (and therefore more American) meanings during the late 1700s. At this time, voice was also conflated more and more with political influence. Looby comments that many founders and historians have noted that America was “spoken into existence.” This influence of language was encouraged by the founding fathers. Like in the French Revolution, it was believed that a new system of language would encourage a complete change of society and also prevent counterrevolution. According to Looby, “linguistic change may be an instrument of political revolution, and … perhaps it is after a revolutionary war that language’s instrumentality is most powerful” (50).
The next three chapters focus on Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography, Charles Brockden Brown Wieland, and Henry Brackenridge’s Modern Chivalry. These three chapters examine how these three figures analyzed the importance of voice in the early years of the American Republic. In Autobiography, Franklin emphasizes the social aspect of speech, and lists among its most important qualities that it brings people together and creates cohesion. Although revolution never explicitly mentioned, Franklin believes strongly that the new nation, through its new social and linguistic traditions had set up “a profound antirevolutionary bias” (101). As opposed to Franklin, Brown’s writing is much more explicitly political. Most of the interactions in Wieland are verbal, and it is clear that ability to speak is directly related to one’s political power. In Weiland, there are all sorts of abstructions of speech, most of which result in the diminishment of power of the speaker. Finally, in Brackenridge’s Modern Chivalry, much more allowance is made for difference of voice and opinion than in the works of the other two writers. Differences are not always bad – they can rather create new and better options.
The overall message of Voicing America is that linguistic similarities and the development of a linguistic voice is what came to characterize the people and ideology of America. At the time, it not only unified Americans, but it allowed for the formation of a stable union, one that was able, in a remarkably short time, to grow into a quite mature, united nation.

21 June 2004 at 3:52 PM, post #4

Ok, guys: here's my list of annotations for the week:

My two books. Which are Voicing America and Transatlantic Insurrections.
The First New Nation: The United States in Historical and Comparative Perspective by Seymour Martin Lipset
Writing in the New Nation: Prose, Print, and Politics in the Early United States by Larzer Ziff (which, by the way, is the best name ever)
Declaring Indepedence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance by Jay Fliegelmann (also a pretty awesome name)
Writing and Postcolonialism in the Early Republic by Edward Watts
A New World of Words: Redefining Early American Literature by William Spengemann
Second Stories: The Politics of Language, Form, and Gender in early American Fictions by Cynthia Jordan

Updated 21 June 2004, 3:53 PM

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