The voicing of a diffuse language: Literature and republicanism in America's early national period

Kevin R Hicks, Purdue University

Abstract

The Purpose Of the present study is to investigate how a selection of American writers conceived of and gave voice to republican ideals in their works. Central to this effort is the contention that rather than being expressive of a coherent political or philosophical concept, republican rhetoric in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century America functioned as a flexible cultural signifier that offered people a means of both defining and calling into question the nature of the American experience. In effect, while most people agreed that America was a republican society, there was little consensus on exactly what that meant. As a result, I argue, the term was applied by various individuals and groups in society to justify their own political positions, attack the ideas of their rivals, express patriotic and nationalistic impulses, and argue for the need to reform society. In my readings of the literature of this era, I demonstrate that literary artists were often actively engaged in the debate over the nature and current state of republicanism in America. Whether it be Nathaniel Hawthorne's invocation of the term to illustrate the dangers of a national mythos of republican virtue, James Fenimore Cooper's attempt to negotiate an American identity between the contending forces of Liberalism and Classical Republicanism, or in the efforts of Mercy Otis Warren, Judith Sargent Murray, Margaret Fuller, and Frederick Douglass to draw upon a republican legacy to claim enhanced political and social status and rights for previously excluded groups in American society, republicanism proved to be an important rhetorical topos in shaping how these authors viewed American society.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Neufeldt, Purdue University.

Subject Area

American literature|American history

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