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American Lit I
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Secondary |19th Century Primary Sources

Here you'll find, in PDF format, a series of secondary sources on topics from American Puritanism to Transcendentalism

To view these files, you may (if it's not already installed on your computer) have to download and install the FREE (that's free) reader.  Click here to be directed to the Adobe website page which contains the reader (did I mention it was free?). 

Secondary

American History Through Literature 1820-1870
A fine print source now available online. As the title suggests, it's a great source for a cultural view of literature. The link takes you to a table of contents -- scroll through all of them to get a sense of the coverage.

Bibliography of Secondary Sources for the Study of American Literature

The best starting point is the series The Cambridge History of American Literature edited by Sacvan Bercovitch et al. Divided into several books (organized by chronology and genre), the volumes you should acquaint yourself with for this course are Volume I: 1590-1820 and Prose Writing 1820-1864 Volume II (these are well worth a birthday or Christmas present [though a bit pricey]).

You should also get a good, brief overview of world literature (I strongly recommend The Reader's Companion to World Literature by Lillian Herlands Hornstein), that lists authors and provides book synopses and other information. It'll help familiarize the names and themes of various writers (and make you sound more intelligent at cocktail parties - or beer blasts).

I recently discovered two books I wish I had as an undergraduate -- A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature by Wilfred L. Guerin (and those erstwhile companions) et al. Published by Norton, it takes a core set of readings -- Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress," Shakespeare's Hamlet, Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown," and Walker's "Everyday Use" -- and illustrates different ways of reading them. This is a perfect introduction to literary criticism -- and well written to boot.

The second text is Lois Tyson's Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, which explains several contemporary approaches to literature (psychoanalytic, Marxist, feminist, etc.) and, most importantly, lists a series of questions each type of critics asks.

The texts which follow are by some of the major critics in American literature. Reading these works should prepare you for further study in the field.

Baym, Nina. Women's Fiction: A Guide to Novels by and about Women in America (1820-1870), 1978. As the title suggests, this is an overview of "Women's Fiction" which sets out the primary themes of the genre, and analyzes many of the important texts (many of which are in the primary list). Lucid and engaging, it is an exemplar of historical and analytical research.

Douglas, Ann. The Feminization of American Culture, 1977. A jeremiad against nineteenth sentimentality, best read in tandem with Tompkins' Sensational Designs. Its strength lies in the details of its argument, which provide a vivid portrait of religious life in ante and post bellum America. And since religion was the guiding social force, it amounts to a cultural reading of the period.

Reynolds, David. Beneath the American Renaissance, 1989. A fascinating look at the popular readings that both fed and rebelled against established (read middle-class) culture. By contrasting and comparing less known but more popular writers with the American canon of Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Dickinson, Poe, and Hawthorne, this book breaths life into the period, illustrating the culture's fears and desires by what they read. Reynolds ranges widely, quoting from many long forgotten sources which fill in the background of our lives. He reminds us that audiences have long wanted sex, violence, and crime in their entertainments - and they have always gotten what they wanted.

Slotkin, Richard. Regeneration Through Violence The Mythology of the American Frontier, 1600-1860. While throughout his text Slotkin promotes a particular argument (that our culture is based upon myths and shaped by violence), this is one of the most invigorating readings on Colonial American literature that I've come across. He deconstructs the many myths of America, and in the process illustrates the way words shape meaning, and in turn, shape culture.

Tompkins, Jane. Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860, 1985. Similar to Reynolds, Tompkins is interested in, as she notes, "what kind of work is this novel trying to do?" (38). This cultural perspectives illuminates her readings of seldom taught but immensely popular writers of the period such as James Feinmore Cooper, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Susan Warner, and she makes a persuasive argument for the necessity of studying writers long dismissed as merely "popular" or "sentimental."

A few reference works in our library might be helpful as well: American Colonial Writers, 1606-1734 Vol. 24, and The American Renaissance in New England, Vol. 1, both in the Dictionary of Literary Biography series.

For selected works on individual writers, consult the bibliography pages (at the end) in your textbook.

Primary Texts
I have a mixed bag here: an annotated list of novels, and links to other period sources.

Annotated List of Novels
It goes without saying (though here I am saying it) that a great source for further reading is your textbook, which is filled with a judicious sampling of the important texts of the period. However, since it is an anthology, space limitations mean that it does not include many examples of the most popular genre of the nineteenth century: the novel.

Therefore, I've assembled a short list of some well-known popular novels that (after you read them) will make you the star of any American Literature class.

Cummins, Maria Susana The Lamplighter (1854)
A "Domestic" novel which tells the story of a street urchin and the angelic Lamplighter of the title who helps her see the error of her ways. It also has elements of adventure texts (boats sink) and hints of class divisions.

Lippard, George. Quaker City (1845)
The most popular antebellum American novelist before Harriet Beecher Stowe, George Lippard's work is little read today, yet its distillation of the underlying cultural beliefs and obsessions of the period best captures the welter of popular thought behind the American Renaissance.

His early experience as a Philadelphia legal clerk and reporter exposed him to the inequities and corruption of nineteenth century urban life. Viewing fiction as a vehicle for reform, he committed himself to exposing the seamy underside of the cities by confronting topics -- the abuses of capitalism and the upper class, the corruption of the judicial system, socialism, sexuality, abortion, adultery, occultism, violence and murder -- with a verve and directness remarkable for its time.

Based on a true story, Quaker City; or, The Monks of Monk Hall, wove elements of sensation, pornographic, reform, temperance, occultist, and nativist fiction, into a labyrinthine plot centered around the seduction of Mary Arlington, a naive young girl, by Gustavus Lorrimer, a wealthy libertine, and the murderous revenge of Byrnewood, her brother. The Monk Hall of the title, once a convent, is now a private club where bankers, clergymen, lawyers and the wealthy remove their pious masks and revel in drink, gambling and illicit sex, all under the watchful eye of the door-keeper, Devil-bug. Filled with trap doors and secret passages, the Hall symbolizes both the corruption of contemporary life, and its ability to hide behind a genteel facade. Its many subplots (a hallmark of Lippard's narrative method), ranging from social climbing via adultery and murder to the establishment of a religious cult, coupled with the continual appearance of "heaving bosoms," assured the novel's success. Alternately attacked and praised, its lurid rendition of city life prompted a flood of imitative "City" novels.

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick (1851)
I could say it's a whale of a story - but I won't. A central text in American fiction because it raises so many themes of the antebellum period: from slavery, to sexuality, to science it's all in there.

Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852)
We've read a few excerpts, but the full impact of the novel can only be appreciated by reading in sum. A powerful novel which demonstrates the ways language and narrative can manipulate emotions.

Warner, Susan Wide Wide World (1850) An early domestic novel which repeats the pattern of an orphaned girl who gradually learns she must submit to God's will. Its power is derived from the fully drawn portrait of the heroine, Ellen Montgomery, and the narrative drive, which keeps you turning the page. In its detailing of the women's domestic duties, it's one of those "window" texts that shed light on the habits and culture of the period.

Links To Primary Sources

These sources are saved in Adobe Acrobat files. While you probably have the reader installed on your computer, if the link does not open, go to the Adobe website, install the free reader, and click again. These are rather large files and may take a while to load so be patient. Save to your computer for offline viewing.

1848 essay on "The Philosophy of the Ancient Hindoos"

Sensation Tales
James Ingraham's "The Odd Fellow" and "Foraging Peter" (1846)
Two examples of nineteenth century "sensation" stories. Think of them as the "Based on a true story" crime/adventure tales of today. This genre was very popular with readers, but since they were a guilty pleasure, they were seldom mentioned in "polite" circles.

Annuals
Note: this take a while to load Field's Scrap Book part 1 and part 2 (1854)
An excerpt from an eclectic collection of texts -- popular format during the 19th century. Since copyright laws, particularly for the foreign press, were not enforced or non-existent, publishers could and did copy texts from a variety of sources and combine them in annuals and gift books. These extracts consisted of didactic pieces reminding its readers that: women should be subservient, children should be obedient, and men honest; a benevolent God watched over them all; there were others who shared your grief in the loss of a loved one; and those who break the cultural norms by intemperance, gambling, venery, etc., will suffer a horrible death. These moral messages (with others of the same ilk) spoke to the middle-class desire for improvement and entertainment. They also included amusing anecdotes or "singular" stories of adventure and travelogues designed to acquaint people with other lands. This combination of instruction and delight meant the books sold like hotcakes.

I've included two sections here that cover the first 100 (or so) pages of a 500+ page text. Together, they should give you an idea of what the text offered readers.

Note: this file takes a while to load The Token and Atlantic Souvenir (1836)
Like the Scrapbook noted above, this is a collection of poems, images and stories intended as a gift book. The Token was one of the most popular series of the "Gift Annuals."

I've included the first 50 pages (or so) of the text, along with stories by an unnamed author, "The Man of Adamant" (it also includes his "The Great Carbuncle"). This same author later accrued fame by writing a novel called The Scarlet Letter. I've also included one story "The Tiara" which comes before "The Adamant Man" to give a perspective on Hawthorne's contemporaries.

I've also included a sketch entitled "Mrs. Hutchinson" by Hawthorne, which may illuminate her symbolic use in The Scarlet Letter.

Reading texts these books is like looking into the window of an idealized 19th century American house - with an emphasis on the word idealized. These works often tell us more about the aspirations and desires of a culture than the reality. They represent what arbiters of behavior - writers, clergy, politicians, publishers - deemed as correct and productive. The reality can be found in the journals, diaries and letters, which show that the house was not always in order - and as the excerpt below shows, often had peepholes.

Upon returning from September 1850 Sunday morning service at Broadway Tabernacle, a New Yorker named William Hoffman, who was punctilious about his religious observances, had the "pleasure" to observe through a peephole in his room "the perfect female form of the two Miss Whitings, young girls or ladies about 17 & 19 years old . . . for about 20 minutes with every part of their bodies exposed." Without compunction, he notes that he attended the Tabernacle again that evening (Saum 35).

From Saum, Lewis O. Saum. The Popular Mood of Pre-Civil War America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980.

I wonder what our Puritan friend Bradford would do if he got a hold of Hoffman . . . .

 © 2009 David Bordelon
Revised 6 September 2016