DOCSLIB.ORG

Epistolary Machinations: the Role of Letters in the Construction of Identity in J

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Epistolary Machinations: the Role of Letters in the Construction of Identity in J Document generated on 09/28/2021 6:24 a.m. Lumen Selected Proceedings from the Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Travaux choisis de la Société canadienne d'étude du dix-huitième siècle Epistolary Machinations: The Role of Letters in the Construction of Identity in J. M. R. Lenz's Der Waldbruder (The Hermit) Edward T. Potter Volume 29, 2010 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1012032ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1012032ar See table of contents Publisher(s) Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies / Société canadienne d'étude du dix-huitième siècle ISSN 1209-3696 (print) 1927-8284 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Potter, E. T. (2010). Epistolary Machinations: The Role of Letters in the Construction of Identity in J. M. R. Lenz's Der Waldbruder (The Hermit). Lumen, 29, 143–159. https://doi.org/10.7202/1012032ar Copyright © Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies / Société This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit canadienne d'étude du dix-huitième siècle, 2010 (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ 10. Epistolary Machinations: The Role of Letters in the Construction of Identity in J. M. R. Lenz's Der Waldbruder (The Hermit) In 1797, Friedrich Schiller requested that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe hand over a manuscript that Goethe's former friend Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz (1751-92) had once given to him, for Schiller wanted to publish it in his literary journal The Horae (Die Horen, 1^^-97)} The text in question was Lenz's fragmentary epistolary novel Der Waldbruder: Ein Pendant zu Werthers Leiden (The Hermit: A Counterpart to Werther's Sufferings), a text which was written in 1776 and which engages with a variety of issues and texts from the 1770s. This text marks itself pro- grammatically in its subtitle as a companion piece to Goethe's success• ful and influential epistolary novel, The Sufferings of Young Werther (Die Leiden des jungen Werther, 1774,2nd ed. 1787). Lenz has at times been seen as a marginalized literary figure or an epigonic reflection of Goethe, an impression that was already being propagated by Goethe himself in the fourteenth book of his work of autobiographical "faction," Poetry and Truth (Dichtung und Wahrheit, 1811-14).3 My essay, however, focuses on 1 See Sigrid Damm's comments in Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, Werke und Briefe in drei Banden, ed. Sigrid Damm, vol. 2, (Munich: Hanser, 1987), 871-72. 2 Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz, Der Waldbruder: Ein Pendant zu Werthers Leiden, Werke und Briefe in drei Banden, ed. Sigrid Damm, vol. 2, (Munich: Hanser, 1987), 380-412. All citations are from this edition. All translations from the German throughout this article are my own. 3 See Johann Wolfgang [von] Goethe, Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit, Goe- thes Werke: Hamburger Ausgabe in 14 Banden, ed. Lieselotte Blumenthal, Waltraud Loos, and Erich Trunz., 4th ed., vol. 10 (Hamburg: Wegner, 1966), 7-12. Scholars LUMEN XXIX / 2010 1209-3696 / 2010 / 2900-0143 $18.00 / © CSECS / SCEDHS 144 Edward T. Potter the innovative way in which Lenz's text uses "letters'' — to be under• stood both as written messages and as literature — to stake out a criti• cal stance on sentimental literature and its role in the construction of identity, since Der Waldbruder depicts the transformation of the reader or consumer of sentimental literary and epistolary texts, represented in the novel by the character Herz (in English, "Heart"), into the sentimen• tal protagonist of a real-life novel. Lenz's critical stance on sentimental literature, both on the plot level and on the level of narrative perspec• tive in Der Waldbruder, presents us not only with a radical réévaluation of the sentimental epistolary novel as represented by Goethe's Werther, but also with a revision of Lenz's own stance on the aesthetics of senti• mental literature, to which he gave voice in his treatise "Letters on the Morality of the Sufferings of Young Werther" ("Briefe uber die Moral- itât der Leiden des jungen Werthers"), also known as the "Werther Let• ters" (written 1774-75, published 1918). Der Waldbruder has generated a fair amount of interest among Lenz scholars. Furst points out the grotesque distortion of the epistolary form in Der Waldbruder.4 Heine draws attention to the structure of Lenz's novel and to the great levels of deception by most of the characters; he interprets the text as a criticism of contemporary society.5 Stockhammer sees Der Waldbruder as a criticism of "politics" or tactical rationality in matters of the heart.6 Graf explores the construction of a literary closet in Der Waldbruder.7 Meinzer examines the psychoanalytic connections trace the marginalization of Lenz both to Goethe's depiction of him and his work in Poetry and Truth as well as to Georg Buchner's pathological depiction of the writer in his novella Lenz (1839); see Andreas Huyssen, "1778, February: The Con• fusions of Genre/' A New History of German Literature, ed. David E. Wellbery, Judith Ryan, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Anton Kaes, Joseph Leo Koerner, and Dorothea E. von Miicke (Cambridge, MA: Belknap-Harvard UP, 2004) 399-404; esp. 399. 4 Lilian R. Furst, "The Dual Face of the Grotesque in Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Lenz's Der Waldbruder/' Comparative Literature Studies 13 (1976): 15-21. 5 Thomas Heine, "Lenz's Waldbruder: Inauthentic Narration as Social Criticism," German Life and Letters 33 (1979-80): 183-89. 6 Robert Stockhammer, "Zur Politik des Herz(ens): J. M. R. Lenz' 'misreadings' von Goethes Werther," Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz: Studien zum Gesamtwerk, ed. David Hill (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1994) 129-39, esp. 137. 7 Roman Graf, "The Homosexual, the Prostitute, and the Castrato: Closet Perfor• mances by J. M. R. Lenz," Outing Goethe & His Age, ed. Alice A. Kuzniar (Stanford: Stanford UP, 1996), 77-93. Epistolary Machinations 145 between the text and the life of the author.8 Kaminski reads Der Wald• bruder against Georg Buchner's novella Lenz (1839) and Lenz's biogra• phy9 Wurst points out the internal contradictions in the text regarding setting, chronology, plot, and narrative.10 Stephan examines the con• cepts of love and friendship in the novel, concluding that the text splits the paradigm //friend,/ into its positive (Herz) and negative (Rothe) elements as well as the paradigm "lover" into its positive (Countess Stella) and negative (Widow Hohl) components.11 For Lenz-Michaud, Der Waldbruder is both a satirical critique of Goethe's pathologization of Werther and a poetological call for protagonists that are freer and more tragic than Werther, whom, in her reading, Lenz viewed as determined by pathology.12 Martin reads the story of Herz as a pathography based on contemporary theories of nervous diseases.13 For Disselkamp, Lenz's text thematizes the Utopian desires of the Enlightenment for transpar• ency of character and for social cohesiveness, only to deny their fulfill• ment in the fictional universe of Der Waldbruder.14 Wurst, in a second article, reads Der Waldbruder against the background of Werther and the "Werther Letters," finding continuity in Lenz's criticism and fictional output; she ascertains a "poetics of conditional relations" ("Poetik der Bedingungsverhaltnisse") that demands critical reflection from the 8 Elke Meinzer, "Die Irrgârten des J. M. R. Lenz: Zur psychoanalytischen Interpre• tation der Werke Tantalus, Der Waldbruder und Myrsa Polagi," Deutsche Vierteljahrs- schriftfur Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte 68 (1994): 695-716. 9 Nicola Kaminski, "Herzbruder? 'Lenzens Verriickung' iiber die Jahrhundert- schwelle/' Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert 28 (2004): 46-64. 10 Karin Wurst, "Ùberlegungen zur àsthetischen Struktur von J. M. R. Lenz' Der Waldbruder ein Pendant zu Werthers Leiden/' Neophilologus 74 (1990): 70-86. 11 Inge Stephan, "Das Scheitern einer heroischen Konzeption: Der Freundschafts- und Liebesdiskurs im Waldbruder," "Unaufhôrlich Lenzgelesen ...": Studien zu Leben und Werk von J. M. R. Lenz, ed. Inge Stephan and Hans-Gerd Winter (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1994) 273-93. 12 Susanne Lenz-Michaud, "'Venus Urania allein kann dich retten mein Lieblings- dichter': Zur àsthetischen und anthropologischen Kritik an Goethes Werther im Werk von J. M. R. Lenz," Recherches germaniques 35 (2005): 1-21. 13 Ariane Martin, Die kranke Jugend: J. M. R. Lenz und Goethes "Werther" in der Rezep- tion des Sturm und Drang bis zum Naturalismus (Wùrzburg: Kônigshausen & Neu• mann, 2002) 44-45. 14 Martin Disselkamp, "Ein 'Narr auf Charaktere': Literarische Charakterkonstitu- tion zwischen moralischer Norm und anthropologischer Empirie in Lenz' 'Wald• bruder,'" Lessing Yearbook 36 (2004-05): 161-83. 146 Edward T. Potter reader. In this article, Wurst reads the "Werther Letters" against the grain, maintaining that Lenz's aesthetics demand both identification and critical reflection from the reader; for her, Lenz's poetological trea• tise explores various positions without favoring one authorized posi• tion in particular, and she sees Der Waldbruder as neither an affirming continuation of Werther nor as a criticism or refutation of rationalist, enlightened criticism of Werther, but rather as a "problematization" ("Problematisierung") of this complex of poetological issues.16 The following essay, however, reads Lenz's valorization of identifi- catory reading in the "Werther Letters" as a seriously espoused poet• ological position, and using this as its point of departure, this essay emphasizes the disjunction between Lenz's Werther criticism and his own experiment in the epistolary novel. In the "Werther Letters," Lenz does, to be sure, valorize identificatory reading in the face of Enlight• ened criticism, and he is, in fact, dissatisfied with what Goethe had accomplished with the epistolary form, as Lenz's own novel Der Wald• bruder demonstrates.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Reflections on Sentiment: Essays in Honor of George Starr, Edited by Alessa Johns. Newark: Delaware UP, 2016. Pp. Vii + 215. $75
    Reflections on Sentiment: Essays in Honor of George Starr, edited by Alessa Johns. Newark: Delaware UP, 2016. Pp. vii + 215. $75. ISBN: 978-1611495881. This collection of essays dedicated to George Starr concentrates on Professor Starr’s interest in the novel and the ways in which sentimentality impacted fiction during the eighteenth century. More particularly the essays spin off from an essay by Professor Starr, “Only a Boy,” published in Genre in 1977. That essay argued that the male protagonist of sentimental novels could not satisfy the requirement of the hero of the Bildungsroman, because he does not, indeed cannot, grow in any significant way. Professor Starr begins his discussion with Defoe’s Colonel Jack. He argues that Jack never grows out of regarding himself as a child and hence essentially innocent. Although the title of Professor Starr’s essay is based upon a moment in Huckleberry Finn, when the narrator escapes a dangerous situation by pleading his status as a child and hence not guilty of any act that might have been interpreted as evil, Colonel Jack makes similar pleas by way of excusing his actions. Professor Starr argues that Jack resembles the protagonist of the sentimental novel in this continuing naiveté, his blundering attempts at marriage, and his lack of any real growth. This pattern certainly plays its way into Laurence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey and Henry Mackenzie’s Man of Feeling. As for Frances Burney’s Evelina, the female protagonist it shows to possess the characteristics of the hero of sentiment without problems, since some child-like qualities and complete sexual innocence were the ideals of the heroines of the sentimental novel.
    [Show full text]
  • Sentimental Appropriations: Contemporary Sympathy In
    SENTIMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS: CONTEMPORARY SYMPATHY IN THE NOVELS OF GRACE LUMPKIN, JOSEPHINE JOHNSON, JOHN STEINBECK, MARGARET WALKER, OCTAVIA BUTLER, AND TONI MORRISON Jennifer A. Williamson A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature Chapel Hill 2011 Approved by: Linda Wagner-Martin William L. Andrews Philip Gura Fred Hobson Wahneema Lubiano © 2011 Jennifer A. Williamson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT JENNIFER A. WILLIAMSON: Sentimental Appropriations: Contemporary Sympathy in the Novels of Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, John Steinbeck, Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison (Under the direction of Linda Wagner-Martin) This project investigates the appearance of the nineteenth-century American sentimental mode in more recent literature, revealing that the cultural work of sentimentalism continues in the twentieth-century and beyond. By examining working-class literature that adopts the rhetoric of “feeling right” in order to promote a proletarian ideology as well as neo-slave narratives that wrestle with the legacy of slavery, this study explores the ways contemporary authors engage with familiar sentimental tropes and ideals. Despite modernism’s influential assertion that sentimentalism portrays emotion that lacks reality or depth, narrative claims to feeling— particularly those based in common and recognizable forms of suffering—remain popular. It seems clear that such authors as Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, John Steinbeck, Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison apply the rhetorical methods of sentimentalism to the cultural struggles of their age. Contemporary authors self-consciously struggle with sentimentalism’s gender, class, and race ideals; however, sentimentalism’s dual ability to promote these ideals and extend identification across them makes it an attractive and effective mode for political and social influence.
    [Show full text]
  • The Problem of Sentimentalism in Mackenzie's the Man of Feeling
    Studies in Scottish Literature Volume 23 | Issue 1 Article 11 1988 A "sickly sort of refinement": The rP oblem of Sentimentalism in Mackenzie's The aM n of Feeling William J. Burling Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl Recommended Citation Burling, William J. (1988) "A "sickly sort of refinement": The rP oblem of Sentimentalism in Mackenzie's The aM n of Feeling," Studies in Scottish Literature: Vol. 23: Iss. 1. Available at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ssl/vol23/iss1/11 This Article is brought to you by the Scottish Literature Collections at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Studies in Scottish Literature by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. William J. Burling A "sickly sort of refinement": The Problem of Sentimentalism in Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling Henry Mackenzie's The Man of Feeling, enormously popular when first published in 1771, was acknowledged by an entire generation of readers as the ultimate representation of the sentimental ethos. But outright contradiction now pervades critical discussion of the novel, with interpretation splitting on two central questions: Is Harley, the hero, an ideal man or a fool? And is the novel sympathetic to sentimentalism or opposed to it? The antithetical critical responses to The Man of Feeling may be resolved, however, when we recognize that Mackenzie was neither completely attacking nor condoning sentimentalism in toto. He was attempting to differentiate what he considered to be attributes of genuine and desirable humane sensitivity from those of the affected sentimentality then au courant in the hypocritical beau monde.
    [Show full text]
  • Idhaya College for Women, Kumbakonam
    IDHAYA COLLEGE FOR WOMEN, KUMBAKONAM SEMESTER : II SUBJECT : LITERARY FORMS SUBJECT CODE : 16AACEN2 TITLE OF THE PAPER : FICTION CLASS : I BA ENGLISH NAME OF THE FACULTY : M. NANDHINI 1. SHORT STORIES Definitions A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a "single effect" or mood. Key characteristics of the short story include its length, limited number of characters, subject matter, and tendency to begin 'in medias res', which is Latin for 'the middle of things A short story typically takes the form of a brief fictional work, usually written in prose. The earliest precursors to the short story can be found in the oral storytelling tradition, as well as episodes from ancient Mediterranean epics, such as 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' and Homer's 'Iliad.' The true masters at combining the five key elements that go into every great short story: character, setting, conflict, plot and theme. Characteristics Length: Short stories typically range from 1,600 to 20,000 words. Although authors and critics have debated the length of the short story throughout literary history, most agree on a minimum of 1,600 and a maximum of 20,000 words. In his own contribution to the debate, Edgar Allen Poe suggested that a short story should take 30 minutes to two hours to read. Subject: Short stories usually focus on a single subject or theme. Subjects or themes may range from something as mundane as a daily errand or as thrilling as a ghost tale.
    [Show full text]
  • The Domestic Bildungsroman and the American City, 1830-1900
    Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2016 Idling Women: The omesD tic Bildungsroman and the American City, 1830-1900 Jordan L. Von Cannon Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Von Cannon, Jordan L., "Idling Women: The omeD stic Bildungsroman and the American City, 1830-1900" (2016). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 1677. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/1677 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. IDLING WOMEN: THE DOMESTIC BILDUNGSROMAN AND THE AMERICAN CITY, 1830-1900 A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by Jordan L. Von Cannon B.A., Palm Beach Atlantic University, 2008 M.A., University of Kansas, 2011 August 2016 “When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things. Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse.” “She gazed and gazed, wondering, delighting, longing, and all the while the siren voice of the unrestful was whispering in her ear.” - Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Throughout this dissertation, I have found myself to be an idling woman at various points.
    [Show full text]
  • Sentimental Appropriations
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository SENTIMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS: CONTEMPORARY SYMPATHY IN THE NOVELS OF GRACE LUMPKIN, JOSEPHINE JOHNSON, JOHN STEINBECK, MARGARET WALKER, OCTAVIA BUTLER, AND TONI MORRISON Jennifer A. Williamson A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English and Comparative Literature Chapel Hill 2011 Approved by: Linda Wagner-Martin William L. Andrews Philip Gura Fred Hobson Wahneema Lubiano © 2011 Jennifer A. Williamson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT JENNIFER A. WILLIAMSON: Sentimental Appropriations: Contemporary Sympathy in the Novels of Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, John Steinbeck, Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison (Under the direction of Linda Wagner-Martin) This project investigates the appearance of the nineteenth-century American sentimental mode in more recent literature, revealing that the cultural work of sentimentalism continues in the twentieth-century and beyond. By examining working-class literature that adopts the rhetoric of “feeling right” in order to promote a proletarian ideology as well as neo-slave narratives that wrestle with the legacy of slavery, this study explores the ways contemporary authors engage with familiar sentimental tropes and ideals. Despite modernism’s influential assertion that sentimentalism portrays emotion that lacks reality or depth, narrative claims to feeling— particularly those based in common and recognizable forms of suffering—remain popular. It seems clear that such authors as Grace Lumpkin, Josephine Johnson, John Steinbeck, Margaret Walker, Octavia Butler, and Toni Morrison apply the rhetorical methods of sentimentalism to the cultural struggles of their age.
    [Show full text]
  • Novel Addiction: Consuming Popular Novels in Eighteenth-Century Britain By
    Novel Addiction: Consuming Popular Novels in Eighteenth-century Britain by Jayoung Min Department of English Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Charlotte Sussman, Supervisor ___________________________ Srinivas Aravamudan ___________________________ Nancy Armstrong ___________________________ Kathy Psomiades Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 ABSTRACT Novel Addiction: Consuming Popular Novels in Eighteenth-century Britain by Jayoung Min Department of English Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Charlotte Sussman, Supervisor ___________________________ Srinivas Aravamudan ___________________________ Nancy Armstrong ___________________________ Kathy Psomiades An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of English in the Graduate School of Duke University 2011 Copyright by Jayoung Min 2011 ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the ways in which British popular novels of the eighteenth century functioned as commodities. “Novel Addiction”, the title of this dissertation has a double meaning: Addiction was a new conceptual framework developed during the eighteenth century in order to manage the increasing anxiety brought upon the culture of consumption, and the novel, one of the most popular commodities of the same period, was addictive. Both as successful commodities and efficient cultural agents, popular novels that were categorized as the sentimental or the gothic participated in the process of creating and disseminating models of addiction that warranted perpetual discipline. However, this discipline does not aim at preventing or eliminating addiction. It rather manages addiction as “habit” in a way that guarantees proliferation of the market economy.
    [Show full text]
  • 11 the Early American Novel and Sentimentalism 215
    Philipp Schweighauser 11 The Early American Novel and Sentimentalism Abstract: This essay proposes three ways of reading the first sentimental American novels from a transatlantic perspective. The first, most established account tells the story of American novelists’ transformations of Richardsonian literary formulae and negotiations of Lockean empiricism and liberalism. Inspired by the transnational turn in American Studies, the second narrative expands the scope of inquiry as it traces early sentimental fictions’ imbrication in a transatlantic colonial and post-co- lonial network that significantly transcends English-American relations to include the Western hemisphere, Europe, and Africa. My third reading draws on the systems- theo retic notion of “functional differentiation” to explore convergences between eighteenth-century European reflections on art and sensuous cognition under the heading of ‘aesthetics’ and early American novelistic production. My second section focuses on a little-studied sentimental novel, William Hill Brown’s posthumously published Ira and Isabella (1807), to test the strengths and limitations of my three transatlantic reading strategies. Key Terms: Sentimental novel, early republic, aesthetics, systems theory, transna- tional turn 1 Transatlantic Perspectives on the Early American Sentimental Novel: Approaches, Theories, Concepts Revisiting early American sentimental novels such as William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy (1789) and Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette (1797) from a transat- lantic perspective
    [Show full text]
  • A STUDY of the WORKS of CÂTHARIÎÎE Ivîâriâ SEDGWICK
    A STUDY OF THE WORKS OF CÂTHARIÎÎE IvîÂRI SEDGWICK DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By RICHARD BANUS GIDEZ, B.A., A, ***** THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 1958 Approved by Aaviselr Department of English ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author wishes to express his thanks to Mrs. Grace Wilcox of the Stockbridge Public Library for her information on the Sedgwick family, the staff of The Massachusetts His­ torical Society, and Professor William Charvat of The Ohio State University for his guidance and patience. - 11 - TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapters Page I ......................................... 1 II ............................ 32 III .......................................... 135 IV .......................................... 229 V .......................................... 285 Bibliographies ............................... 310 111 CHAPTER I Catharine Maria Sedgwick (1789 - 1867) of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, wrote six novels, six long didactic tales devoted to the education of young people and social reform, two short biographies, a novella, a travel tale about Canada, four collections of short stories, and two volumes of letters concerning her European trip of 1839» In addition, she contributed one hundred stories, sketches, and didactic tales to various annuals and periodicals. Her first book appeared in 1822, her last in 1857» During her lifetime she enjoyed both critical and popular success: "No equal this side of the Atlantic"
    [Show full text]
  • TRISTRAM SHANDY and EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WOMEN SATIRISTS by NATASHA L GATIAN
    “THE PRODUCTION OF A RATIONAL BEING”: TRISTRAM SHANDY AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WOMEN SATIRISTS by NATASHA L GATIAN A thesis submitted to the Graduate School-Camden Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Graduate Program in English written under the direction of Dr. Geoffrey M. Sill and approved by ______________________________ Dr. Geoffrey M. Sill ______________________________ Dr. Holly Blackford ______________________________ Dr. Carol Singley Camden, New Jersey May 2014 i THESIS ABSTRACT “THE PRODUCTION OF A RATIONAL BEING”: TRISTRAM SHANDY AND EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WOMEN SATIRISTS by NATASHA L GATIAN THESIS DIRECTOR: Dr. Geoffrey M. Sill The eighteenth century saw the emergence of two primary literary forms aimed at influencing public life: the satire and the sentimental novel. While these two forms pursued similar goals, they were produced separately until Laurence Sterne’s mingling of the two genres in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. This text combines two previously gendered genres while also undermining male authority with its narrative false starts and symbolically impotent narrator. It also displays satirical and sentimental impulses with the character parson Yorick, who embodies both the Quixote figure and the philosopher-physician who “heals” him. Sterne’s collapsing of these gender and generic boundaries, I argue, would open a discursive space for women to enter the literary world as satirists, as this study will demonstrate using works by Charlotte Lennox and Frances Burney. Lennox’s The Female Quixote, which came before Sterne’s novel, will be considered for its satire of female readers of romances, while Burney’s play The Witlings will show how women engaged in satiric regulation of the public sphere post-Tristram Shandy.
    [Show full text]
  • European Romanticism 1405110392 1 Pretoc Final Proof Page Iii 10.9.2005 7:59Am
    Ferber: Companion to European Romanticism 1405110392_1_pretoc Final Proof page iii 10.9.2005 7:59am A C O M P A N I O N T O EUROPEAN R OMANTICISM EDITED BY MICHAEL FERBER Ferber: Companion to European Romanticism 1405110392_3_posttoc Final Proof page xiv 10.9.2005 7:58am Ferber: Companion to European Romanticism 1405110392_1_pretoc Final Proof page i 10.9.2005 7:59am A Companion to European Romanticism Ferber: Companion to European Romanticism 1405110392_1_pretoc Final Proof page ii 10.9.2005 7:59am Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture This series offers comprehensive, newly written surveys of key periods and movements and certain major authors, in English literary culture and history. Extensive volumes provide new perspectives and positions on contexts and on canonical and post- canonical texts, orientating the beginning student in new fields of study and provid- ing the experienced undergraduate and new graduate with current and new directions, as pioneered and developed by leading scholars in the field. 1. A Companion to Romanticism Edited by Duncan Wu 2. A Companion to Victorian Literature and Culture Edited by Herbert F. Tucker 3. A Companion to Shakespeare Edited by David Scott Kastan 4. A Companion to the Gothic Edited by David Punter 5. A Feminist Companion to Shakespeare Edited by Dympna Callaghan 6. A Companion to Chaucer Edited by Peter Brown 7. A Companion to Literature from Milton to Blake Edited by David Womersley 8. A Companion to English Renaissance Literature and Culture Edited by Michael Hattaway 9. A Companion to Milton Edited by Thomas N. Corns 10. A Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry Edited by Neil Roberts 11.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction Albert J
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-41892-8 — The Sentimental Novel in the Eighteenth Century Edited by Albert J. Rivero Excerpt More Information Introduction Albert J. Rivero This volume aims to present an authoritative and suggestive exploration of the sentimental novel in the eighteenth century. Sentimental novels reached the height of their vogue in the 1770s and 1780s and were still popular in the 1790s. Their origins may be traced to the so-called amatory fiction published in France and Britain in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century.1 Samuel Richardson’s spectacularly popular reworking of amatory fictional tropes, Pamela: or, Virtue Rewarded (1740), with its emphasis on feeling, sympathy and moral instruction, served as a catalyst for this literary movement. Clarissa (1747–8), Richardson’s second novel, is often cited as the first fully sentimental novel in English. By century’s end, sentimental novels were omnipresent in the British book market, some of them proclaiming themselves as such on their title-pages: for example, Louisa. A Sentimental Novel (1771); Emma; or, the unfortunate attachment. A Sentimental Novel (1773); Harcourt; a sentimental novel (1780); Anna: A Sentimental Novel (1782); and Edward and Harriet, or the happy recovery; a sentimental novel (1788).2 The Sentimental Novel in the Eighteenth Century According to The Sentimental Magazine (March 1773), a sentimental story ‘at the same Time that it forces the Tears of Sensibility from the Eye, shall inspire the Heart with the Love of Virtue’.3 As David Hume and Adam Smith declared, sympathy with the sorrows of others defines our moral being.
    [Show full text]