Novel Nostalgiasj
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NOVEL NOSTALGIASJ All Rights Reserved. Copyright © The Ohio State University Press, 2015. Batch 1. All Rights Reserved. Copyright © The Ohio State University Press, 2015. Batch 1. NOVEL NOSTALGIAS J THE AESTHETICS OF ANTAGONISM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY U.S. LITERATURE JOHN FUNCHION THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS COLUMBUS All Rights Reserved. Copyright © The Ohio State University Press, 2015. Batch 1. Copyright © 2015 by The Ohio State University. All rights reserved. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Funchion, John, author. Novel nostalgias : the aesthetics of antagonism in nineteenth-century U.S. literature / John Funchion. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8142-1287-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Nostalgia in literature. 2. American fiction—19th century—History and criticism. 3. Nos- talgia—United States—19th century. I. Title. PS377.F86 2015 813'.409—dc23 2015013286 Cover design by James A. Baumann Text design by James A. Baumann and Juliet Williams Type set in Goudy Old Style Printed by Sheridan Books The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materi- als. ANSI Z39.48–1992. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 All Rights Reserved. Copyright © The Ohio State University Press, 2015. Batch 1. For Melanie All Rights Reserved. Copyright © The Ohio State University Press, 2015. Batch 1. Only other men’s nostalgias offend. —Raymond Williams All Rights Reserved. Copyright © The Ohio State University Press, 2015. Batch 1. CONTENTSJ Acknowledgments • ix INTRODUCTION There’s No Place Like Home • 1 CHAPTER 1 Bad Romances: Homesick Nationalisms in the Antebellum United States • 27 CHAPTER 2 Confederate Narratives and the Problem of Reconstruction • 61 CHAPTER 3 Longing for a People: Hamlin Garland’s and Pauline Hopkins’s Populist Fictions • 96 CHAPTER 4 Left Nostalgia: Revolutionary Aesthetics in the Radical Novel • 134 CHAPTER 5 Cosmopolitan Nostalgia in L. Frank Baum’s Oz and Henry James’s America • 173 EPILOGUE “Taking the Country Back” in the Twenty-First Century • 211 Bibliography • 217 Index • 241 All Rights Reserved. Copyright © The Ohio State University Press, 2015. Batch 1. All Rights Reserved. Copyright © The Ohio State University Press, 2015. Batch 1. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSJ ET ME FIRST thank the anonymous readers of my manuscript L whose extensive, constructive, and incisive comments greatly improved the quality of this book. I also wish to express my gratitude to my unflinchingly supportive editor Lindsay Martin, the press’s former director Malcolm Litchfield, and the members of the Editorial Board of The Ohio State University Press. For their work on the production and marketing of Novel Nostalgias, Tara Cyphers, Laurie Avery, Linda Pat- terson Blackwell, and the rest of the OSUP staff all merit my sincer- est thanks. I also greatly appreciate the care both OSUP’s copyeditor, Rebecca S. Bender, and my graduate student fact-checker, Spencer Tricker, devoted to improving the quality of my manuscript. Portions of chapter 3 previously appeared in a different form as “Putting the Past Out to Pasture: Nostalgia, Regional Aesthetics and the Mutualist Imagina- tion in the 1890s,” Modernist Cultures, 3.2 (2008): 171–91 and are used by permission of the journal and Edinburgh University Press. A part of chapter 5 also appeared as “When Dorothy Became History: L. Frank Baum’s Enduring Fantasy of Cosmopolitan Nostalgia,” Modern Language Quarterly, 71.4 (2010): 429–51, and is reprinted with the permission of MLQ and Duke University Press. This book first began to take shape as a dissertation at Brown Uni- versity. Phil Gould proved to be my ideal director and a loyal mentor. He gave my own inchoate ideas room to breathe but rigorously helped me shape them into a literary argument with an ample archive. Stuart • ix • All Rights Reserved. Copyright © The Ohio State University Press, 2015. Batch 1. x • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Burrows tirelessly assisted me with refining my prose and always knew when to offer brilliant criticism or needed encouragement. Deak Nabers displayed a rare ability to get inside the thinking behind my project and always found ways to make it sharper. He also played an indispensable role in getting my manuscript to the capable editors at OSUP. Other faculty members at Brown also helped me develop professionally; Nancy Armstrong, Jim Egan, Laura Hess, William Keach, Kevin McLaughlin, Barbara Herrnstein Smith, and Len Tennenhouse all made my teaching and scholarship stronger. I have a great affection for my graduate cohort, especially David Babcock, Tad Davies, Jonna Iacono, John Melson, Laurel Rayburn, Bethany Shepherd, Steve Satterfield, and Rebecca Sum- merhays. I owe intellectual and emotional debts too numerous to enu- merate to my fellow Americanists Brian Sweeney and Siân Silyn Roberts. Keri Holt continues to be my close and trusted academic sidekick, and she graciously read and commented upon every page of this book. Before I entered the doctoral program at Brown, I received expert instruction from faculty members at the University of Minnesota and Creighton University. At Minnesota, Tom Augst, Andy Elfenbein, Qadri Ismail, and Richard Leppert all left their mark on my thinking. Pat Crain and Ed Griffin deserve to be singled out for being enthusiastic support- ers of my scholarship and for continuing to offer me their invaluable insights whenever I need them. At Creighton, my undergraduate advis- ers, Bridget Keegan and Greg Zacharias, transformed the way I thought about literature. Their friendship and mentorship has sustained me over the years. Getting to the place in my career where I could compose this book would not have been possible without them. This manuscript matured into a book thanks to the intellectual verve of the many scholars that I have gotten to know at SEA and C19 con- ferences and as reviewers of my writing. I thank Duncan Faherty for championing my work through thick and thin and for being a model colleague in every imaginable way. For commenting on early versions of various chapters in Novel Nostalgias, I want to recognize especially Marshall Brown, Daniel Moore, Catherine Jurca, Jessica Burstein, David Luis-Brown, Hsuan Hsu, Lori Merish, and Elizabeth Maddock Dillon. For their intellectual insights and camaraderie, I thank Gabe Cervantes, Andy Doolen, Michael Drexler, Robert Gunn, James Lilley, Gretchen Murphy, Steve Thomas, and Ed White. I have learned a great deal from Ned Watts, and his intellectual generosity knows no bounds. I have found myself surrounded by a warm circle of friends and col- leagues in Miami that span two institutions and many departments, All Rights Reserved. Copyright © The Ohio State University Press, 2015. Batch 1. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS • xi and I deeply regret not being able to list them all here. Junior faculty members depend on the support, patience, and wisdom of their depart- ment chairs. I could not have asked for two better chairs in this regard than Pam Hammons and Pat McCarthy. I am indebted to the Center for the Humanities at the University of Miami for supporting my research by releasing me from my teaching commitments and for giving me the opportunity to present early drafts of this book to the other fellows. I also received summer research and travel support in the form of three Provost Research Awards from UM that played crucial roles in expanding my book’s breadth of archival materials. Funds from the UM Department of English also made it possible for me to hire the graduate research assis- tant who helped with the final stages of production. I am grateful to those who mentored and supported me in crucial ways in the Department of English, especially Joe Alkana, Tom Goodman, Tassie Gwilliam, Brenna Munro, Ranen Omer-Sherman, and Jeffrey Shoulson. I also cannot imag- ine navigating my early academic career without being able to depend on Tim Watson’s guidance and friendship; this book benefited from his atten- tive readings of it. I have relished the conversations on matters academic and not-so-academic with Brad Cokelet, Jason Pearl, Nathaniel Cadle, and Jaswinder Bolina. Discussions with Mike Bernath also strengthened this book’s engagement with U.S. historical scholarship. In addition to being a stalwart friend and an expert snorkeler, Joel Nickels always rein- vigorates my research pursuits and political commitments. Renée Fox has proven to be a great partner in crime when it comes to all things nine- teenth century and 1990s. During and before my professional career, I have relied greatly on fam- ily and longtime friends. My sister Maura’s visits and her contagious laugh over the years always have provided me with much-needed respites from my work. My in-laws, Marie and Edward, deserve thanks for kindly wel- coming us into their home for extended periods of time when we needed to escape the Miami heat. Dave Wake and Norah Bringer are friends who are always there when you most need them. My childhood compatriots from South Dakota remain an important part of my life and are some- thing of an institution. I am grateful for the support offered by my parents, Michael and Margaret, and my mother-in-law, Elizabeth. I would have never completed this book without the support, humor, intelligence, and love of Melanie Spencer. She found time to read and comment on many versions of this project even while successfully pursu- ing first a career in publishing and then in the law. I have never ceased marveling over how lucky I was to meet the person who first introduced All Rights Reserved. Copyright © The Ohio State University Press, 2015. Batch 1. xii • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS herself to me in college by poking fun at my last name. And as this book neared completion, our wonderful daughter Dorothy Day became part of our lives.