Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2009 Religion and realism in late nineteenth-century American literature Lisa Irene Moody Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Moody, Lisa Irene, "Religion and realism in late nineteenth-century American literature" (2009). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 134. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/134 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]. RELIGION AND REALISM IN LATE NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN LITERATURE 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 Lisa Irene Moody B.A., University of Chicago, 1986 M.A., Northwestern University, 1991 December 2009 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Throughout the process of writing this dissertation, I have been guided by many excellent faculty and colleagues, each of whom has added significantly to this project. First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge the mentorship of my dissertation director, J. Gerald Kennedy, for his expert guidance, close readings, and overall interest in my graduate studies. Dr. Kennedy has promoted my work and held me to a high personal and academic standard, for which he himself has proven to be an apt role model. His own impeccable scholarship has inspired me to strive to produce my best work, and his ongoing interest in and encouragement of my research has kept me motivated. I have also been fortunate in having a committee of excellent Louisiana State University faculty, some who have been working with me since my General Exam, and some who have joined my project more recently, helping move toward my final goal of completing the doctorate. For their expertise and enthusiasm, I would like to thank William Boelhower, Brannon Costello, and John R. May. Anyone who has had the pleasure of dining with Dr. Boelhower at the Faculty Club will appreciate his sagacity and kindness to graduate students. It has also been my great fortune to have Sharon Harris as a reader of my Rebecca Harding Davis chapter. For the past two years, she has supported my research, reviewed my material, and promoted my conference work, providing me with many opportunities to showcase my Davis scholarship. With her help and that of the Society for the Study of Rebecca Harding Davis and Her World, I have been fortunate to have been part of a group of scholars who have helped me in innumerable ways. With a project that is cross-disciplinary, the assistance and interest of Stuart Irvine in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies and Rodger Payne of the University of North Carolina, Asheville and formerly of Louisiana State University have proven to be invaluable. Dr. Irvine served as my Dean’s Representative at my General Exam, and he has been an ii enthusiastic supporter of my work, and Dr. Payne has been eager and encouraging from the moment I first approached him for assistance. In addition, I would like to thank Sharon Aronofsky Weltman, Daniel Novak, and Elsie Michie for helping round out my expertise in British Victorian Literature and for providing me with the incredible experience of attending the Dickens Universe in July, 2008. All three of these excellent scholars have long acknowledged the importance of British literary realism and British Victorian philosophy to this current project. These three faculty members are the most generous and most encouraging mentors a graduate student could hope to have. Countless people have supported my studies and my writing from the moment I began graduate school, and I would like to acknowledge their interest and assistance. I have been fortunate to have worked with and been guided by Kevin Cope, Pallavi Rastogi, Elisabeth Oliver, Erica Abrams Locklear, Matthew S. Landers, Joseph Brown, Carla Bota, Ilana Xinos, and Tanja Stampfl. Worthy of particular thanks is Rhonda Amis in the English Department, whose patience, persistence, and general helpfulness have rescued me more than once in my scholarly pursuits. I must also give a special thanks to my officemate and best friend, Daniel Mangiavellano, whose superb scholarship, wonderful sense of humor, and unconditional support have helped me through many a dark day. Finally, I would like to thank my family whose love and understanding has made returning to graduate school a pleasure. My own parents and my in-laws have provided support and encouragement, and I thank them for that. I would especially like to thank my two children, Betsy and Alex, for being so independent and accepting of my studies and responsibilities. And above and beyond all, I thank my wonderful husband, Paul Engeriser, from the bottom of my heart. He has helped me in every way possible. Wanting to make my family proud has motivated me beyond anything else, especially with all the sacrifices they have made on my behalf. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ………………………………………………………………………ii ABSTRACT ……………………………………………………………………………………..v CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION TO RELIGION AND REALISM: “LET FICTION CEASE TO LIE” ………………………………………………1 CHAPTER 2. REBECCA HARDING DAVIS AND SENTIMENTAL REALISM …………. 43 CHAPTER 3. WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS AS WRITER AND CRITIC OF AMERICAN LITERARY REALISM …………………………………….107 CHAPTER 4. MARK TWAIN AND THE BIBLE: “I SEE IT WARN’T NOTHING BUT A DICTIONARY”……..……………..156 CHAPTER 5. HAROLD FREDERIC AND REALISM: THE DAMNATION OF RELIGION .…..……………………………….…….205 CHAPTER 6. CONCLUSION ………………………………………….………………..……259 WORKS CITED…………………………………………………………………………….….267 VITA ……………………………………………………………………………………….…..278 iv ABSTRACT A critical approach to understanding the analytical power of realism and its representational claims in the late nineteenth-century is to examine the relationship between realism and a common cultural concern that opposes the very tenets of realism, one that necessarily pervaded all aspects of class, gender, nationality, race, sexual orientation, or other classifiable subsets of society typically linked with various schools of literary theory: the subject of religion. In fact, religion, with its disembodied immaterialism, surely the antithesis of realism, represents a unique cultural problem that tests the conceptual biases of the realist mode. One basic issue is that religion itself is a nebulous concept that resists neat explanation in American culture. One might ask what are the ways in which religion was perceived, whether it be considered in relation to a system of ethics, law, or religious practices, or more abstractly, in relation to spiritualism, idealism, or supernaturalism? Can such a metaphysical concept even be located in realist writing and how do realist writers materialize it, particularly in relation to social ethics, an inherent concern of realist writing? Changes in economics, industry, race, and immigration necessarily affected the religious culture of America, and realism, as a literary mode, should be well-suited to capturing such sociological changes; nevertheless, religion in realism is intensely problematic, particularly since realist writers were reacting against earlier modes of sentimental and religious fiction. Examining how prominent practitioners of realism dealt with the religious subject will shed a new understanding on the practice of literary realism as a critical mode and address competing claims of textual authority in relation to the Bible and the realist text in the mediation of social ethics. This project comprises six chapters, which are: 1) Introduction to Religion and Realism: “Let Fiction Cease to Lie”; 2) Rebecca Harding Davis and Sentimental Literary Realism; 3) William Dean Howells as Writer and Critic of American Literary Realism; 4) Mark Twain and v the Bible: “I See It Warn’t Nothing but a Dictionary”; 5) Harold Frederic and Realism: The Damnation of Religion; and 6) Conclusion. vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO RELIGION AND REALISM: “LET FICTION CEASE TO LIE” Realist writers of the nineteenth century grappled with a method of writing that purported to be both new and more truthful than previous modes of literary representation. This is a paradoxical classification because it assumes there are degrees of realness or truthfulness, categories that should be absolute, and that superior literature is that which comes closest to representing the tangible world. Closely connected to the belief in the relative superiority of realist literature is the aesthetic implication that literature has a transformative capacity in relation to social behavior and ethical practices. Not surprisingly, in realist lingo, one frequently finds an attempt to assert such literary authority by suggesting that the writer functions as a social scientist looking for truisms in culture, which is really an attempt to narrow the conditions of certainty regarding that which is knowable. Such a claim shifts the philosophical focus of the pursuit of truth and knowledge from an intuitive grasp of the ideal realm to the immediate physical world and the experience