States of Sympathy: Seduction and Democracy in the American Novel

Barnes, Elizabeth

ISBN 10: 0231108796 ISBN 13: 9780231108799

Verlag: Columbia University Press, 1997

Inhaltsangabe

Book by Barnes Elizabeth

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Críticas:

Barnes covers a lot of textual ground in articulating her assertion that 'American culture's preoccupation with familial feeling as the foundation for sympathy, and sympathy as the basis of a democratic republic, ultimately confounds the difference between familial and social bonds.' She makes her argument by referring to a wide variety of literary texts and to a number of philosophers, including Locke, Paine, and Francis Hutcheson.

Reseña del editor:

States of Sympathy calls for a new approach to reading early American fiction and politics, one that recognizes sympathy as crucial to the construction of American identity: to read sympathetically becomes synonymous with reading like an American. Examining philosophical and political texts alongside literary ones, Elizabeth Barnes explores the extent to which sympathy and sentiment are increasingly employed to construct the notion of a politically affective state. Barnes demonstrates how the family comes to represent the ideal model for social and political affiliations. Familial feeling proves the foundations for sympathy and sympathy the foundation for democracy. In holding up the family as a model for sociopolitical union, however, sentimental rhetoric conflates the boundaries between familial and sociosexual ties, resulting in a confusion of familial and erotic attachment. The distinction between licit and illicit love - exemplified in numerous stories about incest and seduction - becomes a preoccupying theme in American literature. While such stories have often been read as a manifestation of anxieties about corruption in the young republic, Barnes provocatively argues that incest and seduction actually represent the logical outcome of nineteenth-century American culture's most deeply held values.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Columbia University Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0231108796
• ISBN 13: 9780231108799
• Einband: Rústica
• Anzahl der Seiten: 172