The Cambridge History of American Literature, Vol. 2: Prose Writing, 1820-1865

881 Pages·1995·156.11 MB·English

by  Sacvan Bercovitch

This multivolume History marks a new beginning in the study of American litera-
ture. It embodies the work of a generation of Americanists who have redrawn the
boundaries of the field and redefined the terms of its development. The extraordinary
growth of the field has called for and here receives a more expansive, more flexible
scholarly format. All previous histories of American literature have been either
totalizing, offering the magisterial sweep of a single vision, or encyclopedic, com-
posed of a multitude of terse accounts that come to seem just as totalizing and
preclude the development of authorial voice. Here, American literary history unfolds
through a polyphony of large-scale narratives. Each is ample enough in scope and
detail to allow for the elaboration of distinctive views (premises, arguments, and
analyses); each is persuasive by demonstration and authoritative in its own right; and
each is related to the others through common themes and concerns.
The authors were selected for the excellence of their scholarship and for the
significance of the critical communities informing their work. Together, they demon-
strate the achievements of Americanist literary criticism over the past three decades.
Their contributions to these volumes speak to continuities as well as disruptions
between generations and give voice to the wide range of materials now subsumed
under the heading of American literature and culture.
This volume is the fullest and richest account of the American renaissance avail-
able in any literary history. The narratives offer a fourfold perspective on literature:
social, cultural, intellectual, and aesthetic. Michael Davitt Bell describes the social
conditions of the literary vocation that shaped the growth of a professional literature
in the United States. Eric J. Sundquist draws upon broad cultural patterns: his
account of the writings of exploration, the frontier, and slavery is an interweaving of
disparate voices, outlooks, and traditions. Barbara L. Packer's sources come largely
from intellectual history: the theological and philosophical controversies that pre-
pared the way for Transcendentalism. Jonathan Arac's categories are basically formal-
ist: he sees the development of antebellum fiction as a dialectic of prose genres, the
emergence of a literary mode out of the clash of national, local, and personal forms.
Together, these four narratives constitute a basic reassessment of American prose
writing between 1820 and 1865. It is an achievement that will remain authoritative
for our time and that will set new directions for coming decades in American literary
scholarship.

THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY
OF AMERICAN LITERATURE
Volume 2
1820—1865

THE CAMBRIDGE
HISTORY OF
AMERICAN LITERATURE
Volume 2
1820—1865
General Editor
SACVAN BERCOVITCH
Harvard University
Associate Editor
CYRUS R. K. PATELL
New York University
CAMBRIDGE
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UNIVERSITY PRESS
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
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CambridgeUniversityPress
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© Cambridge University Press 1995
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 1995
Fourth printing 2006
Printed in the United Kingdom at the University Press, Cambridge
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data
(Revised for vol. 2)
The Cambridge history of American literature.
Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Contents: v. 1. 1590—1820 — v. 2. 1820—
1865.
1. American literature — History and
criticism. I. Bercovitch, Sacvan. II. Patell,
Cyrus R. K. III. History of American
literature.
ps92.c34 1994 810.9 92–42479
ISBN 0-521-30106-8
isbn-13978-0-521-30106-0 hardback
isbn-100-5 21-30 106-8hardback-
CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersisitenceoraccuruacyofURLs
forthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,anddoesnot
guaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate.
CONTENTS
A cknowledgments page vii
Introduction
CONDITIONS OF LITERARY VOCATION 9
Michael Davttt Bell, Williams College
1 Beginnings of Professionalism 11
2 Women's Fiction and the Literary Marketplace in the 1850s 74
THE LITERATURE OF EXPANSION AND RACE 125
EricJ. Sundquist, University of California, Los Angeles
1 Exploration and Empire 127
2 The Frontier and American Indians 175
3 The Literature of Slavery and African American Culture 239
THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS 329
Barbara L. Packer, University of California, Los Angeles
1 Unitarian Beginnings
331
2 The Assault on Locke
350
3 Carlyle and the Beginnings of American Transcendentalism 362
4 "Annus Mirabilis" 376
5 The Establishment and the Movement 392
6 Letters and Social Aims 424
7 The Hope of Reform 459
8 Diaspora 495
9 The Antislavery Years 548
v
VI C O N T E N TS
NARRATIVE FORMS 605
Jonathan Arac, University of Pittsburgh
1 Establishing National Narrative 607
2 Local Narratives 629
3 Personal Narratives 661
693
4 Literary Narrative
5 Crisis of Literary Narrative and Consolidation of
National Narrative
735
Chronology
779
Bibliography 851
Index 861
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
FROM THE GENERAL EDITOR
I would like to thank Harvard University for a grant that enabled the
contributors to convene for three days of discussion and planning. I am
grateful for the generous assistance of Andrew Brown, Julie Greenblatt, and
T. Susan Chang of Cambridge University Press; for the steady support and
advice of Daniel Aaron, Eytan Bercovitch, and Susan L. Mizruchi; and for the
critical and clerical student help I received from Nancy Bentley, Michael
Berthold, Lianna Farber, and Jessica Riskin. My special thanks to Margaret
Reid, who helped at every stage.
Sacvan Bercovitch
FROM THE ASSOCIATE EDITOR
I wish to thank Jonathan Arac and David S. Shields for special assistance with
the chronologies for volumes one and two; Pamela Bruton and Susan Green-
berg for their meticulous copyediting; Katharita Lamoza for her patient and
expert supervision of the production process; Julie Greenblatt and T. Susan
Chang for their invaluable help through the various stages of this project; and
Elizabeth Fowler for her constant moral support and good advice.
Cyrus R. K. Patell
CONDITIONS OF LITERARY VOCATION
I wish to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities for a 1986
Summer Stipend, and Williams College for a sabbatical leave in the fall of
that year; their support freed up crucial time for researching and writing
much of my contribution to this volume. I am also grateful to the staff of the
Williams College Library for their rapid processing of interlibrary loan re-
quests. I have tried to indicate my debts to other scholars in the body of my
section and in my contributions to this volume's bibliography, but I am
particularly indebted to Perry Miller, who first introduced me to many of the
vi 1