Searching for a point d'appui : Constructions of National Identity in Antebellum American Literature

• In the decades before the Civil War, American society witnessed the intensification of political and social tensions over issues such as slavery, Irish immigration, laborers’ rights, and women’s rights; the major economic transformations and the drive toward the new order of free enterprise capitalism (especially in the North); the expansionist policies materialized as Indian removal or military aggression against a neighboring country. Such disruptive forces were taking a heavy toll on the national fabric. At least this is what some American literati feared; through all the tumult and vitality of antebellum America, they discerned a sort of moral groundlessness. The America(s) they imagined seem to point to this ethical dimension as their common denominator. Thoreau is one of those antebellum writers who peeped into the American conscience and tried to find a “point d’appui”, a new ethical foundation for the national project that was underway. This paper investigates his and others’ literary re-constructions of America.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Litteraturstudier (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- Specific Literatures (hsv//eng)

HUMANIORA  -- Historia och arkeologi -- Historia (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- History and Archaeology -- History (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

US national identity

antebellum American literature

moral foundation

political vices

progress

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

kon (ämneskategori)