Sentimental bodies : sex, gender, and citizenship in the early republic / Bruce Burgett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Burgett, Bruce, 1963-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--1783-1850--History and criticism.

American literature.

Politics and literature--United States--History--19th century.

Politics and literature.

Politics and literature--United States--History--18th century.

Gender identity in literature.

Sentimentalism in literature.

Human body in literature.

Citizenship in literature.

Sex role in literature.

United States--Intellectual life--1783-1865.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (222 p.)

Edition:

Core Textbook

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, c1998.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Sentimentalism, sex, the construction of the modern body, and the origins of American liberalism all come under scrutiny in this rich discussion of political life in the early republic. Here Bruce Burgett enters into debates over the "public sphere," a concept introduced by Jurgen Habermas that has led theorists to grapple with such polarities as public and private, polity and personality, citizenship and subjection. With the literary public sphere as his primary focus, Burgett sets out to challenge the Enlightenment opposition of reason and sentiment as the fundamental grid for understanding American political culture. Drawing on texts ranging from George Washington's "Farewell Address" and Charles Brockden Brown's Clara Howard to Hannah Foster's The Coquette and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Burgett shows that the sentimental literary culture of the period relied on readers' affective, passionate, and embodied responses to fictive characters and situations in order to produce political effects. As such, sentimentalism located readers' bodies both as prepolitical sources of personal authenticity and as public sites of political contestation. Going beyond an account of the public sphere as a realm to which only some have full access, Burgett reveals that the formation of the body and sexual subjectivity is crucial to the very construction of that sphere. By exploring and destabilizing the longstanding distinction between public and private life, this book raises questions central to any democratic political culture.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Introduction: Body Politics

PART ONE: SENTIMENT AND CITIZENSHIP

2. United States Liberalism and the Public Sphere

3. The Patriot's Two Bodies: Nationality and Corporeality in George Washington's ªFarewell Address

PART TWO: SENTIMENT AND SEX

4. Corresponding Sentiments and Republican Letters: Hannah Foster's The Coquette

5. Masochism and Male Sentimentalism: Charles Brockden Brown's Clara Howard

PART THREE: SENTIMENT AND SEXUALITY

6. Obscene Publics: Jesse Sharpless and Harriet Jacobs

7. Afterword: Closeted Sentiments

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [161]-204) and index.

ISBN:

9786612753527

9781400800957

1400800951

9781282753525

1282753525

9781400822690

1400822696

9781400811144

1400811147

OCLC:

705527041