Medieval America : Feudalism and Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century U. S. Culture / Robert Yusef Rabiee.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rabiee, Robert Yusef, 1981- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Liberalism--United States--History--19th century.

Liberalism.

Literature and history--United States--History--19th century.

Literature and history.

United States--Civilization--19th century.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (224 p.)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Athens, Georgia : The University of Georgia Press, [2020]

Summary:

"Medieval America analyzes literary, legal, and historical archives that help tell a new story about the formation of American culture. Against Cold War-era studies of U.S. culture that argued, following political scientist Louis Hartz's "liberal consensus" model, that the United States emerged from the Revolutionary era free from Europe's feudal institutions and uninterested in the production of its medieval culture productions, Robert Yusef Rabiee contends that feudal law and medieval literature were structural components of the American cultural imaginary in the nineteenth century. The racial, gender, and class formations that emerged in the first era of U.S. nation building were deeply indebted to medieval social, political, and religious thought-an observation that challenges the liberal consensus model and allows us to better grasp how American social roles developed. Far from casting off feudal tradition, the early United States folded feudalism into its emerging liberal order, creating a knotted system of values and practices that continue to structure the American experience. Sometimes, the feudal residuum contradicted the liberal values of the Unites States. Other times, the feudal residuum bolstered those values, revealing deep sympathies between so-called "modern" and "premodern" political thought. Medieval America thus aims to reorient our discussions about American cultural and political development in terms of the long arc of European history"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Feudalism and liberalism in the U.S. imaginary

Plantation romance and southern medievalim in Poe's magazine fiction

Melodrama of primitive accumulation : Cooper's feudal claims

Marriage, chivalry, and feudal law : Harriet Jacobs and E. D. E. N. Southworth

Resistance to the feudal-liberal alliance : Ridge's The life and adventures of Joaquín Murieta and Melville's Benito Cereno

Feudalism, individualism, and authority in Emerson's later works

Conclusion: The Kentucky castle.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

Description based on print version record.

Includes index.

ISBN:

9780820358376

0820358371

OCLC:

1226783327