Democracy, Revolution, and Monarchism in Early American LiteraturePaul Downes combines literary criticism and political history in order to explore responses to the rejection of monarchism in the American revolutionary era. Downes' analysis considers the Declaration of Independence, Franklin's autobiography, Crèvecoeur's Letters from an American Farmer and the works of America's first significant literary figures including Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper. He claims that the post-revolutionary American state and the new democratic citizen inherited some of the complex features of absolute monarchy, even as they were strenuously trying to assert their difference from it. In chapters that consider the revolution's mock execution of George III, the Elizabethan notion of the 'king's two bodies' and the political significance of the secret ballot, Downes points to the traces of monarchical political structures within the practices and discourses of early American democracy. This is an ambitious study of an important theme in early American culture and society. |
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... bodies , " and the political significance of the secret ballot , Downes points to the traces of monarchical political structures within the practices and discourses of early American democracy . This is an ambitious study of an ...
... bodies , " and the political significance of the secret ballot , Downes points to the traces of monarchical political structures within the practices and discourses of early American democracy . This is an ambitious study of an ...
Page x
... bodies , " an idea central to the ver- sion of monarchic absolutism that was contested in both the English Civil War and ... body politic . This anxiety is recorded in specific attempts to limit the franchise in the early republic and in ...
... bodies , " an idea central to the ver- sion of monarchic absolutism that was contested in both the English Civil War and ... body politic . This anxiety is recorded in specific attempts to limit the franchise in the early republic and in ...
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... bodies ) . I will address this concept ( the king's two bodies ) at more length in chapter one , but I want to note it here in order to begin to suggest that a mystificatory language of self - analysis is not foreign to the discourse of ...
... bodies ) . I will address this concept ( the king's two bodies ) at more length in chapter one , but I want to note it here in order to begin to suggest that a mystificatory language of self - analysis is not foreign to the discourse of ...
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... body - double , or a spy . The impersonal pronoun “ it ” – the revolution's other body – hides ; it keeps a secret , even as it stands in for the revolution itself . " It " is nowhere to be acknowledged by the revolution it serves . It ...
... body - double , or a spy . The impersonal pronoun “ it ” – the revolution's other body – hides ; it keeps a secret , even as it stands in for the revolution itself . " It " is nowhere to be acknowledged by the revolution it serves . It ...
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Contents
1 | |
reading the mock executions of 1776 | 31 |
CHAPTER 2 Crèvecoeurs revolutionary loyalism | 58 |
the memoirs of Stephen Burroughs and Benjamin Franklin | 84 |
Brockden Browns secrets | 112 |
Irving and the gender of democracy | 144 |
the revolutions last word | 165 |
Notes | 182 |
Bibliography | 223 |
Index | 237 |
Other editions - View all
Democracy, Revolution, and Monarchism in Early American Literature Paul Downes No preview available - 2009 |
Common terms and phrases
American Revolution anonymous anxiety authority body politic Brockden Brown's C. L. R. James calls Carwin celebrated chapter character Charles Brockden Brown citizen claim colonies concealment Constitution convention Cooper's Crèvecoeur's culture Dame Van Winkle Declaration of Independence democracy democratic subject discourse effigies election Emerson England fantasy father Federalist Papers figure Fliegelman force founding franchise Franklin Freneau George Harvey Birch ideology Indian individual Irving's James James Fenimore Cooper James Madison Jefferson Jersey John Adams John de Crèvecoeur justice king king's Kirvan Letters literary Ludloe's Madison Memoirs monarchism monarchophobia nation Native American nature novel Paine Paine's patriotic person political subjectivity post-revolutionary quoted radical relationship representation representative republic republican resistance revolution's revolutionary rhetorical Rip Van Winkle Rip's sacrifice secrecy sense sovereign speech spell Stephen Burroughs story structure suggests temporal Thomas Paine United ventriloquism violence voters voting Warner Washington women words writes wrote