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. |
From inside the book
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Page 5
... political oppositions and thus it is the deconstruction of this opposition that will continually inform the readings that follow . This deconstruction follows a literary , or rhetorical , insistence on the tex- tual instability of any ...
... political oppositions and thus it is the deconstruction of this opposition that will continually inform the readings that follow . This deconstruction follows a literary , or rhetorical , insistence on the tex- tual instability of any ...
Page 6
... political order. At the same time, this study is not simply interested in revealing (cynically or pejora- tively) these political inheritances. Instead, I will suggest that a recogni- tion of the complex and irreducible relationship ...
... political order. At the same time, this study is not simply interested in revealing (cynically or pejora- tively) these political inheritances. Instead, I will suggest that a recogni- tion of the complex and irreducible relationship ...
Page 7
... political relationship to monarchism , a recognition that allows for a political philosophy that is not spell - bound by a simple revolutionary antagonism . Democracy re- sists its relationship to monarchism , and this resistance ...
... political relationship to monarchism , a recognition that allows for a political philosophy that is not spell - bound by a simple revolutionary antagonism . Democracy re- sists its relationship to monarchism , and this resistance ...
Page 8
... political force that had itself claimed a meta - historical transcendence of politics . The democratic rev- olution's new beginning , that is to say , depends upon , and repeats , monar- chism's blasphemous appropriation of divine ...
... political force that had itself claimed a meta - historical transcendence of politics . The democratic rev- olution's new beginning , that is to say , depends upon , and repeats , monar- chism's blasphemous appropriation of divine ...
Page 9
... political power ; it is , as Thomas Jefferson put it , “ what the people are entitled to against every government on earth , general or particular , and what no just gov- ernment should refuse or rest on inference . " 16 " Congress ...
... political power ; it is , as Thomas Jefferson put it , “ what the people are entitled to against every government on earth , general or particular , and what no just gov- ernment should refuse or rest on inference . " 16 " Congress ...
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 |
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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