American Literature to 1900: Reading Questions and Information

Reading Questions and Background

Wednesday 2/12/97-Friday 2/14/97

Location: [Reed College] [Department of English] [Laura Arnold][ Nation and Narration]Daily Readings

Margaret Fuller

1. There is a very good introduction to Fuller and her works at the beginning of our text, so I will not repeat that information here, but instead direct you towards it. I am interested, though, in how you see Fuller responding to issues that Hawthorne and Emerson have raised regarding travel, the sublime, nature, and the nation. I would like you to consider what difference Fuller implies it makes to be a women viewing (and writing about) these sights. For Wed. please read the following:

1. Summer on the Lakes, chapters 1-4
2. Woman in the Nineteenth Century: pp. 247- 258 (up until "But to return to the historical); pp. 309 ("There are two aspects of women") to 313 (up until but not including the paragraph that begins "AMONG THE THRONG"); and pp. 341 ("And now I have designated this outline")-end.
3. Recommended Reading: Elaine Showalter's "Towards a Feminist Poetics" (Essentials of the Theory of Fiction 380-402)

2. In case you would like more information on the relationship between Fuller and Emerson, I have placed the following essays by feminist Tina Zwarg on reserve: "Falling without Speed: The Feminist Frame of Emerson's Letter's to Fuller" and "Footnoting the Sublime: Fuller on Black Hawk's Trail" (both from Feminist Conversations: Fuller, Emerson, and the Play of Reading). If you are interested in the way that Fuller constructs her gender, I recommend looking at Mary Wood's "'With Ready Eye': Margaret Fuller and Lesbianism in Nineteenth-Century American Literature" (American Literature 65(1) March 1993: 1-18). All of these are on reserve and are entirely optional.

3. For Friday please finish reading Fuller's Summer on the Lakes and read pp. ix-xx and 226-235 of Werner Sollors' The Invention of Ethnicity. What sort of identity does Fuller "invent" for American Indians? What is their role within the nation's invented identity? Do American Indians help Fuller invent a white space and identity as well? How so? How does her portraits of American Indians compare to the portraits of American Indians made by George Catlin?

4. Narrative Strategies--Recommended Reading: Elaine Showalter's "Towards a Feminist Poetics" (Essentials of the Theory of Fiction 380-402): see the summary on the back of this sheet. What would a "woman as writer" reading of Summer on the Lakes look like? How would it differ from a "woman as reader" analysis? What are the limitations of such readings? (Which kind of readings are either Zwarg or Wood doing?)

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