Synopses & Reviews
Paul Downes offers a radical revision of some of the most cherished elements of early American cultural identity. The founding texts and writers of the Republic, he claims, did not wholly displace what they claimed to oppose. Instead, Downes argues, the entire construction of a Republican public sphere actually borrowed and adapted central features of Monarchical rule. Downes discovers this theme not only in a wide range of American novels, but also in readings of a variety of political documents that created the philosophical culture of the American revolutionary period.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 223-236) and index.
Synopsis
Downes combines literary criticism and political history to explore responses to the rejection of monarchism in the American revolutionary era.
Synopsis
A radical revision of some of the most cherished elements of early American cultural identity. Downes argues that the whole construction of a Republican public sphere actually borrowed central features of monarchical rule. Downes discovers this theme in a wide range of American novels and a variety of political documents.
About the Author
Paul Downes is an Associate Professor in the department of English at the University of Toronto. He is the author of a number of articles on eighteenth and nineteenth century American literature.
Table of Contents
Introduction: the spell of democracy; 1. Monarchophobia: reading the mock executions of 1776; 2. Crèvecoeur's revolutionary loyalism; 3. Citizen subjects: the memoirs of Stephen Burroughs and Benjamin Franklin; 4. An epistemology of the ballot box: Brockden Brown's secrets; 5. Luxury, effeminacy, corruption: Irving and the gender of democracy; Afterword: The revolution's last word.