Captivity & Sentiment: Cultural Exchange in American Literature, 1682-1861

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Dartmouth College Press, 1999 - 211 ページ

In a radically new interpretation and synthesis of highly popular 18th- and 19th-century genres, Michelle Burnham examines the literature of captivity, and, using Homi Bhabha's concept of interstitiality as a base, provides a valuable redescription of the ambivalent origins of the US national narrative. Stories of colonial captives, sentimental heroines, or fugitive slaves embody a "binary division between captive and captor that is based on cultural, national, or racial difference," but they also transcend these pre-existing antagonistic dichotomies by creating a new social space, and herein lies their emotional power. Beginning from a simple question on why captivity, particularly that of women, so often inspires a sentimental response, Burnham examines how these narratives elicit both sympathy and pleasure. The texts carry such great emotional impact precisely because they "traverse those very cultural, national, and racial boundaries that they seem so indelibly to inscribe. Captivity literature, like its heroines, constantly negotiates zones of contact," and crossing those borders reveals new cultural paradigms to the captive and, ultimately, the reader.

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目次

Introduction
1
1 Captivity Cultural Contact and Commodification
10
Captivity Sympathy and the Sentimental Novel
41
3 Republican Motherhood and Political Representation in Postrevolutionary America
63
Nationalism and Sympathy in the Frontier Romance
92
5 Sympathetic Agency and Colonization in Uncle Toms Cabin
118
Strategies of Mimicry in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
147
Conclusion
170
Notes
177
Works Cited
193
Index
207
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著者について (1999)

MICHELLE BURNHAM is Associate Professor of English at Santa Clara University.

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