This thesis is an intercultural and intertextual study of the ways in which an American literary identity has emerged out of an intense imaginative and political dialogue with Russian culture. Early portions of this study trace the historical connections which have drawn American writers into the orbit of Russian literature and culture during the period, 1860-1917. A theoretical chapter attempts to explain the intensity of this dialogue on several related levels: the figural relationship between two literatures which constantly transform each other; the psychic experience of an otherness between individuals and cultures which leads to provisional patterns of literary identity; and the transformation of a purely literary dialogue into the realm of social praxis. The second half of the thesis examines the careers of three major American writers--Henry James, Willa Carter, and Sherwood Anderson--as each reads the figures of Russian literature against a native American tradition, and in the process incorporates this "other" literature into that tradition. A concluding chapter initiates a discussion of the ways in which literary influence is also bound up with the dialogue of politics and power.

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In the eighty years from the arrival of English convicts and their gaolers in Australia to the death, in 1868, of Australia's first major writer, Charles Harpur, an Australian/American literary tradition was born. This dissertation traces the development of that tradition, one which few scholars have recognized. Even before the arrival of the First Fleet of convicts, many Britons saw Australia as potentially another America; consequently, Australia's early inhabitants did so too. A few radicals and idealists even contemplated Cook's Pacific discovery as a new and potentially greater America. Botany Bay's first decades naturally witnessed some changes in these initial perceptions. Up to Darling's period of governorship (1825-31), Australia's ruling elite, though forced to trade with busy--and, at times, ruthless--Yankee merchants, considered the continuing presence of American boats to be a threat to the colony's security: American captains aided in the numerous escapes of convicts otherwise doomed to spend the terms of their natural life in New Holland. Reaction to Americans and American influence, then, depended on one's position in the colonial hierarchy. However, after Governor Brisbane decided to allow freedom of the Press in 1824, significant shifts in the Australian/American relationship began. An expanding Australian middle class, chafing under the strictures of colonial rule from London, began to identify its situation with that of the citizenry in pre-revolutionary America. Led initially by W.C. Wentworth, who published his Statistical Description in 1819> demand for self-government grew. This dissent should be viewed as Australia's first lively and recognizably indigenous literature. It draws heavily on American precedent. In the 1830's, '40's and 50's, revolutionary writers such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, James Otis and Patrick Henry became increasingly popular amongst Australians in search of political sovereignty. America came under scrutiny as a country experiencing parallel growing pains, but at a more advanced stage of development. At the same time, the example of American independence was of rhetorical and political value for Australians when dealing with a rigid Colonial Office in London. While "Brother Jonathan," as America was often affectionately labelled, was a popular political weapon up to the 18501s, he was also of great literary significance in the later 1830's. Consumption of American books in Australia increased dramatically as the population expanded and books became cheaper. In I838, John Dunmore Lang's Colonist reprinted William Ellery Channing's essay, "On the Importance and Means of a National Literature. Conscious of the efforts of Americans such as Channing, Emerson, Brownson, Fuller and Parker to establish a strong national literature in the United States, a small group of dedicated Australians strove to assert their own creative independence. They recognized not only Australia's political affinity with America, but social, intellectual and literary attachments as well. Connections between Australia and America became far more sophisticated in the 18401s, 1501s and '60's for a variety of reasons. One was the goldfields in California and Australia, with the subsequent interchange of population. Another was the more advanced system of communications between the two countries--the American Civil War, for example, was exhaustively covered in all Australian colonies. Third, and for this thesis most importantly, three Australian writers, John Dunmore Lang, Daniel Deniehy and Charles Harpur determined to consult a wide range of American sources in their quest to establish both a highly principled nation and a truly Australian literature. Yet, as the works of Lang, Deniehy and Harpur indicate, Australians of the time rejected the path of easy imitation of Brother Jonathan. All three writers envisaged their country as a future world leader. Rejecting both despotic colonial government rule and America's abhorrent institution of slavery, they wanted to establish an ideal republic in the south--a Utopia of yeoman-farmers. Shaped by these republican musings, democratic sentiments and Utopian speculations, a literary tradition of energetic interaction between Australian and American writers, enlarging on socio-political roots as old as the colony itself, was founded. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

There are many heroines in American fiction, and in this thesis I have tried to show the development of the characterization of women in the American novel.

This thesis discusses pragmatist philosophy in the nineteenth century and its effect on American literature of the time.

Expressed Silence: A Study of the Metaphorics of Word in Selected Nineteenth-Century American Texts This dissertation explores the patterned use of certain “metaphors of word”——images of reading, writing, listening, and speaking——in four American texts: Emerson’s Nature, Thoreau’s Walden, Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, and Melville’s Moby Dick. Assumed in my discussion is the modern view of metaphor as a cognitive device used, not for mere stylistic ornament, but for creating a certain mental perspective. Based on the perspectival view and on the experiential—gestalt account of metaphor, the structures of these metaphors of word are examined in order to discern the systematic nature of their argument and to determine the cultural and historical reasons why language imagery, and not some other type of imagery, was chosen to represent this argument. After surveying the cultural influences of democracy, mercantilism, Romanticism, and Calvinism, I characterize the metaphoric systems of each text and then move on to a closer study of the role of silence within these systems. From this analysis, I conclude that these nineteenth— century texts reflect a shift away from the book toward the voice as a predominant symbol, and away from writing toward speaking as a privileged metaphor. Language imagery works to represent ways of knowing, so that linguistic and epistemic concerns become inextricably intertwined. The process of using language operates as a metaphor for the process of gaining knowledge. In this metaphorics of word, silence emerges as a particularly striking metaphor in the way that it expresses the coalescence of being and knowing, the realization that we know what we know. In this scheme, metaphors of word structure ways of understanding, and the expressed silence metaphor highlights the way interior speech can function in the discernment of knowledge. Ultimately, I contend that the perspective provided by this nineteenth—century metaphorics of word forecasts the modern view of rhetoric as epistemic. By employing linguistic action as a figure for representing epistemic action, a metaphorics of word promotes an understanding of rhetoric’s primary purpose as the interrogation of truth.

“Black Mothers and the Nation” tracks the ways that texts produced by United States women throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries position the black maternal body as subversive to the white patriarchal power structure for which it labored and that has acted in many ways to abject it from the national body. This study points to the ways in which the black mother’s subversive potential has been repeatedly, violently, and surreptitiously circumscribed in some quarters even as it succeeds in others. Several important thematic threads run throughout the chapters of this study, sometimes appearing in clear relationship to the texts discussed and sometimes underwriting their analysis in less obvious ways: the functioning of the black maternal body to both support the construction of and undermine white womanhood in slavery and in the years beyond; the reclamation of the maternal body as a site of subversion and nurturance as well as erotic empowerment; the resistance of black mother figures to oppressive discourses surrounding their bodies and reproduction; and, finally, the figurative and literal location of the black mother in a national body politic that has simultaneously used and abjected it over the course of centuries. Using these lenses, this study focuses on a grouping of women’s literature that depicts slavery and its legacy for black women and their bodies. The narratives discussed in this study explore the intersections of the issues outlined above in order to get at meaningful expressions of black maternal identity. By their very nature as representations of historical record and regional and national realities, these texts speak to the problematic placement of black maternal bodies within the nation, beginning in the antebellum era and continuing through the present; in other words, these slavery, Reconstruction, and segregation narratives connect personal and physical experiences of maternity to the national body. / The subordination of embodied power : sentimental representations of the black maternal body in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's cabin and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the life of a slave girl -- Recuperating the body : the black mother's reclamation of embodied presence and her reintegration into the black community in Pauline Hopkins's Contending forces and Toni Morrison's Beloved -- The narrative power of the black maternal body : resisting and exceeding visual economies of discipline in Margaret Walker's Jubilee and Sherley Anne Williams's Dessa Rose -- Mapping black motherhood onto the nation : the black maternal body and the body politic in Lillian Smith's Strange fruit and Alice Randall's The wind done gone -- Michelle Obama in context. / Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only / Department of English

The American Romantic writers laid a broad foundation for the historic and heroic Abraham Lincoln who has evolved as our national myth. The writers were attracted to Lincoln by his eloquent expression of the body of ideals and beliefs they shared with him, especially the ideal of individual liberty and the belief that achievement of the ideal would bring about an amelioration of the human condition. The time, place and conditions in which they lived enhanced the attraction, and Lincoln's able leadership during the Civil War strengthened their estimation of him. His martyrdom was the catalyst which enabled the Romantic writers to lay the foundation of the Lincoln myth which has made his name synonymous with individual freedom everywhere even today.

Expressed Silence: A Study of the Metaphorics of Word in Selected Nineteenth-Century American Texts This dissertation explores the patterned use of certain “metaphors of word”——images of reading, writing, listening, and speaking——in four American texts: Emerson’s Nature, Thoreau’s Walden, Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter, and Melville’s Moby Dick. Assumed in my discussion is the modern view of metaphor as a cognitive device used, not for mere stylistic ornament, but for creating a certain mental perspective. Based on the perspectival view and on the experiential—gestalt account of metaphor, the structures of these metaphors of word are examined in order to discern the systematic nature of their argument and to determine the cultural and historical reasons why language imagery, and not some other type of imagery, was chosen to represent this argument. After surveying the cultural influences of democracy, mercantilism, Romanticism, and Calvinism, I characterize the metaphoric systems of each text and then move on to a closer study of the role of silence within these systems. From this analysis, I conclude that these nineteenth— century texts reflect a shift away from the book toward the voice as a predominant symbol, and away from writing toward speaking as a privileged metaphor. Language imagery works to represent ways of knowing, so that linguistic and epistemic concerns become inextricably intertwined. The process of using language operates as a metaphor for the process of gaining knowledge. In this metaphorics of word, silence emerges as a particularly striking metaphor in the way that it expresses the coalescence of being and knowing, the realization that we know what we know. In this scheme, metaphors of word structure ways of understanding, and the expressed silence metaphor highlights the way interior speech can function in the discernment of knowledge. Ultimately, I contend that the perspective provided by this nineteenth—century metaphorics of word forecasts the modern view of rhetoric as epistemic. By employing linguistic action as a figure for representing epistemic action, a metaphorics of word promotes an understanding of rhetoric’s primary purpose as the interrogation of truth. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate