The friction of experience: Community and *understanding in the novels of Charles Brockden Brown.
Item
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Title
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The friction of experience: Community and *understanding in the novels of Charles Brockden Brown.
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Identifier
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AAI9959157
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identifier
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9959157
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Creator
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Albert, Lauren Gale.
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Contributor
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Adviser: William Kelly
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Date
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2000
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Literature, American
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Abstract
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This study's goal is to demonstrate that Charles Brockden Brown was more a man of his time than a man ahead of his time as many people have argued. His novels reflect anxieties about the possibilities of communication and understanding that were not merely personal but also cultural. Through four thematic studies, this work argues that these anxieties about interpretation and communication emerged out of eighteenth-century anxieties about the changing population and the perceived weakening of social bonds.;The first chapter, "Grace or Damnation: Interpreting the Religious Voice in Charles Brockden Brown," examines the conflict between public and private religious experience as it is reflected in Brown's life, novels and culture. It shows that Brown's experience as a Quaker made him particularly attuned to cultural anxieties over religious experience, as well as to the importance of community oversight of religious experience.;The second chapter, "The Evidence of Character and the Character of Evidence: Charles Brockden Brown's Psychology of Knowing," argues that, according to Brown, our interpretations of the characters of those around us are highly dependent on a dangerous but necessary leap of faith. Brown's novels reflect his belief that the only way to moderate the danger of the social unknown is through applying ideals of empiricism to social life.;The third chapter, "'A Guarded Education'?": Experience and Education in the Writings of Charles Brockden Brown," continues the argument of the previous chapter by demonstrating that Rousseau and Locke's educational theories, while emphasizing empirically gained knowledge, neglect the social. The fates of the various antagonists in Edgar Huntly, Wieland and Arthur Mervyn reflect the strengths and weaknesses of their education. Their success in guarding themselves against the machinations of the novels' villains depends on the range of their social experience.;The final chapter, "The Waxwork Culture: Realism and Theatricality in the Eighteenth Century," discusses the cultural anxieties raised by new levels of artistic realism in sculpture, painting and theater. Eighteenth-century fiction, including Brown's novels, uses the language of theater to show the culture's growing sense of---and anxiety about---the performativity of self.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
