| Description |
1 online resource (x, 223 pages) |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-198) and index. |
| Note |
Print version record. |
| Summary |
In this path-breaking study, Michael Bennett departs from tradition to argue that the democratic ideal of equality and the actual ways in which it has been practiced are grounded less in the fledgling government documents written by a handful of white men than in the actions and writings of the radical abolitionists of the nineteenth century. Bringing together key texts of both African American and European American authors, Democratic Discourses shows the important ways that abolitionist writing shaped a powerful counterculture within a slave-holding society. Bennett offers fresh new analysis through unusual pairings of authors, including Frederick Douglass with Henry David Thoreau, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper with Walt Whitman, and Margaret Fuller with Sojourner Truth. These rereadings avoid the tendency to view antebellum writing as a product primarily of either European American or African American influences and, instead, illustrate the interconnections of white and black literature in the creation and practice of democracy. Drawing on discourses about race, the body, gender, economics, and aesthetics, this unique study encourages readers to reconsider the reality and roots of freedoms experienced in the United States today. |
| Subject |
American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism.
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Slavery in literature.
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American literature -- African American authors -- History and criticism.
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Politics and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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Literature and society -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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Radicalism -- United States -- History -- 19th century.
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African Americans -- Intellectual life -- 19th century.
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Abolitionists -- United States -- Intellectual life.
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Antislavery movements in literature.
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African Americans in literature.
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Radicalism in literature.
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LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
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| Other Form: |
Print version: Bennett, Michael, 1962- Democratic discourses. New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, ©2005 0813535727 0813535735 (DLC) 2004016423 (OCoLC)55981510 |
| ISBN |
0813537533 (electronic bk.) |
|
9780813537535 (electronic bk.) |
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