American claimants: England in the American literary imagination from Benjamin Franklin to Henry James.

摘要

This study examines what I have termed the genealogical imperative in classic American literature. It is evident that in spite of Jefferson's "Declaration of Independence" and its supposed literary equivalent, Emerson's "American Scholar," the writers of "Young America" could not altogether throw off the demands of the parent culture. While "Manifest Destiny" and westward expansion were 19th century America's popular myths, American literature was moving east, excavating in Europe the genealogical lines of America's past. If one thinks of the pioneer's quintessential act as staking a claim to space, then the American claimant in Europe performs a complementary act, staking a claim to European history in general and English history in particular. The claimant's exploration and reevaluation of the familial past, with all its gothic overtones, forms an important paradigm for the American quest for national identity. Through a close reading of American claimant fictions by Charles Brockden Brown, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville this study uncovers a complex set of negotiations in which the American mind attempts to balance the demands of the future against the demands of the past.