[[abstract]]Two hundred and thirty years after its publication, Crèvecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer (1782) still grips general readers and literary critics of American literature. Modern critics, however, question many of its implicit assumptions. This paper first traces Crèvecoeur’s influence by Enlightenment doctrines, especially physiocratic beliefs, and examines how Crèvecoeur’s notion of the farmer challenges the “Americandegeneracy” theory and contributes to his New World vision. It then proceeds to explore how the notion of the (freehold) farmer as the representative American creates controversies to such an extent that in the end the farmer ends up not as a representative American but as a problematic figure.
展开▼
