Correspondence and American Literature, 1770}}}1865 [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Hewitt uncovers the centrality of letter-writing to antebellum American literature.Elizabeth Hewitt uncovers the centrality of letter-writing to antebellum American literature. She argues that many canonical American authors, including Jefferson, Emerson, Melville, Dickinson and Whitman, turned to the epistolary form as an idealised genre through which to consider the challenges of American democracy before the Civil War. Hewitt argues that although correspondence is generally only conceived as a biographical archive, it must instead be understood as a significant genre through which these early authors made sense of social and political relations in the new nation.Elizabeth Hewitt uncovers the centrality of letter-writing to antebellum American literature. She argues that many canonical American authors, including Jefferson, Emerson, Melville, Dickinson and Whitman, turned to the epistolary form as an idealised genre through which to consider the challenges of American democracy before the Civil War. Hewitt argues that although correspondence is generally only conceived as a biographical archive, it must instead be understood as a significant genre through which these early authors made sense of social and political relations in the new nation.Elizabeth Hewitt argues that many canonical American authors, including Jefferson, Emerson, Melville, Dickinson and Whitman, turned to letter-writing as an idealized genre through which to consider the challenges of American democracy before the Civil War. Hewitt maintains that, although correspondence is generally only conceived as a biographical archive, it must instead be understood as a significant genre through which these early authors made sense of social and political relations in the new nation.Preface: universal letter writers; 1. National letters; 2. Emerson and Fuller's phenomenal letters; 3. Melville's dead letters; 4. Jacobs's letters from nowhere; 5. Dickinson's lyrical letters; Conclusion: Whitman's lÃç