Mania for Freedom [eBook - Biblioboard] : American Literatures of Enthusiasm from the Revolution to the Civil War

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1841. While this statement may read like an innocuous truism today, the claim would have been controversial in the antebellum United States when enthusiasm was a hotly contested term associated with religious fanaticism and poetic inspiration, revolutionary politics and imaginative excess. In analyzing the language of enthusiasm in philosophy, religion, politics, and literature, John Mac Kilgore uncovers a tradition of enthusiasm linked to a politics of emancipation. The dissenting voices chronicled here fought against what they viewed as tyranny while using their writings to forge international or antinationalistic political affiliations. Pushing his analysis across national boundaries, Kilgore contends that American enthusiastic literature, unlike the era's concurrent sentimental counterpart, stressed democratic resistance over domestic reform as it navigated the global political sphere. By analyzing a range of canonical American authors--including William Apess, Phillis Wheatley, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Walt Whitman--Kilgore places their works in context with the causes, wars, and revolutions that directly or indirectly engendered them. In doing so, he makes a unique and compelling case for enthusiasm's centrality in the shaping of American literary history. In This Study Of Literature In Antebellum America, John Mac Kilgore Argues That A Distinct Rhetorical Tradition Of Enthusiasm Emerged As A Form Of Political Dissent. This Was Literature Written To Confront Normative Values, To Respond To Critical Injustice, And To Incite Revolt, If Not Broad Change. Literary Enthusiasm Came To Signify A Particular Form Of Protest Among Marginalized Groups, Including Commoners, Slaves, Immigrants, Native Americans, Women, And Abolitionists. These Dissenting Voices, These Enthusiasts, Fought Against What They Viewed As Tyranny While Using Their Writings To Forge International Or Anti-nationalistic Political Affiliations-- Introduction: Enthusiasm, Event, Literature -- An Answer To The Question: What Is Enthusiasm? -- Rites Of Dissent: Literatures Of Enthusiasm And The American Revolution -- Shaking Hands With The Prophet: The War Of 1812 And Native American Enthusiasms -- The Revival Of Revolt: Conjure, Slave Insurrection, And The Novel Of Enthusiasm -- The Free State Of Whitman: John Brown, The Civil War, And The Dis-memberment Of Enthusiasm In The 1860 Leaves Of Grass -- Epilogue: The Tramp And Strike Question: Terminal Enthusiasms. John Mac Kilgore. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. "In this study of literature in antebellum America, John Mac Kilgore argues that a distinct rhetorical tradition of enthusiasm emerged as a form of political dissent. This was literature written to confront normative values, to respond to critical injustice, and to incite revolt, if not broad change. Literary enthusiasm came to signify a particular form of protest among marginalized groups, including commoners, slaves, immigrants, Native Americans, women, and abolitionists. These dissenting voices, these enthusiasts, fought against what they viewed as tyranny while using their writings to forge international or anti-nationalistic political affiliations"-- Provided by publisher