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Author Bennett, Michael, 1962-

Title Democratic discourses : the radical abolition movement and antebellum American literature / Michael Bennett
Published New Brunswick, N.J. : Rutgers University Press, ©2005

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Description 1 online resource (x, 223 pages)
Contents Machine generated contents note: 1. Democratic discourses : visiting the national anti-slavery bazaar -- 2. Bodily democracy : Frances Ellen Watkins and Walt Whitman sing the body electric -- 3. Gender democracy : Margaret Fuller and Sojourner Truth argue the case of Woman versus women -- 4. Economic democracy : Frederick Douglass and Henry David Thoreau negotiate the Mason-Dixon Line
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
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-198) and index
Notes English
Print version record
Subject American literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism
Slavery in literature.
American literature -- African American authors -- History and criticism
Politics and literature -- United States -- History -- 19th century
Literature and society -- United States -- History -- 19th century
Radicalism -- United States -- History -- 19th century
African Americans -- Intellectual life -- 19th century
Abolitionists -- United States -- Intellectual life
Antislavery movements in literature.
African Americans in literature.
Radicalism in literature.
LITERARY CRITICISM -- American -- General.
African Americans in literature
African Americans -- Intellectual life
American literature
American literature -- African American authors
Antislavery movements in literature
Literature and society
Politics and literature
Radicalism
Radicalism in literature
Slavery in literature
United States
Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc.
History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 0813537533
9780813537535
9780813535722
0813535727
9780813535739
0813535735
1280360860
9781280360862
9786610360864
6610360863