Transatlantic Perspectives: Founding Fictions in British-American Literature

Abstract

can literature ran dependably on schedule. Anthologies were small and branch lines few. This railroading was based on two assumptions, convenient fictions that have recently grown less so. The first was that America was unique, exceptional, different from and better than other countries, separated by oceans, history, distinctions, and oppositions. The second resembled the first. It was that literature was unique, exceptional, different from and better than other human activities, even other modes of discourse, and that it was, therefore, viewed most clearly, was most totally its apparent self, when seen as separate from other, unliterary activities and writings. Writings that fit these suppositions-autotelic invocations of God, love, and death, songs and soliloquies overheard by readers rather than directed at them in conversation-were legible and frequently read. Other writings, inspired less by the lyric Muse than by Roman and English politics, tobacco, commerce, and the salary of the governor of Massachusetts, were left standing trackside while the Edwards-to-Emerson express roared by.