1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910825346703321

Autore

Duquette Elizabeth <1963->

Titolo

Loyal subjects [[electronic resource] ] : bonds of nation, race, and allegiance in nineteenth-century America / / Elizabeth Duquette

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Brunswick, N.J., : Rutgers University Press, c2010

ISBN

1-283-38335-7

9786613383358

0-8135-5112-9

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (288 p.)

Collana

The American Literatures Initiative

Classificazione

18.06

Disciplina

810.9/358735

Soggetti

American literature - 19th century - History and criticism

National characteristics, American, in literature

Loyalty in literature

Allegiance in literature

Nationalism in literature

Nationalism and literature - United States - History - 19th century

United States History Civil War, 1861-1865 Literature and the war

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

"American Literatures Initiative"--T.p. verso.

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: Pledging Allegiance -- 1 / Loyalty, Oaths, and the Nation -- 2 / One Big Happy Family, Again? -- 3 / Pledging Allegiance in Henry James -- 4 / Loyalty’s Slaves -- 5 / Philosophies of Loyalty -- Afterword -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author

Sommario/riassunto

When one nation becomes two, or when two nations become one, what does national affiliation mean or require? Elizabeth Duquette answers this question by demonstrating how loyalty was used during the U.S. Civil War to define proper allegiance to the Union. For Northerners during the war, and individuals throughout the nation after Appomattox, loyalty affected the construction of national identity, moral authority, and racial characteristics. Loyal Subjects considers how the Civil War complicated the cultural value of emotion, especially the ideal of sympathy. Through an analysis of literary works written during and after the conflict-from Nathaniel Hawthorne's "Chiefly About War



Matters" through Henry James's The Bostonians and Charles Chestnutt's "The Wife of His Youth," to the Pledge of Allegiance and W.E.B. Du Bois's John Brown, among many others-Duquette reveals that although American literary criticism has tended to dismiss the Civil War's impact, postwar literature was profoundly shaped by loyalty.