Donna R. Bontatibus - The Seduction Novel of the Early Nation: A Call for Socio-Political Reform

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title	:	The Seduction Novel of the Early Nation : A Call for Socio-political Reform
author	:	Bontatibus, Donna R.
publisher	:	Michigan State University Press
isbn10 | asin	:	0870135090
print isbn13	:	9780870135095
ebook isbn13	:	9780585188201
language	:	English
subject	American fiction--Women authors--History and criticism, Seduction in literature, Feminism and literature--United States--History--19th century, Feminism and literature--United States--History--18th century, Murray, Judith Sargent,--1751-1820--Criticism an
publication date	:	1999
lcc	:	PS374.S42B66 1999eb
ddc	:	813/.2093538
subject	:	American fiction--Women authors--History and criticism, Seduction in literature, Feminism and literature--United States--History--19th century, Feminism and literature--United States--History--18th century, Murray, Judith Sargent,--1751-1820--Criticism an

Page i The Seduction Novel of the Early Nation A Call for Socio-Political Reform Donna R. Bontatibus Michigan State University Press East Lansing

Page ii Copyright 1999 by Donna R. Bontatibus The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper). Michigan State University Press East Lansing, Michigan 48823-5202 04 03 02 01 00 99 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Printed and bound in the United States of America LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Bontatibus, Donna R., 1968 The seduction novel of the early nation: a call for socio-political reform / Donna R. Bontatibus. p. cm. ISBN 0-87013-509-0 (alk. paper) 1. American fictionWomen authorsHistory and criticism. 2. Seduction in literature. 3. Feminism and literatureUnited StatesHistory19th cen tury. 4. Feminism and literatureUnited StatesHistory18th century. 5. Murray, Judith Sargent, 17511820Criticism and interpretation. 6. Foster, Hannah Webster, 17591840Criticism and interpretation. 7. Tenney, Tabitha, 17621837Criticism and interpretation. 8. Rowson, Mrs., 1762 1824Criticism and interpretation. 9. Women and literatureUnited StatesHistory18th century. 10. Women and literatureUnited States History19th century. I. Title. PS374.S42 B66 1999 813'.2093538dc21 99-6796 CIP Book and cover design by Nicolette Rose Cover illustration: The Three Sisters, 1783, by Benjamin West. Courtesy of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Visit Michigan State University Press on the World Wide Web at: www.msu.edu/unit/msupress

Page iii Contents Introduction: Early American Seduction Novels 1 Chapter 1. Intervening Before the Fall 25 Chapter 2: Declarations of Independence 57 Chapter 3: Seduction and Neocolonization 83 Conclusion: A New Era of Female History 107 Works Cited 111 Index 117

Page 1 Introduction Early American Seduction Novels Throughout literary history, the motifs of rape, incest, and seduction have provided the staple of Biblical stories, Greek myth and tragedy, Scottish ballads, English novels, and even contemporary romances. The titillating theme of seduction, although at times the center of scandal and controversy, also provided the staple of the first early American novels. In particular, the notable late eighteenth-century New England novelists Susanna Rowson (17621824), Hannah Webster Foster (17581840), Judith Sargent Murray (17511820), and Tabitha Tenney (17621837) all capitalized upon this fascinating theme by intertwining it with sentimental plots about young, single, middle- and upper-class women. For years the most popular novels of the early nationThe Power of Sympathy (Brown 1789), Charlotte Temple (Rowson 1794), and The Coquette (Foster 1797)were regarded as formulaic novels of victimization that mapped out a journey of seduction, abandonment, and death that women travel when they become the passive prey of scheming rakes. Certainly, many of the seducers met in the novels of Rowson, Foster, Murray, and Tenney are based upon the prototype of Samuel Richardson's Lovelace and contain other stock characters and scenes typical of the seduction narrative; however, simply to dismiss the seduction narratives by these four writers as formulaic fiction would be to dismiss the complex historical, cultural, political, and psychological issues, concerns, and debates that characterized the emergence of a new nation and its literature. Indeed, sentimental novels with a seduction plot had a place in the new republic. In Sensational Designs Jane Tompkins argues that early American literature should be explored because it offers "powerful

Page 2 examples of the way a culture thinks about itself, articulating and proposing solutions for the problems that shape a particular historical moment" (1985, xi). Similarly, Cathy Davidson notes in Revolution and The Word the importance of the novel to Americans "as a political and cultural forum, a means to express their own vision of a developing nation" and so join the debates over legal and educational reform (1986, 1011). The literature of the early nation certainly reflected various aspects of culture as well as the political concerns of a new nation. But what does the sentimental novel with a seduction plot in particular reveal about how early American culture viewed itself? What problems were these novels addressing and what were some of their proposed solutions? More importantly, for whom were sentimental novels written and whose problems were they addressing? At a fundamental level, we might ask: What were the conditions that encouraged the reproduction of the seduction plot in novel after novel and story after story?

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