Young Democracies
How does America function as a conceptual space for pre- and post-Revolutionary French writers? How is French national identity articulated through engagement with American landscapes and populations? How does the American context allow for the articulation of French Revolutionary values, particularly liberty? What, from the French perspective, is new, radical, or simply different about America when compared to Europe?
To what extent are these texts’ representations of America complicated by a recognition of racial and gender difference? How does Crevecoeur acknowledge—or disavow—the centrality of racial hierarchies in America? To what symbolic or philosophical ends does Chateaubriand structure his texts around Native American characters? How does Chateaubriand translate French concerns with gender and sexuality into an American context?
The Funeral of Atala, Anne-Louis Girodet (1808)
Reading Guides for Primary Readings:
Crèvecoeur, selections from Letters from an American Farmer
Beaumont, Marie, or Slavery in the United States
Homework: