EGL 304 - Charles Brockden Brown and the Circum-Atlantic Revolutionary World

Course Units: 1

(Fall, Murphy) Charles Brockden Brown was born in Philadelphia to an elite Quaker family in 1771, a few short years before the onset of the American Revolution. Philadelphia, which eventually became the capital of the bourgeoning new Republic, was, at the time of Brown’s birth, the colonies’ political and intellectual hub. Thus, Brown’s childhood intersected with the newly formed nation’s most distressing, but also most exciting and intellectually stimulating, moments. Although he was trained to be a lawyer, he quickly abandoned that profession in pursuit of a literary career that brought him fame as one of the very first professional novelists in the newly formed American Republic. His natural curiosity exposed him not only to the thoughts and ideas of late Enlightenment thinkers but also propelled him toward a desire to publicize his knowledge and his extensive and insightful observations of politics, culture, women’s rights, slavery, and American foreign policy. He was an author of both gothic fiction and a definer of that genre; he wrote novels on captivity and disease and authored numerous political pamphlets discussing the most critical debates of his day. Brown also wrote two sentimental novels in epistolary form, which perplexed his many friends and even repelled some readers-after reading Brown’s two sentimental novels, Clara Howard and Jane Talbot, Mary Shelley, writing in her journal at the time, referred to both as “Stupid” novels-yet recent scholars and critics have identified important elements that help clarify why Brown felt compelled to attempt new literary styles. In 1810, he launched a new magazine called The American Register, or General Repository of History, Politics and Science, which published only five issues before his health began to deteriorate. When he died of tuberculosis on 22 February 1810, Brown was at work on A Complete System of Geography, which he never completed. In this course we will examine several of Brown’s novels and letters as well as his famous dialogue Alcuin; or the Rights of Women (1792), alongside Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Women, Mary Shelley’s Mathilda (c. 1820), and Leonora Sansay’s Secret History; or, The Horrors of Saint Domingo (1808). We will consider Brown’s trans-Atlantic inspirations, his significant influence on early 19th-century American sensibilities, and the way in which he integrates the seduction tale into his writing. We will also consider a variety of theoretical approaches to Brown’s work and explore the way in which digital archives have revolutionized research practices over the past few years. HUL