Secret Revealed: The Importance of the Epistolary Form

For my other grad course I’m taking this semester, I’m presenting on the epistolary novel.  Hence, it is probably not that surprising that I have decided to discuss Secret History: or, The Horrors of St. Domingo in connection to it being an “epistolary novel.”  Now, I put “epistolary novel” in scare quotes because I was struck with the fact that Gretchen Woertendyke refused to discuss Secret History as an epistolary novel but insisted upon referring to it as belonging to the genre of secret history.  I do not have a problem with Woertendyke discussing Secret History in relation to this genre, but I do have an issue with Woertendyke’s refusal to also discuss Secret History as an epistolary novel since I think by limiting herself to only viewing Secret History as a secret history that she missed crossing literary boundaries of genre that would have enriched her analysis.  In fact, Woertendyke only mentions “epistolary novel” once in her fifth footnote in a brief attempt to explain that she is focusing on “secret history” instead of “novel” because she feels as though “secret history” is often buried in “a footnote or otherwise secondary characteristic” (267-68).  However, this is exactly what she does with “epistolary novel.”  What I would like to do in this blog is to point out briefly just a few connections to the epistolary novel that I think could have benefited Woertendyke’s article.

Woertendyke states, “Sansay draws attention to the space between conceptual categories, of private and public, and geopolitical landscapes, of Early America and Early Haiti” (262).  One of the great aspects of epistolary novels is their ability to have a fictional writer/narrator of the letters address another fictional character within the private sphere of letters but with the author of the novel having the full knowledge that these “private letters” will be read by a public audience.  Furthermore, the fictional writer of a letter is transcribing their own personalized and private interpretation of events for a specific fictional audience.  The author of the novel must not only keep this in mind but must also consider how the public audience might respond to these “private” letters.  Furthermore, letters may travel across oceans, states, nations, or to the house next door; thus, letters themselves are not stationary but are mobile.  By considering the epistolary form, Sansay is able to embed these complexities of public and private within the genre of the epistolary novel. 

Furthermore, many critics have been fascinated, and rightly so, with Sansay’s depictions of men and women’s relationships.  Again, it is important to consider the epistolary novel since as Theresa Gaul points out that many women did not have opportunity to publish books or novels so instead many women wrote letters (265).  The form of an epistolary novel provided Sansay with the opportunity to transform her “private” letters into a novel for the “public.”  As scholars have discussed, Sansay took her own private life and used it as the basis for her novel.  Thus, I believe ignoring the form Sansay chose to publish her novel in is a mistake that can cause many important connections to be missed.  I think the points and observations to be made are too numerous for one blog post, but hopefully, we as scholars can cross the literary divide between secret history and epistolary novel in order to enrich our understandings (and refuse the urge to bury either one in a footnote).          

A Search for Literary Identity in Early American Literature

So, as I read the articles as they appear on our schedule, I made comments and observations in a notebook.  Now, don’t worry.  I’m not going to simply re-write my notes, but I would like to point out how much they all seem to converse with one another.  (Obviously, these are not their complete arguments since I don’t have space enough to give them all the attention they may deserve.) 

 

Gustafson and Hunter feel as though early Americanists are needed to contribute to the “understanding of the field as a whole” (215).  Bauer wants a more “polycentric historicism” as defined by Roland Greene (220).  Bost desires for America to be viewed in a “hemispheric dialogue” (236).  This concern with de-centering the United States and having a conversation with other cultures in connection to the past and present all seem to be coming together to form a transnational approach to literature. 

 

Wait though, we’re not done yet.  Fitzgerald and Wyss come together and work to literally bring “the contemporary present to the historical past” and discuss “the relationship between the academic fields of early and contemporary Native literature” (241).  Anderson agrees that Native texts see “the past in the present and the future in the past” and argues that early Native studies matter to more contemporary scholars (252).  Meanwhile, Parrish might rummage through the “boring” parts of early American studies to find that you must “Let your archive be mobile.  Let it be textual or let it be biological.  Follow it, in and out of holds” (271).  Littlefield may respond to Parrish with a proposition that “archival constructions are simultaneously epistemological and agnotological” (276).  Littlefield sees the cultural productions of both ignorance and knowledge (agnotological and epistemological) as being useful ways “to theorize archival methodology itself” (276).  Sayre concerns himself with captivity narratives and the earlier stereotypes of Native Americans and the contemporary stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims (327).  Again, connections between the past and the present, early American studies and contemporary US studies, and the United States and other nations are all interacting with one another.  Edwards continues to build on Sayre’s points (and Reddy also kind of falls into this section), while Watts asks, “If the US is not an `immemorial’ nation based in idealized democratic principles is the only other option a racist, sexist, and elitist empire whose literature is merely propaganda?” (449).  Watts petitions us to consider “the model of the double minded settler” (449).  Yet, do we want to be unsettled and consistently of two minds?  Is there not another option?  White and Drexler point out that there is an “absence of a strong literary cannon” for early Americanists but claim that they are not lamenting this but that it shows “a sign of a relatively progressive, open, and representative sense of coverage” (475).  It most certainly is broad, but it is also unstable.  White and Drexler use the analogy of Poe’s “The Purloined Letter” to point out that it is important not to miss what you are searching for simply because it is right in front of you, which they say are “the texts that out to be commonly situated, discussed, and debated” (482).  However, Gustafson becomes overwhelmed in history again but makes an interesting point about the link between democracy and empire, which we easily always divide. 

 

Traister though uses another analogy that of  “America” as the international airport terminal and how transnationalists may easily become “universalists” and encroach on the territories of other scholars from different departments (4-18).  It seems as though Traister may have a point on how transnationalist may simply be falling into another form of America exceptionalism (23).  Nevertheless, Fluck simply categorizes transnationalism into two types: aesthetic and political (367-68).  Fluck defines the aesthetic transnationalism as “a promise of rejuvenation of the field and its `tired´ practices” (368) and political transnationalism also being “transnational radicalism because it is an extension of cultural radicalism beyond the nation-state” (372).  It is the flexibility and fluidity of identity that Fluck embraces even more than stability (376). 

However, the problem I see is that if you do not have some sort of stability, then it will be difficult to identify anything, and it could cause early American literature to still have the feeling of the “other” studies in American literature that is also closely kin to US history.  Suddenly, the past and the present seem to kind of muddle up the future of where transnational studies may be going.  One more observation and I’ll conclude this rather lengthy blog.  I noticed in the readings that “America” and “transnational” were probably (all of these are estimates by the way) the most commonly repetitive terms throughout our reading with “history,” “early,” and “contemporary” being probably the second most popular group of terms.  Ironically, I find the terms “literary,” “literature,” and “cannon” being more than likely in the third or even fourth (if you count “exceptionalism” for the third) group.  I felt as though White and Drexler may have had the best analogy when they used Poe’s “The Purloined Letter.”  It’s not that the Prefect did not have a thorough and even impressive methodology for finding the letter.  The problem was that he never read any of the letters on the desk in the first place.                  

Broadening Our Horizons in American Literature

When I read Caroline F. Lavender and Robert S. Levine’s “Introduction: Hemispheric American Literary History,” something just seemed to “click.”  Perhaps, I was pleased with how they not only incorporated many of the influential texts and articles about broadening our perspectives and approaches to American literature but also how they contributed to this conversation and asked several thought-provoking questions:

What happens to US and Americas literary and cultural studies if we recognize the asymmetry and interdependency of nation-state development throughout the hemisphere? [. . .] what happens if the `fixed´ borders of a nation are recognized not only as historically produced political constructs that can be ignored, imaginatively reconfigured, and variously contested but also as component parts of a deeper, more multilayered series of national and indigenous histories? (401)

I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers to these questions since I don’t think they can easily be resolved; however, these questions did spur me on to consider that American literature—though as many of the scholars like Carolyn Porter have pointed out can be rather ethnocentric and U.S. oriented—if considered in a broader scope, such as including the cultural influences of Africa, the Americas, Europe, Latin America, etc., would be a truer and more accurate picture of Americans (both in North and South America).  It is not as if a U. S. citizen is only influenced by North America or only has Puritan ancestry.  A writer from any country has multiple influences: cultural, political, religious, etc.  If American literature were approached with this “broader horizon or outlook” then many important connections could be made.  When border lines are erased, then what is American literature becomes both more complicated and risky.  It becomes complicated since there is such a broad scope that it may be a bit easy to become inundated with cultural influences, and it becomes risky because when borders are erased the lines of what is American literature become blurred or are missing.  However, Lavender, Levine, Porter, and many of the others we have read believe it is a risk that must be taken in order to have a deeper insight and fuller understanding of the conflicts and complications of American literature.  Thus, it is the blurring or eradicating of boundaries that might actually free us to see American literature in a fuller light.  At this point, I’m not sure if I’m making sense, but I also like Lavender and Levine do not pretend that I’m saying something “new” (399).  However, this is “new” to me, so I’m using this response blog as a way of making my own thoughts clearer to myself.  Perhaps, I’m helping someone else as well (which would be great), but if not, then, I’m at least helping myself start to see American literature from a broader perspective.    

Jessica E.