Home Literary Studies 21 Myth and Mythmaking in the Douglass Circle
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

21 Myth and Mythmaking in the Douglass Circle

  • Jared Hickman
Become an author with De Gruyter Brill
Explore this Subject How to publish with us
Handbook of American Romanticism
This chapter is in the book Handbook of American Romanticism

Abstract

This chapter recasts the intellectual history of Romanticism around the making of the first three editions of Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of an American Slave (1845-1846). The process of these texts’ production and publication is considered as a window onto to the imperatives and impact of what Lloyd Pratt has called “African diasporic vernacular theories of the human.” More precisely, Douglass is shown to repeatedly (re)make himself as human through the practice of an autobiographical fetishism that affords a fresh angle on some of the classic paradoxes of Romanticism studies, such as Marilyn Butler’s discussion of its contradictory mythographic and mythopoeic tendencies. Douglass’s autobiographical fetishism is, on the one hand, pitted against what Karl Marx described as capital’s commodity fetishism, and, on the other, akin to and perhaps even in conversation with the “conscious” and “systematic” practice of “fetishism” undergirding the French philosopher Auguste Comte’s positivism. “Romanticism” and “positivism” are thus rejoined by way of a valorization of “fetishism” common to Douglass and Comte and evocative of Afro-Atlantic religions; Douglass’s vernacular theorizing of the human and Comte’s “Religion of Humanity” mutually recontextualized to challenge conventional periodizations and field delineations.

Abstract

This chapter recasts the intellectual history of Romanticism around the making of the first three editions of Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of an American Slave (1845-1846). The process of these texts’ production and publication is considered as a window onto to the imperatives and impact of what Lloyd Pratt has called “African diasporic vernacular theories of the human.” More precisely, Douglass is shown to repeatedly (re)make himself as human through the practice of an autobiographical fetishism that affords a fresh angle on some of the classic paradoxes of Romanticism studies, such as Marilyn Butler’s discussion of its contradictory mythographic and mythopoeic tendencies. Douglass’s autobiographical fetishism is, on the one hand, pitted against what Karl Marx described as capital’s commodity fetishism, and, on the other, akin to and perhaps even in conversation with the “conscious” and “systematic” practice of “fetishism” undergirding the French philosopher Auguste Comte’s positivism. “Romanticism” and “positivism” are thus rejoined by way of a valorization of “fetishism” common to Douglass and Comte and evocative of Afro-Atlantic religions; Douglass’s vernacular theorizing of the human and Comte’s “Religion of Humanity” mutually recontextualized to challenge conventional periodizations and field delineations.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. The Editors’ Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. 0 Introduction 1
  5. Part I: Definitions, Backgrounds, Contexts
  6. 1 Antebellum Period and Romanticism: Definitions and Demarcations 9
  7. 2 Antebellum Literary Culture: The Institutions of Romanticism 33
  8. 3 Transnational Dimensions of Romanticism 55
  9. 4 American Romanticism and Religion 81
  10. 5 Romanticism and European Philosophy, or “Idealism As It Appears in 1842” 119
  11. Part II: Intellectual, Spiritual, and Political Debates
  12. 6 Romanticism and Democracy 143
  13. 7 Romanticism and Social Reform 163
  14. 8 American Romanticism and Esotericism 185
  15. 9 America as Interior Space: Artificial Landscapes and the Modernization of Literature in Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Fiction 207
  16. Part III: Contestations of Authorship and Genre
  17. 10 Authorship as Profession and the Uses of Genre in Antebellum America 229
  18. 11 Poet-Prophets and Seers: American Romanticism, Authorship, and Literary Institutions 249
  19. 12 Life Writing and Romantic Expressivism 269
  20. 13 The Fireside and Sentimental Poets 293
  21. Part IV: Close Readings
  22. 14 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature (1836): American Romantic “Manifesto” 313
  23. 15 Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845): Romanticism and (Proto)Feminism 335
  24. 16 The Continuous Creation of Walden 355
  25. 17 Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) 375
  26. 18 Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) and the Historical Imagination in American Romanticism 389
  27. 19 Romanticism and History: Göttingen and George Bancroft’s History of the United States (1834) 415
  28. 20 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and the Politics of Sentimentalism 435
  29. 21 Myth and Mythmaking in the Douglass Circle 453
  30. 22 “The Soul Selects Her Own Society”: Emily Dickinson’s Poetry and the Creation of the Self 477
  31. 23 The Great Psalm of the Republic: Walt Whitman’s Democratic Poetics 495
  32. Part V: Reception Histories
  33. 24 Transcendentalist Legacies in American Philosophy 517
  34. 25 Rethinking Gender in Antebellum American Literature 537
  35. 26 “In the Woods We Return to Reason and Faith”: American Romanticism, Environmentalism, and Seeker Spirituality 561
  36. Index of Names 579
  37. Index of Subjects 589
  38. List of Contributors 599
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592238-022

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. The Editors’ Preface V
  3. Contents VII
  4. 0 Introduction 1
  5. Part I: Definitions, Backgrounds, Contexts
  6. 1 Antebellum Period and Romanticism: Definitions and Demarcations 9
  7. 2 Antebellum Literary Culture: The Institutions of Romanticism 33
  8. 3 Transnational Dimensions of Romanticism 55
  9. 4 American Romanticism and Religion 81
  10. 5 Romanticism and European Philosophy, or “Idealism As It Appears in 1842” 119
  11. Part II: Intellectual, Spiritual, and Political Debates
  12. 6 Romanticism and Democracy 143
  13. 7 Romanticism and Social Reform 163
  14. 8 American Romanticism and Esotericism 185
  15. 9 America as Interior Space: Artificial Landscapes and the Modernization of Literature in Edgar Allan Poe’s Short Fiction 207
  16. Part III: Contestations of Authorship and Genre
  17. 10 Authorship as Profession and the Uses of Genre in Antebellum America 229
  18. 11 Poet-Prophets and Seers: American Romanticism, Authorship, and Literary Institutions 249
  19. 12 Life Writing and Romantic Expressivism 269
  20. 13 The Fireside and Sentimental Poets 293
  21. Part IV: Close Readings
  22. 14 Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature (1836): American Romantic “Manifesto” 313
  23. 15 Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845): Romanticism and (Proto)Feminism 335
  24. 16 The Continuous Creation of Walden 355
  25. 17 Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851) 375
  26. 18 Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter (1850) and the Historical Imagination in American Romanticism 389
  27. 19 Romanticism and History: Göttingen and George Bancroft’s History of the United States (1834) 415
  28. 20 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and the Politics of Sentimentalism 435
  29. 21 Myth and Mythmaking in the Douglass Circle 453
  30. 22 “The Soul Selects Her Own Society”: Emily Dickinson’s Poetry and the Creation of the Self 477
  31. 23 The Great Psalm of the Republic: Walt Whitman’s Democratic Poetics 495
  32. Part V: Reception Histories
  33. 24 Transcendentalist Legacies in American Philosophy 517
  34. 25 Rethinking Gender in Antebellum American Literature 537
  35. 26 “In the Woods We Return to Reason and Faith”: American Romanticism, Environmentalism, and Seeker Spirituality 561
  36. Index of Names 579
  37. Index of Subjects 589
  38. List of Contributors 599
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 9.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110592238-022/html
Scroll to top button