Voicing America : language, literary form, and the origins of the United States

Voicing America : language, literary form, and the origins of the United States

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1996.

xi, 287 p. ; 23 cm.

810.9 L864 1996

(OCoLC)33246083

"Began as a dissertation in the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University"--p. vii.|Contents: Logocracy in America -- 2. "The affairs of the revolution occasion'd the interruption": self, language, and nation in Franklin's autobiography -- 3. "The very act of utterance": law, language, and legitimation in Brown's Wieland -- 4. "Tongues of people altercating with one another": language, text and society in Brackenridge's modern chivalry -- 5. Coda: the voice of Patrick Henry.|In this detailed examination of crucial texts of eighteenth-century American literature, Christopher Looby argues that the United States was self-consciously enacted through the spoken word. Historical material from political and legal writings informs and animates theoretical works by Derrida, Lacan, and others as Looby unravels the texts of Benjamin Franklin, Charles Brockden Brown, and Hugh Henry Brackenridge and ties them to nation-building, public discourse, and individual self-creation. Correcting the strong emphasis on the importance of print culture in eighteenth-century America, Voicing America uncovers the complex undertaking of early American writers articulating their new nation and reveals a body of literature and a political discourse thoroughly concerned with the power of language and, especially, vocal expression.|Includes bibliographical references and index.|L2021M150

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