Rewriting Wertherian Sentimentality: Reflection, Morality, and the Republican Womanhood in William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy
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This article explores the notions of sentimentality in William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy, particularly in relation to the sentimental tradition of 18th-century Europe. Since The Power of Sympathy was published in 1789, the novel’s association with the sympathetic tradition of European literature has provoked various responses from critics. These mixed reactions mainly stemmed from the expectations of the first American novelist who tried to establish an independent moral standard outside the European tradition. Brown’s portrayal of moral transgression and its tragic consequences in The Power of Sympathy is deeply associated with his aspirations for the republican society in the 18th-century United States. By emphasizing morality based on self-reflection, he contextualizes private relationships within idealized models of social systems based on American republicanism. In particular, in order to analyze the republican implications of The Power of Sympathy, this article pays attention to the allusion and thematic variation of The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the monumental 18th-century Sturm und Drang romance. The thematic variation of Goethe’s romance in The Power of Sympathy shapes the overall outlook of the novel. Brown not only borrows the suicide motif of The Sorrows of Young Werther or its epistolary form, but he creates a female character who would advocate the dominant ideology of early America by rewriting the novel amid the 18th-century American political milieu.
Abstract
This article explores the notions of sentimentality in William Hill Brown’s The Power of Sympathy, particularly in relation to the sentimental tradition of 18th-century Europe. Since The Power of Sympathy was published in 1789, the novel’s association with the sympathetic tradition of European literature has provoked various responses from critics. These mixed reactions mainly stemmed from the expectations of the first American novelist who tried to establish an independent moral standard outside the European tradition. Brown’s portrayal of moral transgression and its tragic consequences in The Power of Sympathy is deeply associated with his aspirations for the republican society in the 18th-century United States. By emphasizing morality based on self-reflection, he contextualizes private relationships within idealized models of social systems based on American republicanism. In particular, in order to analyze the republican implications of The Power of Sympathy, this article pays attention to the allusion and thematic variation of The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the monumental 18th-century Sturm und Drang romance. The thematic variation of Goethe’s romance in The Power of Sympathy shapes the overall outlook of the novel. Brown not only borrows the suicide motif of The Sorrows of Young Werther or its epistolary form, but he creates a female character who would advocate the dominant ideology of early America by rewriting the novel amid the 18th-century American political milieu.
참고문헌 (19)
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