Romantic Education in Nineteenth-Century American Literature: National and Transatlantic Contexts / Edition 1

by Monika Elbert, Lesley Ginsberg

Overview

American publishing in the long nineteenth century was flooded with readers, primers, teaching-training manuals, children’s literature, and popular periodicals aimed at families. These publications attest to an abiding faith in the power of pedagogy that has its roots in transatlantic Romantic conceptions of pedagogy and literacy.

The essays in this collection examine the on-going influence of Romanticism in the long nineteenth century on American thinking about education, as depicted in literary texts, in historical accounts of classroom dynamics, or in pedagogical treatises. They also point out that though this influence was generally progressive, the benefits of this social change did not reach many parts of American society. This book is therefore an important reference for scholars of Romantic studies, American studies, historical pedagogy and education.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367869984
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/10/2019
Series:	Routledge Studies in Romanticism
Pages:	302
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Monica M. Elbert is Professor of English and Distinguished University Scholar at Montclair State University. She is the outgoing Editor of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Review. She recently co-edited Transnational Gothic: Literary and Social Exchanges in the Long Nineteenth Century (2013) and has published extensively on nineteenth-century American literature, Gothic literature, and women’s writing.

Lesley Ginsberg is Associate Professor and Chair of the English Department at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Her essays on nineteenth-century American children’s literature appear in journals including American Literature and Studies in American Fiction and in edited collections including American Childhood, Enterprising Youth, and The Children’s Table.

Table of Contents

List of Figures x

Introduction Monika M. Elbert Lesley Ginsberg 1

Part I Transcendental Education 13

1 Romantic Reform and Boys: Bronson Alcott's Materialist Pedagogy Ken Parille Anne Mallory 15

2 Teaching Transcendentalism in Elizabeth Palmer Peabody's Aesthetic Papers Ricardo Miguel Alfonso 31

3 Educating Jo March: Plumfield, Romanticism, and the Tomboy Trajectory in the Alcott Trilogy Kristen Proehl 42

4 Imagination and Apocalypse: Christopher Cranch's Novels for Young Readers Bruce Ronda 57

Part II Romantic Education: Origins and Legacies 73

5 Susanna Rowson and Early Romantic Pedagogies Lorinda B. Cohoon 75

6 Puppetmasters and Their Toys: Transformation of Tabula Rasa in Tales of Hoffmann, Hawthorne, Alcott, and Baum Holly Blackford 89

7 Storytelling and the Law: Performance Pedagogy in the Novels of E.D.E.N. Southworth Joyce W. Warren 104

8 "What has the artist done about it?": Jane Addams, Educational Reform, and the Work of Art Anne Bruder 120

Part III Race and Romantic Pedagogies 137

9 Race and Romantic Pedagogies in the Works of Lydia Maria Child Lesley Ginsberg 139

10 Rhetoric or Romance? Opposition and Progress in Frederick Douglass's Representations of Literacy Wendy Ryden 155

11 Upholding and Subverting Didacticism: Antislavery Iconography and the Abolitionist Poetry of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper Valerie D. Levy 173

12 The 'Indian Problem' in Elaine Goodale Eastman's Authorship: Gender and Racial Identity Tensions Unsettling a Romantic Pedagogy Sarah Ruffing Robbins 192

Part IV Romantic Pedagogies and the Resistant Child 209

13 Engendering Fantasy in Romantic Children's Fiction Derek Pacheco 211

14 Nineteenth-Century Pedagogies of Unruly Childhood: Emerson, Hawthorne, Stowe, Alcott, and Twain Carol J. Singley 229

15 Lessons Learned: Genre and Paternal Desire in Martha Finley's Elsie Dittsmore Series Allison Giffen 245

16 Narratives of Teaching and Disability in Nineteenth-Century Children's Literature Monika M. Elbert 260

Contributors 275

Index 279

Editorial Reviews

"This fascinating collection provides a rich range of well-researched and clearly written essays focusing on Romanticism, pedagogy, and the child in nineteenth-century United States literatures and culture. These smart, inviting essays will change the ways that readers think about United States education movements in the nineteenth century and today." — Laura Laffrado, Department of English, Western Washington University, USA

'Here, the aim of Elbert and Ginsberg is to offer “a sustained analysis of the interrelationships among pedagogies, Romanticism, and the figure of the child” (7). This they achieve masterfully.' - Cynthia Schoolar Williams, Wentworth Institute of Technology, European Romantic Review, 27:4

From the Publisher