The assigned texts for this course barely scratch the surface of literary representations of women in early America. As scholars of American literature, we will investigate this field more deeply by conducting primary and secondary research and developing projects that add original insight to the conversation about this topic. To that end, each of you will choose for your research project one text (or set of texts, in some instances) from those listed (separate handout), all of which are lesser-known and infrequently taught. You will then spend the semester completing successive stages of a research project on this novel, from learning the publication history of the text to developing an initial bibliography using various databases to writing abstracts of critical articles to completing and peer-reviewing drafts and presenting your work at a final LIT 6216 conference, to be held during the final exam period.
Bonds of Intimacy:
The Female Homosocial and Lesbian Continuum in Milcah Martha Moore’s Book
The 1997 modern critical edition of Milcah Martha Moore’s Book (hereafter MMMB) makes accessible previously ignored women’s writing in early American literature through Moore’s commonplace book, a rare example of the non-traditional format. I say non-traditional in that the commonplace book existed in manuscript rather than printed form, and because the genre’s origins are closely tied to the education of men. The commonplace books by male authors of this time period have received critical attention; women’s commonplace books are, more recently, pushed into the scholarly spotlight. Catherine La Courreye Blecki and Karin A. Wulf, the editors, provide invaluable scholarship regarding the cultural, social, manuscript, and print culture of revolutionary Philadelphia and emphasize the bonds of friendship connecting the contributing authors and editor of the manuscript. This essay extends Blecki’s and Wulf’s reading of female friendship by using feminist theories to explore the physical object of Moore’s commonplace book as a site of the female homosocial and lesbian continuum. This argument is strengthened by a selective reading of friendship themed prose and verse entries from MMMB.
I argue that Moore’s commonplace book preserves the work of Susanna Wright, Hannah Griffitts, and Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson, thereby establishing a female homosocial presence through the dominance of female authorship within the text. Though other themes are represented, the text opens with “An Essay on Friendship” by Griffitts, thereby signaling the tone and theme of the work as a whole. Drawing on literary scholarship of Susan Stabile and Ivy Schweitzer, feminist scholarship of Adrienne Rich and Eve Sedgwick, and history of the book scholarship from Kevin J. Hayes, I illustrate the relationship between the strategies of defiance and non-compliance in regards to the readership, authorship, and female friendship in MMMB and the ways in which these relationships create a female homosocial space.
