An Undergraduate American Literature and Identity Course Looks East to Great Britain

An Undergraduate American Literature and Identity Course Looks East to Great Britain

As English departments continue to divide literary works into national camps, the transatlantic influence of British and American print culture is often neglected, a practice that frequently occludes a valuable, productive dialectic between two cultures that are historically and textually connected. Studying American nineteenth-century print culture necessitates a look to the east and in particular a careful consideration of British literary traditions and publishing practices.

In recent years, scholars of periodical literature have offered persuasive arguments for a transatlantic approach. As Meredith L. McGill explains, the lack of international copyright laws contributed to the practice of reprinting British literary texts popular in America throughout the nineteenth century.¹ The high cultural value placed on these works also reinforced the young nation's dependence on a literary tradition beyond its geographical borders. Jennifer Phegley writes that American periodicals adapted "a wide variety of British publications for their own purposes."² Citing the editorial practices of Harper's New Monthly Magazine in the mid-nineteenth century, Phegley notes that "Harper's repackaged and redeployed British literature for a nationalistic purpose, thereby participating in the nation's transformation from a culture of reprinting to a culture of authorial originality and nationality." By incorporating "British literary models" in its publication, the editors of Harper's believed that their readers "would eventually have the skills to both recognize and create a distinctly tasteful American literary culture" (64). Harper's appropriation of British print culture as a means of moving toward a unique and discerning national literature was not an isolated case in the publishing practices of nineteenth-century America. As Michael Lund has pointed out, the "attraction and resistance to the European model had been a feature of the American literary tradition from its beginnings"; however, he continues, by the latter part of the nineteenth century, "a general agreement emerged that native periodicals and the serial novels important to their success should be distinctly American."³

While American periodicals more readily began to promote a national literary identity as the century progressed, the influence of British print culture on America's developing sense of national identity and literary autonomy is difficult to deny. In the December 1893 edition of The Atlantic Monthly, Woodrow Wilson acknowledged America's debt to British literature:

If this free people to which we belong is to keep its fine spirit, its perfect temper amidst affairs, its high courage in the face of difficulties, its wise temperateness and wide-eyed hope, it must continue to drink deep and often from the old wells of English undefiled, quaff the keen tonic of its best ideals, keep its blood warm with all the great utterances of exalted purpose and pure principle of which its matchless literature is full.⁴

As Wilson's appeal indicates, Britain's literary tradition was a crucial aspect in the making of America and inseparable from the very ideals the fledgling nation held dear.

Transatlantic scholarship, particularly in periodical studies, has made many inroads in its investigation of Britain's influence on American print culture. But it is also helpful to keep in mind that America's voices and literary productions made their way eastward across the Atlantic, though with less frequency than their British counterparts journeying westward. Transatlantic crossings contributed to the exchange of ideas and a print culture that traversed the expanse of an ocean. A course that introduces students to both British and American periodical literature offers an exciting way to show as well as tell students about this deeply intertwined literary history.

While many of the courses described in this special issue focus on ways to teach periodical literature at the advanced undergraduate or even graduate level, my own opportunity for transatlantic crossings suggests that magazine study also has a powerful role to play in lower-division courses. In planning a sophomore survey course on American literature...