Common Things: Romance and the Aesthetics of Belonging in Atlantic Modernity

Contents

contents Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Introduction: Common Things . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 1 Genre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 A Singular Blend: Genre and the Aesthetics of Belonging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Allegory, Romance, and the Idea of Genre . . . . 20 At Home with the Uncanny: Walpole and the Idea of History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Apology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 2 Feeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50 Romance, Race, Ruin: Henry Mackenzie and the Afterlife of Sentimental Exchange . . . . 50 Jefferson and the Transatlantic Man of Feeling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 3 Property/Personhood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75 Conjuring Community: Arthur Mervyn and the Aesthetics of Ruin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 “My Extraordinary Duality”: The Metempsychosis of Modern Personhood in Sheppard Lee . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 Cooper, Mesmerism, and the “Immaterial Substance” of Taste in The Autobiography of a Pocket-Handkerchief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112 4 Event/Hiatus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120 The Aesthetics of American Idling. . . . . . . . . . 120 Indian Removal and the Grimace of Ruined History. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142 5 No Thing In Common. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Studies in Uniquity: Horace Walpole’s Singular Collection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 Coda: Poe’s Allegories of Belonging. . . . . . . . . 198 Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 ...