The phrase ‘American Renaissance,’ as applied to literature, was popularly established by the Harvard scholar F. O. Matthiessen in his 1941 book American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. Matthiessen calls the years between 1850 and 1855 an “extraordinarily concentrated moment of literary expression.” (p. vii) This text centers its discussion around five nineteenth century authors—none of which include women. They are: Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman. Matthiessen reveals their origins of the nature and function of literature and the extent to which these were realized in their writings.
Matthiessen overlooked and completely disregarded the women writers of the nineteenth century. But contrary to his belief, women writers during this time made tangible contributions to literature and were quite important to the time period. Just because Matthiessen did not appreciate women writers of the nineteenth century does not mean that others have to follow in his footsteps; which is why this is an appreciation essay to two nineteenth century female writers: Catherine Sedgwick and Harriet Beecher Stowe.
Catharine Maria Sedgwick was born December 28, 1789 in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. In childhood, Sedgwick was cared for by a former slave and as a young woman, Sedgwick attended a private school where girls are prepared for entry into fashionable society in Boston to complete her education. Later on in her life, she took charge of a school in Lenox and then converted from Calvinism to Unitarianism, which led her to write a leaflet criticizing religious intolerance. This experience inspired her to write her first novel: A New-England Tale; which is about the connection b...
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...r Stowe's Life." Harriet Beecher Stowe's Life. Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, 2011. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.
"Harriet Beecher Stow." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Vol. 1. New York, NY: W,W. Norton &, 2013. 779-818. Print.
"Impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Slavery, and the Civil War." The National and International Impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, 2011. Web. 12 Nov. 2013.
Matthiessen, F. O. American Renaissance; Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. London: Oxford UP, 1941. Print.
Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. A New England Tale and Miscellanies. New York: Putnam, 1852. Print.
"Share Book Recommendations With Your Friends, Join Book Clubs, Answer Trivia." Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2013.
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Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly. New York: Penguin Books, 1981.
Harriet Beecher was always a good writer, even when she was young. When she was young, she won an essay contest. Besides winning essay contests, she also wrote an essay for her high school graduation. In the future, writing would be her life. She married her husband Calvin Stowe and to help finance her poor family, wrote articles to make money. What she didn’t know was that one day her writing would make a huge impact in America and also around the world(Haugen 20-32).
Feilds, Annie. Ed. Life and Letters of Harriet Beecher Stowe. New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1897.
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Harriet Tubman’s whole life story demonstrates her humanity, not just toward her family members, but also towards her community people. The problem is to present this philanthropic lady in a manner that honors her extraordinary work within the ordinary circumstances of her life. After all the research it can be said that she has achieved her objectives with a coolness, prescience, tolerance, and intelligence. Moreover, it is astonishing that how did an imprisoned female who was never been educated to read or write, discover nobility, determination and integrity inside slavery and how she was capable of frequently and so efficiently outthink and outsmart her persecutors?
Stowe, Harriet Beecher. Uncle Tom's Cabin. Ed. Philip van Doren Stern. New York: Paul S. Eriksson, 1964.
Gilbert, Sandra M. and Susan Gubar. The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. Print.
There is certainly no shortage of evidence pointing to the fact that Stowe exhibited unabashed racialism in her writing. At times her stereotypes serve a polemical purpose, but there can be found no reason for Black Sam being a mischievous comedian, for George and Eliza being mulatto rather than African, or for the typecasts of the other characters presented above. It should be taken into account that racialism was a well established and generally accepted practice in the nineteenth century, and Harriet Beecher Stowe does not deserve damnation for perpetuating these labels. However, her readiness to label blacks and whites in such a black and white fashion belies the call for emancipation and Christian undertones that her novel presents to the reader.