LITR 4326 Early American Literature Research Posts 2016 (research post assignment) Research Post 1

Tom Britt

4 March 2016

Walking With a Ghost: Under the Influence of Edgar Huntly

          As a rule, I always like to know where things are headed. I prefer to plan ahead and know exactly where my exit is on the highway and what time I’ll be taking my lunch break. That, in fact, is the manner in which I have chosen my first topic to be researched. Looking ahead in our Early American Literature course, I noticed that we round out the academic year with Edgar Huntly by Charles Brockden Brown. I have never heard of this title, and I consider the focus of my literary career to be American texts. Naturally, my curiosity was piqued, and my need to learn all I could about Mr. Brown has been set into motion. However, learning is nothing without direction, and a focused question is necessary in order to demonstrate my research and learning on the subject. That being said, Dr. White states in a discussion question that “Edgar Huntly is the first serious American attempt at [. . .] literary fiction.” For my research, I would like to explore exactly what Charles Brockden Brown added to the development of the modern American novel as we know it today and how his influence, what he got right and what he got wrong, has echoed through the years.

          In beginning my research for this assignment, I did what any good student of Dr. White would do: I stood on the shoulders of giants. That is to say, I took a look back at the model assignments of years past. According to Matthew Trcezinski (2014), “like many American authors, Brockden Brown was recognized in Europe before garnering any notice in America.” This is understandable as the New World had not quite had the time to build itself a base or line of credit when it came to crafting respectable literature. In fact, many fledgling authors had to pay out of their own pockets in order to have printers publish their works.  Brown, on the other hand, more similarly resembled our modern notion of the author: one who attempts to make a paycheck off of their craft. Kathryn Van Spanckeren, in her piece “Democratic Origins and Revolutionary Writers, 1776-1820”, writes that, as “the author of several interesting Gothic romances, Brown was the first American author to attempt to live from his writing.” This most likely added a sense of urgency to Brown’s writing and an intent to publish work of significance and depth.

          Due to the difficulty in publishing and an audience that was not only slim but extremely critical, it is easy to see how Brown may have, himself, been influenced by the climate of the time just as much as he influenced it. From our course website, I found that “each of Brown's major literary works represents another stage in his continual effort to modify and alter his fictional designs in order to win a popular audience while pleasing his demanding intellectual peers.” However, despite dying poor and never achieving the acclaim he desired, it seems “Brown's work operates in the intellectual tradition later exploited by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Washington Irving. Brown proved very influential both to those writers and others like Percy and Mary Shelley, John Keats, and William Hazlitt” (Biography). All in all, it is apparent that Brown’s style, which focused on utilizing the pressures both historical and political of his time and displaying them in supernatural metaphors and Romance storylines, affected greatly what we know today as the American novel.

          Looking back on the research experience, it seems that there is a wealth more material on how Brown was influenced in his writing than evidence of the impact his writing has trickled through time and left an impression today. While it is clear that his take on the captivity narrative and Gothic Romances was a trendsetting notion, there is not much available on how much his work has inspired the contemporary literature as we know it. However, one can connect the dots and note that, if Stephen King was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe and Poe was influenced by Charles Brockden Brown, Brown’s impact can be felt in every vein of the modern novel.

Works Cited

"Biography of Charles Brockden Brown." GradeSaver. N.p., n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2016.

Spanckeren, Kathryn. "Democratic Origins and Revolutionary Writers, 1776-1820." IIP Digital. N.p., 10 Oct. 2013. Web. 3 Mar. 2016.

Trcezinski, Matthew. "Research Posts 2014." LITR 4321 Early American Literature. Craig White, 2014. Web. 3 Mar. 2016.

White, Craig. "Charles Brockden Brown." Craig White's Literature Courses. Craig White, n.d. Web. 3 Mar. 2016.