Antebellum American Women's Poetry: A Rhetoric of Sentiment

282 Pages·2016·10.827 MB·English

by  Wendy Dasler Johnson

Antebellum
American
Women’s Poetry

A Rhetoric of Sentiment
W ENDY DASLER JOHNSON
Studies in Rhetorics and Feminisms
Series Editors, Cheryl Glenn and Shirley Wilson Logan

Antebellum
American
Women’s Poetry
A Rhetoric of Sentiment
WENDY DASLER JOHNSON
Southern Illinois University Press • Carbondale
Southern Illinois University Press
www.siupress.com
Copyright © 2016 by the Board of Trustees,
Southern Illinois University
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
19 18 17 16 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Johnson, Wendy Dasler, author.
Title: Antebellum American women’s poetry : a rhetoric of
sentiment / Wendy Dasler Johnson.
Description: Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press,
2016. | Series: Studies in rhetorics and feminisms | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2015050493 | ISBN 9780809335008 (pbk. :
alk. paper) | ISBN 9780809335015 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: American poetry—Women authors—History
and criticism. | American poetry—19th century—History
and criticism. | Persuasion (Rhetoric) | Sentimentalism in
literature. | Social problems in literature.
Classification: LCC PS147 .J64 2016 | DDC 811/.3099287—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015050493
Printed on recycled paper.
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
Part 1. Lessons in Logos
1. Antebellum American Women Poets 17
Part 2. Ethos-in-Process: Sentimental Women Poets and
“True Womanhood”
2. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Black Poet Ventriloquist 51
3. Reviving Lydia Huntley Sigourney 76
4. Julia Ward Howe’s “I—s” and the Gaze of Men 108
Part 3. Pathos: Who Reads Sentimental Poetry? And
Who Cares?
5. Slave Market Matrix of Harper’s Critical Pedagogy 135
6. Problems for Sigourney’s Readers of Sentimental Rhetoric and
Class 162
7. Howe’s Passion-Flowers Dialogue with a Master 184
Conclusion: Sentimental Rhetoric’s Poets and Prospects 205
Notes 211
Works Cited and Consulted 233
Index 257

Illustrations
“Infancy,” 1845 19
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, about 1870 52
Black woman wearing bandanna, about 1860 72
Sethe and Beloved in Beloved 74
Lydia H. Sigourney, about 1860 77
Julia Ward Howe, about 1860 109
“A wasted female figure” 117
“A lank-haired hunter” 118
“A keen and bitter cry” 119
“Plump dropped the holy tome” 119
“The open window sill” 120
“To give it to the Devil!” 121
vii

Acknowledgments
Many more colleagues, friends, and family than I can name have made this
book possible. Among them, mentors and my students have been crucial to
the start and finish of this project. Suzanne Clark lives academic life with
flair and has inspired me and listened, encouraged, and read my work before
I knew this could happen for me. David Robinson showed me academic
life can have heart and Over-Soul. Bill Rossi has seen promise in my wan-
dering, cultivating ripe fruit from the tints. Mary Wood demonstrated a
generosity of spirit that includes even me. Jane Donawerth has offered me
a hand and insight through many difficult passages. Teaching me courage
and persistence, my students Brian Schlosser, Kay Stephens, Amy Huseby,
and Tyler Thralls have read drafts and caught errors, combed the formats,
called libraries, and now press on to their own great work. Southern Illi-
nois University Press editors Cheryl Glenn, Shirley Logan, and Karl Kageff
continue to demonstrate patience, tough grace, and faith in the process.
After people, academics need libraries. Thanks seem small return for
the work and commitment of librarians and curators at Oregon’s Knight
Library, the Connecticut Historical Society, Washington State Libraries,
and the Library of Congress, who preserve and promote archives that made
my searches into discoveries. Special thanks are due to curator Wendy Ch-
mielewski of the Records of the Universal Peace Union in the Swarthmore
College Peace Collection for permission to use an image of Frances Ellen
Watkins Harper. The University of Oregon Humanities Center and Wash-
ington State University’s College of Arts and Sciences have granted me space,
travel, and support at important turns of this work.
I acknowledge Romanticism on the Net and the South Atlantic Review
for publication of very early versions of chapters 3 and 4, on the ethos and
personae of Lydia Huntley Sigourney and Julia Ward Howe.
Ongoing commitment to me and to us from Ron Johnson gives me heart
in life’s storms, and friends Al Bernstein, Edie Blakley, Cathi Von Schim-
melmann, Betty Watkins, and Andrea Herling steady my keel.
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