Perfecting Friendship: Politics and Affiliation in Early American Literature

289 Pages·2006·1.47 MB·English

by  Ivy Schweitzer

PERFECTING
FRIENDSHIP
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PERFECTING
FRIENDSHIP
Politics and
A≈liation in
Early American
Literature
IVY SCHWEITZER
The University of
North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill
∫ 2006 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Jacquline Johnson
Set in Bulmer by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for
permanence and durability of the Committee on
Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the
Council on Library Resources.
Chapter 2 originally appeared in Early American
Literature 4.3 (2005): 441–69, and chapter 3 origi-
nally appeared in Arizona Quarterly 61.2 (Summer
2005): 1–32. Parts of chapter 4 are forthcoming as
‘‘Cooper’s Blood Brothers: Romancing National
Identity,’’ in After American Exceptionalism, edited
by Don Pease (Durham, N.C.: Duke University
Press).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schweitzer, Ivy.
Perfecting friendship : politics and a≈liation in early
American literature / Ivy Schweitzer.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn-13: 978-0-8078-3069-7 (alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-8078-3069-0 (alk. paper)
isbn-13: 978-0-8078-5778-6 (pbk.: alk. paper)
isbn-10: 0-8078-5778-5 (pbk.: alk. paper)
1. American literature—History and criticism.
2. Friendship in literature. 3. Winthrop, John, 1588–
1649. 4. Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789–1851—
Criticism and interpretation. 5. Sedgwick, Catharine
Maria, 1789–1867. Hope Leslie. 6. Foster, Hannah
Webster, 1759–1840. Coquette. 7. Politics and
literature—United States—History. 8. National
characteristics, American, in literature.
9. Friendship—Sociological aspects. 10. Political
culture—United States—History. I. Title.
ps169.f69s39 2006
810.9%353—dc22 2006018318
cloth 10 09 08 07 06 5 4 3 2 1
paper 10 09 08 07 06 5 4 3 2 1
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Renascence of
Friendship: A Story of American
Social and Political Life 1
CHAPTER ONE Smoke and Mirrors: A History of
Equality and Interchangeability in
Friendship Theory 27
CHAPTER TWO ‘‘Familiar Commerce’’: John Winthrop’s
‘‘Modell’’ of American A≈liation 73
CHAPTER THREE Hannah Webster Foster’s Coquette:
Resurrecting Friendship from the Tomb
of Marriage 103
CHAPTER FOUR Eat Your Heart Out: James Fenimore
Cooper’s Male Romance and the
American Myth of Interracial
Friendship 133
CHAPTER FIVE The Ethical Horizon of American
Friendship in Catharine Sedgwick’s
Hope Leslie 165
Epilogue: The Persistence of
Second Selves 207
Notes 211
Works Cited 239
Index 259
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ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1. Washington medal, 1792 20
Figure 2. Sagoyewatha or ‘‘Red Jacket’’ wearing Washington medal 21
Figure 3. Bona fide 48
Figure 4. Jusque a la mort 49
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
After many years of pondering the
meanings and strange slippage of liking and likeness, I have developed an even
greater respect, if that were possible, for friendship and for the people and things
that sustain me. This project has gone through many transformations. It began in
the early 1990s when a prescient undergraduate student named Sharry Fisher,
despondent over the state of interracial relations on the Dartmouth campus, urged
me to teach courses on the historical and literary representations of women’s
interracial relations. I discovered a large and growing body of works on the
topic—remarkable stories like Grace Paley’s ‘‘The Long Distance Runner,’’ Toni
Morrison’s ‘‘Recitatif,’’ and Tillie Olsen’s ‘‘O Yes.’’ I was particularly gripped by
an early dialogue co-authored by philosophers María Lugones and Elizabeth
Spelman, who conclude that, because friendship creates ‘‘a non-coerced space,’’ it
is the ‘‘only appropriate and understandable motive’’ for doing feminist theory
across racial and ethnic di√erences (23). But after several attempts to write a book
focused on representations of women’s interracial relations, I realized that I did
not know what friendship meant. Of course, I understood it in a personal and
commonsensical way, but not as a cultural or historical discourse. Going back to
the foundational texts about friendship in the Western tradition allowed me to see
friendship as part of a very long philosophical discourse and as the preeminent
a≈liative and democratic mode it was and could be again.
Teaching and learning have been crucial to this study. Over the years I have
worked with other remarkable students on related projects that have inspired me:
Lisa DiIorio, Jean Young, Michelle Seldin, Ti√any West, Amanda Gilliam, Kinohi
Nishikawa, Swati Rana, Mosopefoluwa A. Ogunyemi, Diana Bellonby, Matthew
Duques, Paloma Wu, and Lauren Leblanc, among others. Several of my under-
graduate research assistants at Dartmouth have been particularly helpful to this
project and deserve thanks: Matthew Fujisawa, Liz Bertko, Tim Stanne, Miranda
Johnson, Stacey Sherri√, Sue Kim, and Rebecca Slisz.
I have also benefited immensely from an active, courageous, and supportive
feminist community of scholars, especially the faculty in the Women’s and Gender