[To complement
last week’s series on pre-Revolutionary histories, this week I’ll AmericanStudy
some of the many compelling writers and voices from the nation’s exploration
and colonial eras. Leading up to a special Guest Post on a wonderful new
anthology of Native American writing!]
Three layers to
the case for recovering the Revolutionary-era poet.
1)
The Literary: First and foremost, Stockton was a
very talented, engaging writer. Her poem “A Sarcasm against
the ladies in a newspaper; An impromptu answer” (1756) exemplifies her
witty and impassioned voice, her clever and effective use of rhyme and
structure, and her ability to move effortlessly between tones and themes within
even a short work. And that’s only one of the hundreds of unique
and compelling poems Stockton produced in a career that rivaled those of
Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley for the most prolific and significant by
an American poet before the Revolution. Stockton should be in our collective
literary memories because without her that tradition is impoverished.
2)
The Historical: Just as Bradstreet and Wheatley
offer us vital windows into social, cultural, and historical issues in their
Americas, so too does Stockton. As I wrote in this We’re History piece (and I apologize
for quoting myself, but the histories remain the same!), “Stockton, wife of the
New Jersey lawyer and Declaration
signer Richard Stockton, was famous in the era for her political
activities: the only woman elected to the secret American
Whig Society, she safeguarded the group’s papers during the Revolution at
her Princeton estate, where she also hosted George Washington and other
luminaries.” Moreover, she was also a long-term member of the era’s Mid-Atlantic
Writing Group, alongside future Prospect Poets Philip
Freneau and Hugh
Henry Brackenridge along with many other writers. Remembering Stockton better
connects us to these vital Revolutionary-era political and literary histories.
3)
The National: Those histories aren’t just
relevant to understanding the Revolutionary era, however; and neither are
Stockton and her poety just a part of our literary tradition. At the end of the
day, the canon is more than what we read in a classroom or about whom we
produce scholarship—it’s about what narrative of our nation we construct and
share. Ever since their own era, the nation’s framers have been portrayed as
originating visions of what America is, of identity and community in this new
and evolving place. I’m not here to contest that portrayal, but rather to
argue, as I
have in this space many times, for expanding it. Why can’t our vision of
the framers include Annis Boudinot Stockton as well as Richard Stockton? And if
it did, think of how much else in the stories we tell of ourselves would change
and grow as well.
Guest Post this
weekend,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Early American writers or works you’d highlight?
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