Reading Charlotte

Hey Everyone, My first real post! This week we're reading Charlotte Temple, the first American bestseller. I'm really interested in how you'll respond to this novel. Late-eighteenth-century fiction isn't popular reading these days and most Americans only read this novel in a classroom setting, unlike, say, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, which I know many people still read for pleasure in their teens. Or maybe I'm outing myself as a 19th-century novel nerd. Well, I'm your professor, after all!

It can be hard to learn about a society through its popular fiction, but that our task here, to figure out this novel's perspective on the world, its message to readers (and Rowson has a lot of those), and of course how it works as a text (those classic literary criticism questions). Think about how Rowson describes her characters, how the book is structured. What's the plot? Is there a plot? And of course, how does this novel deal will questions of gender and sexuality. And what else is it dealing with? Are there other important themes or issues to discuss here?

When I read an 18th- or 19th-century novel, I try to be very aware of myself as a reader--twice over. I try to pay attention to my own reactions to the novel, what I found moving, boring, confusing, intriguing. When did I feel the desire to put it down? When did I want to keep reading? Then I try to imagine one of the thousands of Americans -- and not just young women but men too -- who devoured this book, who cried in the closing deathbed scene (sorry, spoiler alert!), gave this book to their children to read and treasured it as a beloved possession. What spoke to them? What scenes might have moved them and why?

P.S. Here's an interesting tidbit about the novel's popularity: An English professor from Barnard writes about her experience teaching the novel, and shares the anecdote of Rev. Covell. Charlotte Temple played a starring role on one of his sea voyages in 1844, apparently turning a crew of hardened seamen into god-fearing men...