From Fear to Reverie: Incidents in Isolation in the American Wilderness

<p>This thesis looks at Nineteenth Century American adventure narratives to examine the role of the wilderness. This thesis centers on a motif of isolated characters in the wilderness and analyzes the various techniques nineteenth-century authors use to project the psyche of their characters. The selected Nineteenth Century authors: Washington Irving, Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Alan Poe, Harriet Spofford,<em> </em>Nathaniel Hawthorne, and<em> </em>Herman Melville root America’s identity in the wilderness. They emphasize its power on the human psyche as positive, restorative, inward-looking, and divine. This thesis argues that these authors portray the wilderness as a protagonist that needs to be preserved in an expanding America.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (M.A.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year dc:date.available

2018

Author dc:creator

• Metenko, Serhiy

Contributors dc:contributor

• Carla Cappetti
• Keith Gandal
• Andras Kisery

• american
• wilderness
• isolation
• adventure
• melville
• 18th Century
• Literature in English, North America

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/717

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:cc_etds_theses-1744