Unscripted America Indigenous Languages and the Origins of a Literary Nation

In 1664, French Jesuit Louis Nicolas arrived in Quebec. Upon first hearing Ojibwe, Nicolas observed that he had encountered the most barbaric language in the world--but after listening to and studying approximately fifteen Algonquian languages over a ten-year period, he wrote that he had "discovered all of the secrets of the most beautiful languages in the universe." Unscripted America is a study of how colonists in North America struggled to understand, translate, and interpret Native American languages, and the significance of these languages for theological and cosmological issues such as the origins of Amerindian populations, their relationship to Eurasian and Biblical peoples, and the origins of language itself. Through a close analysis of previously overlooked texts, Unscripted America places American Indian languages within transatlantic intellectual history, while also demonstrating how American letters emerged in the 1810s through 1830s via a complex and hitherto unexplored engagement with the legacies and aesthetic possibilities of indigenous words. Unscripted America contends that what scholars have more traditionally understood through the Romantic ideology of the noble savage, a vessel of antiquity among dying populations, was in fact a palimpsest of still-living indigenous populations whose presence in American literature remains traceable through words. By examining the foundation of the literary nation through language, writing, and literacy, Unscripted America revisits common conceptions regarding "early america" and its origins to demonstrate how the understanding of America developed out of a steadfast connection to American Indians, both past and present.

Über den Autor / die Autorin

Sarah Rivett is Associate Professor of English at Princeton University and the author of The Science of the Soul in Colonial New England (UNC Press, 2011), which won the Brewer Prize of the American Society of Church History.

Zusammenfassung

Unscripted America reconstructs an archive of indigenous language texts in order to present a new and wholly unique account of their impact on philosophy and US literary culture.

Zusatztext

Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Sarah Rivett, Sarah (Associate Professor of English Rivett, Rivett Sarah
• Verlag: Oxford University Press
• Inhalt: Buch
• Produktform: Fester Einband
• Erscheinungsdatum: 31.12.2017
• Thema: Geisteswissenschaften, Kunst, Musik > Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft > Allgemeine und Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft; Belletristik > Lyrik, Dramatik
• EAN: 9780190492564
• ISBN: 978-0-19-049256-4
• Anzahl Seiten: 400
• Serie: Oxford Studies in American Literary History; Oxford Studies in American Lit; Oxford Studies in American Literary History; Oxford Studies in American Lit
• Themen: USA, Social & cultural history, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 18th Century, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / Regional, Colonialism & imperialism, Indigenous Peoples, Language: history & general works, Social and cultural history, United States of America, USA, Colonialism and imperialism, Historical & comparative linguistics, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800, Language: history and general works, Historical and comparative linguistics, North & Central American indigenous languages, North and Central American indigenous languages, Indigenous peoples / Indigeneity, LANGUAGE STUDY / Indigenous Languages in the Americas