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Seriality, Context, and Format Early American Literature and the Periodical
Department: English & Philosophy
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Pocatello
Unknown to Unknown
Catherine Becker
Idaho State University
Dissertation
No
7/28/2020
digital
City: Pocatello
Doctorate
The periodical was one of the most prominent print forms in the American early national period (1776-1820). Even though some of the era’s most famous works were initially published in periodicals, their original formats are rarely considered. This project addresses the problem by tracing four early American texts to their periodical origins to demonstrate how their settings inherently shaped them. In each case, the works were originally published in periodicals and later reproduced in different formats. The first chapter shows how Judith Sargent Murray’s narrative, Story of Margaretta, never existed outside its embedding within “The Gleaner” column before 1995, when it was re-packaged as a novella. Placing the work back in its original column context exemplifies narrative structures that inextricably link the column and narrative. The second chapter reframes “Edgar Huntly, within its publication in the Monthly Magazine and American Review, and exemplifies how paratexts shape a reader’s engagement with the fragment. Chapter three traces Isaac Mitchell’s Alonzo and Melissa to its original serial format and reveals how the sprawling narrative was a product of its seriality. In chapter four, Washington and William Irving and James Paulding’s Salmagundi is examined as a multivocal satirical metacommentary rather than a homogenous text. In each of these four cases, the periodical format shapes the structure and order of the text, and tracing the texts back to their origins reveals how deeply their publication realities shaped them. The final chapter of the study takes up the difficulties with teaching periodicals and provides means by which they can be included in course syllabi. Key Words: embedded narrative, paratexts, seriality, periodical studies, teaching periodicals

Seriality, Context, and Format Early American Literature and the Periodical

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