Reading Methodist Characters the Figure and Politics of Popular Evangelicalism in American Fiction, 1790-1860.

Abstract

Reading Methodist Characters examines the imaginative appropriation of Methodist and anti-Methodist discourse by U.S. fiction writers working within the Calvinist tradition between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. From the early national novels of Brackenridge and Sedgwick to Hawthorne’s romanticism and Stowe’s sentimentalism, this dissertation establishes and decodes Methodism’s central yet ambivalent significance within American literary history. Whether metonymically representing all evangelical upstarts or metaphorically evoking the enthusiastic, illiterate, and emotional character that distinguished them from their establishment counterparts, Methodism was the figurative vehicle through which authors depicted the dramatic rise of popular evangelicalism and its ramifications for the development of American letters. Controversial from its inception in the 1730s, John Wesley responded to the mockery of his reform movement by declaring the distinguishing mark or “character” of a Methodist to be emotional rather than doctrinal or liturgical. Their emphasis on religious affect set Methodists apart in Britain and would continue to do so in America, but it was the paradox of Methodism that made it so appealing to nineteenth-century fiction writers. “Illiterate” in their lack of literary training or formal schooling, Methodists nevertheless were eloquent and powerful preachers. Often extravagantly emotional, they were also known, as their name implies, for the methodical way they went about securing salvation. Unrepentantly enthusiastic, Methodists nonetheless exhibited an unswerving commitment to practical piety and experimental Christianity. Finally, their fierce opposition to fiction was waged while skillfully employing narrative, imagery, theatricality, and a keen understanding of human psychology in their mission to evangelize every person in the rapidly expanding republic. The Methodist characters this dissertation examines, from Teague O’Regan to Uncle Tom, embody these paradoxical qualities and reflect their creators’ conflicting opinions about Methodism’s miraculous rise to dominance in the nineteenth-century United States. Reliance on a monolithic evangelicalism has prevented literary scholars from discerning the complex ways these writers employed the ongoing competition and confrontation between Methodists and Calvinists to critique emerging religious attitudes about literature, inspiration, education, and the means of appealing to a mass audience. Reading Methodist Characters rectifies this critical oversight by recovering the literary and political significance of Methodist identity.