Innocence to Experience (and Back Again?): Uncertain Passages through the Intercontinental Looking-Glass
Abstract
John Matteson revisits the transatlantic conversation between the New World and the Old, by drawing on the archive of nineteenth century US writers about Europe. He is not so much interested in highlighting what these more or less celebrated figures had to say about Europe, its history, and its people, as in reflecting on how, through what he calls ‘the intercontinental looking glass’, Americans had to come to terms with the often unsettling stare of the foreigner. Though he knows his use of Du Bois’ famous concept of ‘double-consciousness’ might appear misconceived, Matteson insists that ‘the doubly conscious state that Du Bois ascribed to African Americans differed from other experiences of dual awareness not chiefly in terms of quality, but mostly of degree, though the degree is assuredly vast’. Matteson argues passionately, eloquently and, in his references to his own personal experience, quite amusingly, for the need to safeguard this tradition of cross-cultural comparison, though he ends by confessing his fears that contemporary Americans might be tempted ‘to turn away from the transatlantic looking-glass entirely’.
References
Alcott, L. M. (1987) ‘To Amos Bronson Alcott’, in J. Myerson et al. (eds) The Selected Letters of Louisa May Alcott. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 111.
Alcott, L. M. (1989) The Journals of Louisa May Alcott, J. Myerson et al. (eds) Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
Alcott, L. M. (2005) Little Women, in Little Women; Little Men; Jo’s Boys. New York: Library of America.
Clark, K. (1969) Civilisation: A Personal View. New York: Harper and Row.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1986) Writings. New York: Library of America.
Emerson, R. W. (1964) The Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, A. R. Ferguson (ed) Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Fitzgerald, F. S. (2004) The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner.
Fuller, M. (1875) Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, R. W. Emerson et al. (eds). Boston: Roberts Brothers.
Fuller, M. (1987) ‘To Samuel G. and Anna B. Ward’, in R. N. Hudspeth (ed) The Letters of Margaret Fuller. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 193.
James, H. (2010) The Golden Bowl in Novels 1903-1911. New York: Library of America.
Matteson, J. (2007) Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
Mickiewicz, A. (2012) ‘To Margaret Fuller’, in J. Matteson (ed) The Lives of Margaret Fuller. New York: W. W. Norton and Company.
Ossoli, M. F. (1895) At Home and Abroad; or, Things and Thoughts in America and Europe, A. B. Fuller (ed) Boston: Roberts Brothers.
Twain, M. (1984) The Innocents Abroad in The Innocents Abroad; Roughing It. New York: Library of America.
Willis, N. P. (1852) Prose Works of N. P. Willis. Philadelphia: Henry C. Baird.
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York United States
John T. Matteson has an A.B. in history from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in English from Columbia University. He also holds a J.D. from Harvard and has practiced as a litigation attorney in California and North Carolina. His work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal; The New York Times; The Harvard
Theological Review; New England Quarterly; Leviathan: A Journal of Melville Studies; and other publications. His 2007 book, Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father, was awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Biography. Professor Matteson is a Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society and a former Fellow of the Leon Levy Center for Biography. He has received the Distinguished Faculty Award of the John Jay College Alumni Association and the Dean’s Award for Distinguished Achievement by a Ph.D. Alumnus of the Columbia University School of Arts and Sciences. His second book, The Lives of Margaret Fuller, was awarded the 2012 Ann M. Sperber Award for best biography of a figure in journalism or media. John Matteson is a Distinguished Professor of the City University of New York.
The Copyright Holder of the submitted text is the Author. The Reader is granted the rights to use the material available in the RIAS websites and pdf documents under the provisions of the Creative CommonsAttribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0). Any commercial use requires separate written agreement with the Author and a proper credit line indicating the source of the original publication in RIAS.
