Theme and Subject Matter in Francis Parkman’s <i>The Old Régime in Canada</i>
Abstract
Edgardo Medeiros da Silva
School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lisbon, University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies
‘There are no political panaceas, except in the imagination of political quacks’. These are the words used by the American historian Francis Parkman (1823–1893) to suggest that the English and French settlements on the North American continent had been quite different from their onset and were quite possibly bound to remain as such in years to come. His History of France and England in North America (1865–1892) provides us with a historical account of the colonization of New France which sheds some light on the colonial beginnings of New England as well. Like all Romantic or literary historians of the time, Parkman had a story to tell, novelistic in style and all-encompassing in theme and subject matter, which in this particular case is as much about France’s status as a colonial power as about England’s. Drawing on part four of his History, entitled the Old Régime in Canada (1874), this paper examines the failure of France to establish the basis of a well-regulated political community in North America in the context of the Anglo-French rivalry for the control of that continent. It aims to determine to what extent Parkman’s historical narrative on New France also gives us an insight into New England’s history; what does it tell us about the political culture of both colonies? and what vision, if any, of America/of the Americas does it offer us?
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School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Lisbon, University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies Portugal
Edgardo Medeiros Silva is an assistant professor of English at the School of Social and Political Sciences, Technical University of Lisbon, and a researcher with the University of Lisbon Centre for English Studies. He completed his Ph.D. in American Culture in 2007 with a doctoral thesis entitled ‘The Political Jeremiad of Henry Adams’. He is the author of a number of articles and papers, including ‘Self and Nation in Henry Adams’s Works’ (2010), ‘The Powerless Diplomacy of the Abbé Correia da Serra’ (2010), ‘The Hidden Meaning of Literary Success: the Case of Henry Adams’ (2008), ‘Manifest Destiny’ in Henry Adams’s History of the United States (2007), ‘Historical Consciousness and the Auto/Biographical in the Education of Henry Adams’ (2005). His research interests include American cultural history, American political history and American historiography.
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