Early Appalachian Literature

The texts collected here describe late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century Appalachia as a geographical and political frontier and include Cherokee narratives, works by pioneers and frontiersmen and Native Americans who assimilated into European culture, revealing how this borderland became a cultural, rhetorical, and mythical frontier. The selections also include Enlightenment, Euro-American views of Appalachia from men such as Thomas Jefferson and William Bartram.

William Bartram

Son of the self-taught and well-connected eighteenth-century botanist John Bartram, William Bartram became a naturalist, specializing in the flora and fauna of the southern backcountry during the colonial and early national periods. Born in Philadelphia, Bartram benefited from his father’s professional and personal connections to European and American politicians, scientists, and wealthy citizens. Bartram’s talent for drawing led him to his life’s work after false starts in a number of professions, including time as a merchant and a disastrous stint as an indigo planter in Florida....

The eye looks back: Seeing and being seen from William Bartram to H.P. Lovecraft

The paper focuses on the sense of sight and seeing in the selected texts of American literature from the late 18th century to the 1930s, i.e. from William Bartram to H. P. Lovecraft. Adopting a perspective of changing “scopic regimes” – conventions of visual perception presented in a number of literary and non-literary works, the author analyzed a passage from Bartram’s Travels to reveal a combination of the discourse of science with that of the British aesthetics of gardening. In Margaret Fuller’s Summer on the Lakes (1843) the main factor is the work of imagination dissatisfied with the actual view of Niagara Falls, while in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature substantial subjectivity is reduced to pure seeing. In Henry David Thoreau’s essay “Ktaadn” the subject confronts nature that is no longer transparent and turns out meaningless. In American literature of horror from Charles Brockden Brown through Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, the narrator’s eye encounters the inhuman gaze of a predator, a dehumanized victim of murder, or a sinister creature from the out-er space. To conclude, the human gaze was gradually losing its ability to frame or penetrate nature, bound to confront the annihilating evil eye from which there was usually no escape.

William Bartram: a Maker and Painter of America’s Image in its Enlightenment

The American Enlightenment of the eighteenth century was a critical time in the early years of the emergent nation as Americans increasingly explored and investigated all fields of knowledge, from philosophy to natural science. One lesser-known early American of the period, who was especially significant to early American natural science, was the naturalist William Bartram (1739-1823), whose most vital role in the American Enlightenment was that of helping America assert itself in a scientific world largely dominated at the time by European scientists. In this respect, Bartram reinforced the efforts of men like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin to prove America to be a capable nation able to act independently. Bartram’s work also helped to develop and advertise the image of America to the world as a young and growing nation. This paper, therefore, while first seeking to explore Bartram’s critical role as a maker and painter of America’s image during its Enlightenment, also displays some of the critical difficulties (outside of its politics) facing early America.

Correspondence

Selected letters to and from William Bartram, his family, and his friends concerning his travels along the St. Johns River, his 1766 residence on the river, and publication of his 1791 Travels.

Introduction

John and William Bartram were father and son adventurers, plant collectors, and natural historians who explored and described the natural assets of the St. Johns River valley and the Trader’s Path westward to the Suwannee River in north Florida. Their trips during the latter half of the 1700s corresponded to the period after Florida became a possession of England. They collected plants and made extensive observations on local animal life, geography, native cultures, and physical features of what was then an essentially uncharted region.

Travels on the St. Johns River

Travels on the St. Johns River presents writings by pioneering American naturalists John Bartram and William Bartram during their exploration of Florida in the second half of the eighteenth century. Part I (chapters one–three) includes selections from John Bartram's Diary, William Bartram's description of the St. Johns River valley in his celebrated Travels, and selected correspondence. Part II (chapter four) describes the landscapes, plants and animals, people, and cultural artifacts that John and William encountered in their explorations. Descriptions of the natural world, written in binominal nomenclature, are updated and redefined. Here, armchair and active travelers will find a guide to both the St. Johns River valley, its landscapes, its flora and fauna, and to the Bartrams' responses to the natural world of their time. Photographs, drawings, and maps accompany the writings and the editors’ modern interpretations.