Концепт: философия, религия, культура (Sep 2021)
The Indians of the U.S. Midwest in Margaret Fuller’s Summer on the Lakes, in 1843
Abstract
The article examines the book Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 written by Margaret Fuller (1810–1850), an outstanding American romantic writer, about her journey to the Great Lakes; the book was based on her experience in the Midwest and a study of relevant works in the Harvard college library. The life of American Indians confronting the expansion of white immigrants and removal is in the focus of attention in the book. The article offers an analysis and interpretation of Fuller’s views on the matter; methodologically it is based on a close reading of the book in its cultural and historical context and is to show the cultural forms Fuller describes, define her perspective as an observer and characterize her position as a thinker and publicist. The analysis demonstrates that Fuller’s ethnographic observations and descriptions have important innovative features: her perspective is a woman’s view, her eye is keen, she is attentive to the details of women’s lives and the behavior of women of different ages; she points out common features in the age and gender aspects of the life of the Indians, as well as their individual, personal traits; the Indians appear in her description not only as objects of her observation but as subjects — persons who participate in the interaction with white settlers and travelers, including Fuller herself; she points out their delicacy, courteousness, and the good manners they show in her contacts with them. The analysis proves that the romantic worldview forms the matrix for Fuller’s observations and deliberations but she rejects the poeticized view of the Indians and the concept of the noble savage introduced in the Enlightenment and elaborated in early romanticism. Creatively absorbing the ideas of Herder and Goethe Fuller wants to understand the culture of the Indians in its wholeness as an original, organic expression of the spirit of the people. The author draws attention to the contradictions in Fuller’s cultural approach: sharing to a great extent the dominant concept of history as a linear progression (the concept that was part of the colonial discourse) Fuller believed that, with the onward progress of civilization, the Indians were doomed to removal and extinction; at the same time she had her doubts concerning the linear concept of history and sympathized with the Indians, was convinced that the attitude of the white people towards the Indians contradicted Christian values.
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