{"id":81876,"date":"2015-01-21T12:44:36","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T17:44:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=81876"},"modified":"2015-01-21T16:47:24","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T21:47:24","slug":"the-first-american-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/21\/the-first-american-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"The First American Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Power of Sympathy turns 226.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The_Power_of_Sympathy\"<\/a>

The first-edition title page of The Power of Sympathy<\/em>.<\/p><\/div>\n

William Hill Brown\u2019s The Power of Sympathy: or, The Triumph of Nature<\/a><\/em> was published 226 years ago today, in 1789. It\u2019s generally considered the first American novel, though you won\u2019t find it on many (any?) short lists for the Great American Novel. To speak with the kind of prudence it so sternly advocates: the passing centuries have hidden its charms.<\/p>\n

An epistolary novel in the style of Samuel Richardson\u2019s Pamela<\/em>,\u00a0The Power of Sympathy<\/em> tells the story of Thomas Harrington, a New Englander who has fallen, against his father\u2019s wishes, for a woman named Harriot. He dearly yearns for Harriot as his mistress: \u201cShall we not,\u201d he asks her, \u201cobey the dictates of nature, rather than confine ourselves to the forced, unnatural rules of\u2014and\u2014and shall the halcyon days of youth slip through our fingers unenjoyed?\u201d (Actually, Harrington says all of this with \u201cthe language of the eyes.\u201d Early Americans excelled, you see, at conducting complicated conversations using only their peepers.) <\/p>\n

Thomas\u2019s friend Worthy urges him to marry the girl, rather than simply miring himself in licentiousness, and so the pair fall deeply in love; they\u2019re soon engaged. But Thomas\u2019s father does not receive the news well, and for good reason: Harriot is his illegitimate daughter, and now the secret must come out to protect his son\u2019s honor. \u201cHe is now even upon the point of marrying\u2014shall I proceed!\u2014of marrying his Sister!\u201d the father writes. \u201cI fly to prevent incest!\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe had he flown earlier, instead of pausing to write a letter to his minister about it, things would\u2019ve turned out differently\u2014we\u2019ll never know. In any case, the lovers are understandably distraught, on the eve of their wedding day, to learn of their unwitting incest. They terminate the betrothal posthaste. Harriot, laid low by grief, succumbs to consumption, but not before unburdening herself thus:<\/p>\n

\n

How fleeting have been the days \u2026 when anticipation threw open the gates of happiness, and we vainly contemplated the approach of bliss \u2026 when we beheld in the magick mirrour of futurity, the lively group of loves that sport in the train of joy. We observed in transports of delight the dear delusion, and saw them, as it were, in bodily form pass in review before us \u2026 We were happy in idea, nor was the reality far behind. And why is the vision vanished ? O ! I sink, I die, when I reflect\u2014when I find in my Harrington a brother\u2014I am penetrated with inexpressible grief\u2014I experience uncommon sensations\u2014I start with horrour at the idea of incest\u2014of ruin\u2014of perdition.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

She dies.<\/p>\n

Disconsolate, Thomas decides \u201cto quit this life\u201d and\u2014after about a dozen letters to Worthy saying he\u2019s really going to do it any day now, the pain is unendurable, life is just a maze of suffering, et cetera, et cetera\u2014he shoots himself. He\u2019s found \u201cwheltering in his blood\u201d with a copy of The Sorrows of Young Werther <\/em>at his side.<\/p>\n

The Power of Sympathy <\/em>is a sentimental novel in the strictest sense of the term: a kind of humanistic endeavor to evoke emotions in readers, giving them models on which to base their own emotional lives. It was crucial, in the second half of the eighteenth century, to allow yourself to be whipped into an emotional lather\u00ad\u2014showing your feelings was a mark of character.<\/p>\n

So The Power of Sympathy <\/em>is full of character, by that standard and perhaps that standard alone. Critics have read it as an allegory of the nascent United States, helping to reinforce the caution and virtue that would best serve the young nation. Certainly it wears its heart on its sleeve\u2014its preface reads, \u201cIntended to represent the specious causes, and to Expose the fatal CONSEQUENCES, of SEDUCTION; To inspire the Female Mind With a Principle of Self Complacency, and to Promote the Economy of Human Life.\u201d It\u2019s important to sympathize, the novel tells us\u2014but be rational about it.<\/p>\n

In part, though, Brown must have aimed to titillate. He published the novel anonymously\u2014a curious choice, since his only supposed ambition was moral didacticism. Surely it was a great thrill for his readers to find themselves in such proximity to incest, that taboo of taboos. To add to the sex appeal, Sympathy<\/em> was \u201cbased on true events,\u201d as a film adaptation might say: around the same time, two of Brown\u2019s neighbors had been embroiled in a nearly identical scandal.<\/p>\n

Still, Sympathy<\/em> fascinates because it\u2019s so purely the product of a historical moment: in 1789, literacy was on the rise and the business of publishing, especially newspaper publishing, was coming into its own. Letter writing was increasingly popular\u2014the medium of the written word felt more democratic than ever before. The country was new and hungry for stories about itself; what we think of as the American character had yet to be minted. Beneath Sympathy<\/em>\u2019s many layers of mawkishness, there are some uniquely American details\u2014lavish descriptions of the Rhode Island (\u201cRhodeisland\u201d) greenery, for instance, and a surprisingly frank discussion of the South\u2019s culture of slavery.<\/p>\n

Mainly, though, it\u2019s full of lines like these:<\/p>\n

\n

How opposite are the pursuits and rewards of her who participates in every rational enjoyment of life, without mixing in those scenes of indiscretion which give pain on recollection!\u2014Whose chymical genius leads her to extract the poison from the most luxuriant flowers, and to draw honey even from the weeds of society. She mixes with the world seemingly indiscriminately\u2014and because she would secure to herself that satisfaction which arises from a consciousness of acting right, she views her conduct with an eye of scrutiny. Though her temper is free and unrestrained, her heart is previously secured by the precepts of prudence\u2014for prudence is but another name for virtue. Her manners are unruffled, and her disposition calm, temperate and dispassionate, however she may be surrounded by the temptations of the world. Adieu!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Adieu, indeed.<\/p>\n

Dan Piepenbring is the web editor of <\/em>The Paris Review.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Power of Sympathy turns 226. William Hill Brown\u2019s The Power of Sympathy: or, The Triumph of Nature was published 226 years ago today, in 1789. It\u2019s generally considered the first American novel, though you won\u2019t find it on many (any?) short lists for the Great American Novel. To speak with the kind of prudence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[489],"tags":[16689,16690,16691,16692,4765,15278,16693,16694,16687,16688,3267,16686],"class_list":["post-81876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-2","tag-american-literature","tag-eighteenth-century-novels","tag-epistolary-novels","tag-incest","tag-pamela","tag-samuel-richardson","tag-sentimental-novels","tag-sentimentalism","tag-the-power-of-sympathy","tag-the-power-of-sympathy-or-the-triumph-of-nature","tag-virtue","tag-william-hill-brown"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nReading the First American Novel, Published 226 Years Ago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"\u201cThe Power of Sympathy,\u201d widely considered America\u2019s first novel, was published in 1789. 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