Charles Brockden Brown

Choose one of the following to respond to. Ensure that you identify which question you are addressing. (While you can respond to both in two separate posts, you will only receive credit for the first post.) The post is due Sunday, April 2 by 7:00 p.m.

1. As you will see, writing and texts in general circulate throughout Brown’s novel. How does writing and textuality (the novel as a letter, the concluding letters, lost and recovered manuscripts) function within the novel? What does this use of “letters” suggest about writing in the early republic?

2. What is the literary function of somnambulism (sleepwalking)? What role does it play? What is its significance?