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An Adventurous and Lawless Fancy: Charles Brockden Brown's Aesthetic State

An Adventurous and Lawless Fancy: Charles Brockden Brown's Aesthetic State   Rutgers University An Adventurous and Lawless Fancy Charles Brockden Brown’s Aesthetic State On the eve of the series of disasters that will destroy her peace and pleasure, Clara, the narrator of Charles Brockden Brown’s novel Wie- land (), prepares to hear her brother, Theodore, recite a tragic tale just arrived from Germany and written by a promising novice Saxon poet: The exploits of Zisca, the Bohemian hero, were woven into a dramatic series and connection. According to German custom, it was minute and diffuse, and dictated by an adventurous and lawless fancy. It was a chain of audacious acts, and unheard-of disasters. The moated fortress, and the thicket; the ambush and the battle; and the conflict of headlong pas- sions, were pourtrayed in wild numbers, and with terrific energy. () This elegant but ominous scene would seem to project two distinct pos- sibilities: aesthetic pleasure or irrational chaos. On the one hand, like the recitation of Cicero, singing of ballads, and playing of violin and harp- sichord that were the typical ‘‘occupations and amusements’’ () of the Wieland circle, the tale reflects Brown’s allusive romantic and pedagogical tendency, an illustrative example of refinement whose implicit purpose is http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Early American Literature University of North Carolina Press

An Adventurous and Lawless Fancy: Charles Brockden Brown's Aesthetic State

Cahill, Edward.
Early American Literature , Volume 36 (1) – Mar 1, 2001
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Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 The University of North Carolina Press.
ISSN
1534-147X

Abstract

  Rutgers University An Adventurous and Lawless Fancy Charles Brockden Brown’s Aesthetic State On the eve of the series of disasters that will destroy her peace and pleasure, Clara, the narrator of Charles Brockden Brown’s novel Wie- land (), prepares to hear her brother, Theodore, recite a tragic tale just arrived from Germany and written by a promising novice Saxon poet: The exploits of Zisca, the Bohemian hero, were woven into a dramatic series and connection. According to German custom, it was minute and diffuse, and dictated by an adventurous and lawless fancy. It was a chain of audacious acts, and unheard-of disasters. The moated fortress, and the thicket; the ambush and the battle; and the conflict of headlong pas- sions, were pourtrayed in wild numbers, and with terrific energy. () This elegant but ominous scene would seem to project two distinct pos- sibilities: aesthetic pleasure or irrational chaos. On the one hand, like the recitation of Cicero, singing of ballads, and playing of violin and harp- sichord that were the typical ‘‘occupations and amusements’’ () of the Wieland circle, the tale reflects Brown’s allusive romantic and pedagogical tendency, an illustrative example of refinement whose implicit purpose is

Journal

Early American Literature – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Mar 1, 2001

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