Alcuin

Charles Brockden Brown, often considered "to be the first professional man of letters in the United States" (Edwards 92), published his first work Alcuin: a dialogue in 1798. Brown chose only to publish the first two of four parts for fear his meaning would be misunderstood by his critics and contemporaries. Parts III and IV were eventually published posthumously.

Alcuin is an important text for two major reasons. First, Brown used it to experiment with the dialogue form. Second, Brown uses Alcuin and Mrs. Carter to debate the role (or lack thereof) of women in society and politics. The text consists of almost all dialogue between Alcuin, a schoolteacher, and Mrs. Carter, whose "house became, at length, a sort of rendezvous of persons of different ages and conditions, but respectable for talents or virtues" (Edwards 4). As Fleishmann notes, "Brown had worked on the problem of combining dialogue and narrative as early as 1792, when he wrote the 'Henrietta letters'" (22). The first five pages of Alcuin consist of background information on Alcuin and his invitation to Mrs. Carter's lyceum. Then, "after much deliberation and forethought," Alcuin asks his hostess "Pray, Madam, are you a federalist?" (9). He realizes the question is a strange one to post to a woman. Indeed, even Mrs. Carter is astonished and exclaims, "What! ask a woman--shallow and inexperienced as all women are known to be, especially with regard to these topics--her opinion on any political question!" (9).

Parts I and II of the dialogue deal with general politics more than marriage specifically but, as with Wollstonecraft and Hays, he compares a tyrannical government's relationship with the people to a husband's relationship with his wife. Mrs. Carter expostulates on the injustice of forbidding women to vote due to a purely physical difference. As a widow, she discusses the unjust limits: "'I am not a minor,' say I to myself. 'I was born in the State, and cannot, therefore, be stigmatized as a foerigner. I pay taxes, for I have no father or husband to pay them for me. Luckily my complexion is white. Surely my vote will be received. But, no, I am a woman" (32). She understands that certain criteria should be met by individuals interested in voting but that physical difference is an inadequate reason. Alcuin points out to Mrs. Carter, "you appeared to grant [...] that want of property and servile conditions are allowable disqualifications. Now, may not marriage be said to take away both the liberty and property of women? at least, does it not bereave them of that independent judgment which it is just to demand from a voter?" (38).

Like Wollstonecraft, Brown compares women to slaves. The similarities are clear because "by marriage [a woman] loses all right to separate property. The will of her husband is the criterion of all her duties. All merit is comprised in unlimited obedience. She must not expostulate or rebel. In all contests with him, she must hope to prevail by blandishments and tears; not by appeals to justice and addresses to reason. She will be most applauded when she smiles with most perseverance on her oppressor, and when, with the undistinguishing attachment of a dog, no caprice or cruelty shall be able to estrange her affection" (25).

Relevant Bibliography Entries

• Looby, Christopher. Voicing America: Language, Literary Form, and the Origins of the United States. Chicago (IL): The University of Chicago Press, 1996.
• Watts, Steven. The Romance of Real Life: Charles Brockden Brown and the Origins of American Culture. London: Johns Hopkins UP, 1994.
• Clemit, Pamela. The Godwinian Novel: The Rational Fictions of Godwin, Brockden Brown, Mary Shelley. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993.
• Christophersen, Bill. The Apparition in the Glass: Charles Brockden Brown's American Gothic. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1993.
• Ferguson, Robert A. "Literature and Vocation in the Early Republic: The Example of Charles Brockden Brown.". Modern Philology 78.2 (1980), 139-152.

• 1771 Brown born in Philadelphia on January 17.
• 1782-1785 Brown attends prestigious Friends' Latin School, studying Greek, Latin, English, and mathematics and belonging to the Philosophical Society.
• 1792-1794 Brown gives up his law appreticeship to pursue his literary career.
• 1797 Brown completes first two parts of Alcuin.
• 1798 Brown publishes Alcuin: a dialogue.
• 1799 Brown publishes Ormond and first part of Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the Year 1793. He begins the literary journal The Monthly Magazine, and American Review.
• 1800 Brown completes second part of Arthur Mervyn.
• 1801 Brown begins publishing The American Review and Literary Journal.
• 1802 Brown writes dialogues on "Female Accomplishment" that are published as a series in Port Folio. The work discusses women's exclusion from many professions.
• 1803 Brown undertakes The Literary Magazine, and American Register.
• 1807 The Register is launched in November with Brown as the editor for five of seven volumes.
• 1810 Brown suffers from tuberculosis and is put into confinement. He dies on February 22.