Wieland Critical Essay | Critical Essay by David Seed

Critical Essay by David Seed

SOURCE: "The Mind Set Free: Charles Brockden Brown's Wieland" in Making America/Making American Literature: Franklin to Cooper, edited by A. Robert Lee and W. M. Verhoeven, Rodopi Amsterdam/Atlanta B.V., 1996, pp. 105-122.

In the essay that follows, Seed analyzes the style and structure of Wieland and argues that the ambiguity and irresolution in the novel reflect Brown's questioning attitude toward the ability of the mind to "grasp truth and order perceptions." Seed goes on to state that in his presentation of the error of perception and the mind's capacity for self-delusion, Brown anticipates Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne

When attempting to place Charles Brockden Brown within American literary history Leslie Fiedler locates one central preoccupation in his writings: "the essential human passion to which he hoped to appeal in his examination of society, as well as by his exploration of terror, was curiosity."¹ Curiosity was not only the grounds...
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