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The Ruins of Pompey: The Euro-American Invention of Native American Prehistory and the Gothic Mode in Joshua V. H. Clark's Onondaga

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2008

DE VILLO SLOAN
DE VILLO SLOAN
Affiliation:
University of Rochester.
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Abstract

In the United States between the approximate dates of 1800 and 1870, a group of writers whom I call Romantic Antiquarians invented and disseminated a narrative of Native American prehistory radically at odds with the later findings of modern archaeologists. Romantic Antiquarian discourse borrows from the themes and modes of literary Romanticism, and textual analysis of this work (which enjoyed widespread public acceptance before it was profoundly discredited) offers insights into the complex relationship between Native and Euro-American cultures. This essay provides an overview of the Romantic Antiquarian movement and explores its ideology. The writing of antiquarian Joshua V. H. Clark of New York is examined closely, including his theories concerning the Iroquois, his relationship with E. G. Squier, and his use of the Gothic mode.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 42 , Issue 2 , August 2008 , pp. 237 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 Cambridge University Press

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