The Political Consequences of American Romanticism

Professor Iris Leslie

Invited by the Prince al Waleed bin Talal Center for American Studies and Research (CASAR), Professor Iris Leslie gave a lecture entitled "Political Consequences of American Romanticism" on December 13 in West Hall.

In essence, Leslie argued that Frederick Douglass, the author of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, recognized the strategic value of American romanticism's rhetoric as a crucial means of achieving a political end, the abolition of slavery. She said that when slavery ended in 1862 and Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the romantic idealization of a vibrant freewill largely spurred the economic and political progress of African Americans in America.

Leslie described American romanticism as assigning the responsibility of determining personal destiny to the individual self, based on the "exceptional all-American perception of self-driven freewill." Given Douglass's recourse to "romantic rhetoric" in his glorification of personal will in his struggle for his own emancipation, Leslie said Douglass's Narrative became more of an anti-slavery treatise than merely a personal account of his experiences as a slave.

However, as he gained a more mature understanding of the social and political structures of the white American mainstream, Douglass realized that the "hard-sell and unadulterated sensibilities of romanticism" needed to be significantly mitigated in order for his narrative to achieve stronger political leverage and gain more expansive reach. Consequently, he downplayed the level of brutality in subsequent, less graphic versions of his narrative, while simultaneously underscoring the economic viability of freeing slaves in the speeches he gave around the country, including those to elite white businessmen interested in the abolitionist movement.

Leslie concluded that by recognizing the need to engage, rather than alienate, the white mainstream in the abolitionist cause, Douglass served his people well, succeeding where many of his contemporaries failed.

Leslie, who completed her PhD in political science at Rutgers University, has taught at Georgetown University, the George Washington University, and Rutgers University. She is currently working on a book, The Vicissitudes of American Romanticism, which will examine the resistance African American intellectuals have historically presented to mainstream American romanticism.