With the discovery of the new continent in the fifteenth century, a number of existing literary traditions contributed to the creation of the early image of America. In particular, Utopian features were projected onto the terra incognita. The equation of the New World with the earthly paradise and the Promised Land placed America in the tradition of ancient and medieval Utopian texts. The early picture of America is an indirect continuation of an ambivalent gendered view of the world predominant in most Utopias and pastorals. On the one hand, America becomes the positive projection of a benevolent female Mother-Earth who provides for all basic human needs; on the other, a number of intimidating gendered topoi are intricately interwoven with these new territories. The “feminine” appears to be a central issue of literary as well as pictorial imagery in the first narratives on America. As early as Columbus and Vespucci, America was stylized or allegorized through female symbols and metaphors. This paper will try to show how ancient Utopian concepts such as visions of a gendered paradise, myths of Amazons and role reversals, as well as notions of “women communism” were integral components in the creation of America as a myth. They can be traced in the writings of Columbus and Vespucci as well as in the early illustrations of their books. A selection of textual samples and pictures will serve as a basis for the discussion of these inherent gender issues.

Critics have argued for generations about the failure of the ending of Huckleberry Finn. Ernest Hemingway began the debate by characterizing the escapades at Silas Phelps' farm as “cheating” his statement was soon followed by rhetorical volleys between Eliot, Trilling, Marx, and others whose writings, taken together, form a miniature canon all their own. While the ending has been variously defended on formal, political, aesthetic, and moral grounds, the very presence of a debate sustained for more than sixty years bears witness to the “problem” of those closing chapters. Perhaps the most simple, and ultimately unanswerable, criticism of the ending is that the characters have grown inexplicably younger – that is, they appear to behave in ways which disregard or “undo” their earlier, more maturing experiences. It seems inconceivable that Huck would go along so easily with Tom's Count of Monte Cristo escapades after witnessing the Grangerfords' feud, just as Jim's childlike acquiescence to the escape plan cannot be reconciled with the wisdom and dignity he had earlier shown as Huck's surrogate parent. Despite the ingenuity of even the most brilliant supporters, no reading can provide the characters in the closing chapters with those psychological qualities they so palpably lack; instead, supporters are left in the more awkward position of arguing that the failure of the ending constitutes an ironic success.

Of what use is autobiography to history? At first glance, autobiographies would seem invaluable to historians. After all, no attempt to reconstruct or understand the past would seem complete without a sprinkling of quotations from some form of “eyewitness account.” Among the various forms of such accounts available to historians, the formal autobiography often provides the most comprehensive and comprehensible account extant of the personal experience of historical events. Yet even so strong an admirer of the genre as Allan Nevins was forced to admit that very few autobiographies were ideally suited to the traditional historian's purpose. Most, he conceded, were “imperfect” historical documents at best and could prove “far more deeply misleading” than many other historical sources.

With the emergence of black nationalism in the late sixties, the delineation of a new black aesthetic became an urgent issue: it was first and most persistently raised by Hoyt Fuller in Negro Digest, and soon became the staple of radical black little magazines across America. In 1971, the appearance of a collection of essays entitled The Black Aesthetic and edited by Addison Gayle brought some coherence to the debate, and sanctified its assumptions. In his own contributions to that book, Gayle recorded the passing of the myth of the American melting pot and the consequent need to repudiate assimilationism. He argued that black nationalism implied the development of a black aesthetic in direct opposition to prevailing aesthetic criteria, in which white cultural concerns were privileged under a guise of “universalism”: this bogus universalism actually depended upon the marginalization of black perspectives and black writers by a white literary establishment. Such observations established the need for a new black aesthetic, and prescriptions for its form proliferated. These blueprints were handed down at a series of conferences at which black writers past and present stood trial against the new criteria. The emergent consensus was for writing that directly recreated the black experience out of which it arose; that found its style in the forms of “black folk expression”; that was socially progressive in effect – according to a very literal concept of functional literature; that addressed itself to the common readership of black people; and that assiduously cultivated positive black characters.