A01=Ivy Schweitzer
Adam Smith
affiliation
Amicitia
Aristotelian friendship
Aristotle
Author_Ivy Schweitzer
Caritas
Category=DSBF
Cicero
Classical ideal of friendship
democratic politics
early Christian friendship
Enlightenment sympathy
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
friendship
friendship and marriage
friendship in early America
Greek friendship
homosocial friendship
interracial friendship
John Winthrop
Michel de Montaigne
New World encounter
Philia
Plato
politics and friendship
Republican friendship
same sex friendship
women's friendship
Product details
- ISBN 9780807857786
- Weight: 434g
- Dimensions: 161 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 30 Dec 2006
- Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Contemporary notions of friendship regularly place it in the private sphere, associated with feminized forms of sympathy and affection. As Ivy Schweitzer explains, however, this perception leads to a misunderstanding of American history. In an exploration of early American literature and culture, Schweitzer uncovers friendships built on a classical model that is both public and political in nature. Schweitzer begins with Aristotle's ideal of ""perfect"" friendship that positions freely chosen relationships among equals as the highest realization of ethical, social, and political bonds. Evidence in works by John Winthrop, Hannah Foster, James Fenimore Cooper, and Catharine Sedgwick confirms that this classical model shaped early American concepts of friendship and, thus, democracy. Schweitzer argues that recognizing the centrality of friendship as a cultural institution is critical to understanding the rationales for consolidating power among white males in the young nation. She also demonstrates how women, nonelite groups, and minorities have appropriated and redefined the discourse of perfect friendship, making equality its result rather than its requirement. By recovering the public nature of friendship, Schweitzer establishes discourse about affection and affiliation as a central component of American identity and democratic community.
Ivy Schweitzer is professor of English at Dartmouth College. She is author and coeditor of three other books, including The Work of Self-Representation: Lyric Poetry in Colonial New England (from the University of North Carolina Press).
