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Federalist Decline and Despair on the Pennsylvanian Frontier: Hugh Henry Brackenridge's
Modern Chivalry
| Brackenridge's Modern Chivalry1 (1792–1815), an eight- hundred-page picaresque novel that lacks romantic interest but features extended discussions on animal suffrage, has long been one of the unclassifiable oddities of American literature. Published in seven volumes between 1792 and 1815, Modern Chivalry describes the adventures of Captain Farrago and his servant, Teague O'Regan, on the Pennsylvania frontier. Teague seeks advancement of any sort, while Farrago acts to moderate Teague's ambition and quest for political truths. The flexible picaresque structure of Modern Chivalry allows Brackenridge to guide readers through much that is unfamiliar and often forgotten about the early years of United States nationhood. |
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In particular, Modern Chivalry traces the path of the Federalist elite in early national America, from desperate struggle in the 1790s to gradual decline into irrelevance. Americans typically remember the Federalist configuration, if at all, through marmoreal distortions. In Modern Chivalry, the statue comes to life on the Pennsylvania frontier, only to discover that without a proper pedestal, he sinks into the fresh mud of an unpaved, burgeoning America. Modern Chivalry remains the only sustained record of the encounter between the Federalist, republican America that led the nation in framing and founding and the unruly, inclusive, democratic vision that eventually prevailed. |
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In order to illuminate the ways in which Modern Chivalry depicts this vanished, crucial moment, this article begins with a discussion of Brackenridge's biography and politics. Living along the border between civilization and wilderness in the 1790s, Brackenridge glimpsed the populist future of America before his coastal peers. Formal analysis of the book reveals an author reaching for expressive effects associated with the later history of the novel, and Modern Chivalry is an early attempt to represent the heterogeneous polyphony that America already was in 1790. Though the contentiousness of early America has been well established, few other early American authors struggled so long and inventively to represent this discord.2 The article concludes with an examination of Brackenridge's personal despair and its reflection in Modern Chivalry. |
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The Political Prescience of a Pittsburgher: Signs of Federalist Decline | |
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Despite being an immigrant himself, Brackenridge never learned to like rough-hewn strivers like his Irish servant character, Teague O'Regan. Brackenridge wanted to live in an idealized republican realm of clear social hierarchies, superior education for the elite, and quietly submissive wives. Brackenridge's East Coast peers could cling to this myth a bit longer, but by 1795, he knew America would never resemble his vision. The difference was, at least in part, Brackenridge's unique biography. An appreciation of his strange book thus begins with the historical and geographical contexts that nurtured it. |
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