Book Description

An American literary form that flourished from the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, the Indian Captivity narrative has long fascinated readers on both sides of the Atlantic. These narratives - chronicling the unpredictable encounters between Native Americans and newcomers - number in the thousands. They encompass the factual as well as the fictional. And in their often negative portrayals of Native Americans, these narratives have aroused considerable controversy. Presenting a broad survey of these narratives and shedding much-needed light on their place in American culture and letters comes The Indian Captivity Narrative, 1550-1900, written by two scholars eminently well versed in their subject matter. In clear and straightforward writing, Kathryn Zabelle Derounian-Stodola and James Arthur Levernier argue that these texts played a vital role in American culture, forming the first truly American literary form and revealing, in their racist subtexts, much about white America's fear of "otherness". With a focus on both the literary and the historical features of the narratives, the authors take a New Historicist approach, extending the accepted chronology to encompass texts written in the 1500s through the 1900s and representing most regions of the continental United States. Here readers will find references to hundreds of primary texts and commentary on texts, as well as expert treatment of such topics as the mythology surrounding the form, the narratives' images of Native Americans and of women, and Mary Rowlandson's well-known 1682 account. A highly accessible work that nevertheless retains its subject's complexity, The Indian Captivity Narrative, 1550-1900 - complementedby nine important illustrations - provides an ideal resource for high school and college students, and for general audiences.