Uncertainty as a Constructive Principle in Literature: Margaret Fuller's "Summer on the Lakes, in 1843"

Marina Kizima

Moscow State Institute of International relations (MGIMO University)

Abstract

Certainty and uncertainty have always been one of the basic dichotomies in textual construction; the overall balance variated depending on the dominant esthetic system. In classicism norms and certainty prevailed; romanticsm rejected classicist normative esthetics, emphasizing instead the organic nature of esthetic forms, their uniqueness. Play, irony, ambivalence and uncertainty became the guiding lights for romantic writers. Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), the outstanding American Transcendentalist, was a pioneer in applying this method to publicistic work. She made uncertainty the constructive principle of her travelogue "Summer on the Lakes, in 1843".Her new approach undermined the old rigid structure of the travelogue (departure - journey to the destination - return home): Fuller's book is in fact open-ended, it finishes on the way home, on board a ship, with passengers engaged in heated discussions. Fuller's voice as a narrator is often ironic; its tone is sometimes straightforward and sometimes ambivalent, in such cases she offers her readers metaphoric clues to the meaning of the narrative in lyrical poems, and the self-irony of the narrator. In this way the book involves the reader in an open dialogue.