OxfOrd StudieS in a mer ica n liter a ry history Not Quite Hope and Other Political Emotions in the Gilded Age Nathan Wolff OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/11/18, SPi Not Quite Hope and Other Political Emotions in the Gilded Age OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 24/11/18, SPi oxford studies in american literary history Gordon Hutner, Series Editor Family Money The Puritan Cosmopolis Jeffory A. Clymer Nan Goodman America’s England Realist Poetics in American Christopher Hanlon Culture, 1866–1900 Elizabeth Renker Writing the Rebellion Philip Gould Regional Writing and the Puzzles of Place–Time Living Oil June Howard Stephanie LeMenager History, Abolition, and Antipodean America the Ever-Present Now in Paul Giles Antebellum American Writing Making Noise, Making News Jeffrey Insko Mary Chapman Propaganda 1776 Territories of Empire Russ Castronovo Andy Doolen Playing in the White Unscripted America Stephanie Li Sarah Rivett Literature in the Making Forms of Dictatorship Nancy Glazener Jennifer Harford Vargas Surveyors of Customs Anxieties of Experience Joel Pfister Jeffrey Lawrence The Moral Economies of White Writers, Race Matters American Authorship Gregory S. Jay Susan M. Ryan The Civil War Dead and After Critique American Modernity Mitchum Huehls Ian Finseth OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/11/18, SPi Not Quite Hope and Other Political Emotions in the Gilded Age Nathan Wolff 1 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/11/18, SPi 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Nathan Wolff 2019 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2019 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. 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OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/11/18, SPi { Acknowledgments } After the sometimes anxious and exhausting process of writing a book about messy, complicated emotions, it’s a joy to now focus on giving thanks—a simpler, if no less intense feeling. First off, I am pleased to acknowledge Lauren Berlant, Bill Brown, and Kenneth Warren for their supervision of the dissertation that became this book. I hope they will see how much it remains indebted to their guidance while also appreciating how it has evolved. An extra thank you to Lauren for ongoing feedback, advice, and inspiration. A number of friends and colleagues generously read portions of the text over the years, served as respondents to my work in public forums, or convened panels that provided the occasion to sharpen key ideas. Those include Jason Berger, Russ Castronovo, Peter Coviello, Theo Davis, Elizabeth Freeman, Heather Keenleyside, Maurice Lee, and Hilary Strang. Thanks, especially, to Joshua Kotin who read multiple chapters over multiple years and provided much-needed camaraderie and grounding during the final stretch of work on this book. When I was an undergraduate, Joseph Litvak provided one of my earliest models for academic life; his intellect, decency, and sense of humor continue to set the gold standard. I am honored to be his colleague and am grateful for his support. Sincere thanks, as well, to the rest of the faculty and staff in the Department of English at Tufts, some of whom deserve special mention as welcoming hosts, lunch compan- ions, pedagogical examples, collaborators, and interlocutors, in particular: Liz Ammons, Linda Bamber, Ricky Crano, Lee Edelman, Sonia Hofkosh, Jess Keiser, Lisa Lowe, John Lurz, Modhumita Roy, Natalie Shapero, Christina Sharpe, and Ichiro Takayoshi. I am also grateful for the committed students at Tufts, especially the members of my “Political Emotion” and “O, Democracy” graduate seminars, whose challenging questions and observations made this a better book. An early version of material that now makes up portions of Chapters 1 and 5 first appeared in ELH, Volume 81, Issue 1, Spring, 2013, pages 173–97. Copyright © 2013 The Johns Hopkins University Press. An earlier version of Chapter 3 first appeared in J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists, Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2014, pages 225–52. Copyright © 2014 C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. I thank the editors of these journals for their votes of confidence in my work and their permission to reprint. Many thanks to Gordon Hutner for his faith in this project and for extending the privilege of joining the Oxford Studies in American Literary History series. Thank you, too, to the anonymous reviewers who provided generous feedback and OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/11/18, SPi vi Acknowledgments encouragement, to Jacqueline Norton and Aimee Wright at Oxford University Press for seeing the book through production, to Christine Ranft for copy-editing, and to Derek Gottlieb for preparing the index. Although their only interest in this book was that it made me a reliable couch companion, it makes me happy to acknowledge two beloved pets. Sprout was a strange and devoted friend. I miss him very much. Clementine makes me laugh, livens up office hours, and paws my keyboard when I’ve spent too long inside. Finally, thank you to my family. To my parents, Fred and Kathy; siblings, Jake and Genevieve; sister-in-law, Lesley; and parents-in-law, Leon and La Juana: Your confidence in me across this long haul meant and means a lot. And to Jennifer Wehunt: Your love and support deserves more acknowledgement than I have room to express. Breaks have been too few and far between, but I have cherished every adventure—whether hikes and paddles or fried clams and beers. What’s more, your careful attention to each chapter in this book, multiple times over, sharpened the prose, elevated the ideas, and made me feel that finishing was possible. I dedicate this book to you with gratitude and love. OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 26/11/18, SPi { Contents } List of Figures ix Agitation Introduction. Bureaucratic Vistas 2 Madness 1. Crazy Love: Emotional Insanity in the Gilded Age 25 Repulsion 2. Desire, Disgust, Democracy: or, Aversive Attachments 50 Depression 3. Strange Apathy: Sentiment and Sovereignty in Ramona 76 Suspicion 4. On the Hatred of Hypocrites: Donnelly, Du Bois, Race, and Representation 100 Cynicism 5. Cynical Reason in the Cranky Age 126 Exhaustion Coda. Election Fatigue: Political Emotion in Space and Time 150 Endnotes 159 Works Cited 197 Index 211 OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/11/18, SPi OUP CORRECTED PROOF – FINAL, 23/11/18, SPi { List of Figures } 2.1 “Queens of the Lobby.” Illustration by unknown artist accompanying an article of the same title by Didymus, The National Police Gazette 35, no. 125 (February 14, 1880): 1. This reprint is from an image which originally appeared as part of ProQuest® American Periodicals product. Reprinted with permission from digital images produced by ProQuest LLC. www.proquest.com. 59 4.1 “William Shakspere. Francis Bacon’s Mask.” Image reproduced from The Great Cryptogram’s first US edition published in Chicago by R.S. Peale & Co. (1888). Author’s personal collection. The portrait of William Shakespeare engraved by Martin Droeshout is from the frontispiece to the First Folio collection of Shakespeare’s plays (1623). Digital images of the complete Folio are hosted by the Folger Shakespeare Library, under a creative commons license, at www.folger.edu. 110