Notes on the State of Virginia Group

Question:

janetbarnes
janetbarnes
Student
College - Freshman

Why is Margaret Fullers' piece "Fourth of July" so important to American literature?

what makes this piece special to american identity?

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Posted by janetbarnes on Thursday July 16, 2009 at 4:55 PM and tagged with fourth of july, margaret fuller, notes on the state of virginia.

Answers:


  1. akannan Teacher
    Middle School

    eNotes Editor

    Part of what makes Fuller's piece on the Fourth of July so powerful is that it speaks the vision and dream of what America should be, and not merely be content with what is.  Being a leading Transcendentalist as well as one of the first Feminists, she spoke to the notion of "reform" in the largest of sense.  She continually called for the idea of change in all of its forms.  She called for political change, abolition of slavery, and a change in the way America educates its young.  Her words speak quite loud in this respect for she articulates the "insatiable love of wealth and power" that has proven to be corrosive to the hopes of what America can be.  Her voice is essential to American identity because Fuller is living proof of the Constitution's notion of "forming a more perfect union."  Fuller, ahead of the curve, understood that the greatness in a democracy such as America's is the idea that there is no complacency in its calls for change.  This demand to "get things better" in "forming a more perfect union" speaks to change in as many domains as possible.  Fuller in her essay on the 4th, speaks to glory of not what America is, but what it can and should be.

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    Posted by akannan on Thursday July 16, 2009 at 5:11 PM