Catharine Maria Sedgwick

Discussion Questions:

1.) DEBATE: Does Sedgwick place the domestic role of wife and mother over that of author? Or, is she instead commenting more broadly on the nature of women's reading tastes and writing tendencies?

2.) Sedgwick's setting is the "secluded and quiet village of H.," peopled by "a community of women who lived like nuns." How does the dominant presence of women define the character of the community and the relationship women have to men?

3.) Using one ore more of the readings in "'Who Reads an American Book?': Calls for a National Literature" (p. 476), discuss the broader comment that Sedgwick's choice of setting or subject makes on what qualifies as American literature.

4.) In satirizing Mrs. Courland, whose work tends to "pathos and sentiment," Sedgwick seems to make a statement about what literature is not. How does the story define what literature is or what it should be? (Note: "Cacoethes Scribendi" was published in a gift annual, The Atlantic Souvenir.)

5.) According to the narrator, "Mrs. Courland did not know that in literature . . . the most exquisite productions are wrought from the smallest quantity of raw material." Discuss this observation, along with the rest of the story, as a call for American literary realism, or the adherence to the details, mores, and occurrences of everyday life.

6.) Why, according to the narrator, is Ralph's "story" so much more successful than any Mrs. Courland writes? Is this success based on gender, and is this a story that dismisses women writers? Explain your answer using the language of the text.