Abstract

Frances Hodgson Burnett's 1907 novel, The Shuttle, is an important contribution to turn-of-the-century transatlantic literature because it offers a unifying perspective on Anglo-American relations. Rather than a conventional emphasis on the problematic tensions between the U.S. and Britain, Burnett tells a second story of complementary national traits that highlights the dynamic aspect of transatlantic relations and affords each nation a share of their Anglophone heritage. Burnett employs transatlantic travel to advance her notion of a common heritage. As a tool for understanding the narrative logic of The Shuttle, Michel de Certeau's theory of narrative space explains how Burnett uses movement to write a new transatlantic story; featuring steam-driven travel in the novel marks a new phase in the transatlantic relationship. Burnett's solution of a joint Anglo Atlantic culture expressed through the marriage plot makes The Shuttle a progressive novel within the transatlantic tradition. Whereas many nineteenth-century writers emphasized a contentious Anglo-American legacy, Burnett imagines the grounds for a new history. She joins these transatlantic-oriented authors, but challenges and revises the historical narrative to reflect a more complementary relationship that may develop into a hybrid culture of its own.

Degree

College and Department

Humanities; English

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