"The Man Without a Country"

I. Introduction

A. Published Nov/Dec 1863

B. Edward Everett Hale

1. Edward Everett

2. Nathan Hale

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

C. Reputation

1. The story "has generally been accepted as an American classic"; it is "a haunting presence, never to be forgotten" (Fred Lewis Pattee, 1918).

2. Philip Nolan has become a "sort of national myth" and his story is a "classic that almost everybody knows and that every child has read" (Van Wyck Brooks, 1960).

D. Loyalty to nation/country, not to state or section.

II. Versimilitude

A. Specificity of time and place

B. Historical references

C. Narrator

D. Hale's plain style

1. Know what you want to say.

2. Say it.

3. Use your own words.

4. A short word is better than a long one.

5. Leave out fine passages.

6. The fewer the words, other things being equal, the better.

III. Plot

IV. Transfer of loyalties

A. Nolan

1. Reading Scott

2. Dance

3. Battle

4. Slave ship

B. Reader

V. Moral

A. For Civil War

1. Message to Confederates

2. "Texas is out of the map" (120).

3. Danforth's decision

B. General

1. Country as a mother

2. Country as a home

VI. Comparison to Lincoln

A. Country v. people

B. Political definition?

C. My country, right or wrong?

D. "Country" does not equal "government."