"Theresa, a Haytien Tale" (1828): Classical Allusions and Female Heroism.

This article analyzes the role of the Roman hero Aeneas and the patriarch Lot from the Hebrew Bible in "Theresa, a Haytien Tale" (1828), which describes a fictionalized episode in the Haitian Revolution (1791–1804) and is the first known work of fiction composed by a Black author in the United States. I argue that the story presents a radically feminist re-gendering of Aeneas and Lot. This analysis engages contemporary scholarship on "Theresa" in two ways. First, in terms of gender (which has been the primary focus of most scholarship on this short story), my reading of the masculine figures of Aeneas and Lot amplifies recent feminist assessments of the narrative. And second, these mythical figures from the distant past contribute to the fluid handling of temporality in a narrative that others have shown to be both ahistorical (in terms of strict chronology) and fluid inasmuch as the realities of Black liberation in 1828 Haiti point toward the goal of emancipation and liberation in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]