I: The poetics of national identity

1. "We are five-and-forty": meter and national identity in Sir Walter Scott

2. "Our sacred union." "our beloved Appalachia": nation and genius loci in Hawthorne and Simms

II: The poetics of racial identity

3. "Of me and of mine": the music of racial identity

4. "Blood will tell": literary effects and the diagnosis of racial instinct

The conservation of identities.