3 0 R i s e o f t h e A m e r i c a n N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e :
T o p i c s , B a c k g r o u n d s , a n d M e t h o d s
o f t h e E a r l y 1 9 t h C e n t u r y A m e r i c a n L i t e r a t u r e
(Epics and Indian Captivity Narratives; W. Irving, J. F. Cooper, and St J. de Crevecoeur)
D e v e l o p m e n t o f N a t i o n a l L i t e r a t u r e
-attempts to create the Am. national lit. x but: disagreements about the way:
(a)the Am. lit. lacks national feeling, seeks to express the special character of the nation: the Eur. lit. should serve as a model
(b)the Am. lit. too young to declare its independence from the Br. literary tradition: the Am. lit. should become a new branch of Eur. culture
(c)lit. universal: the national lit. a mistake
-young Am. authors tried to create the national lit. x but: most lit. still imported from En., a number of cultural centres, magazines, newsp, etc.
L i t e r a t u r e o f t h e R e v o l u t i o n a r y W a r :
-aimed to resist the Br., to provide moral leadership, and to evoke the feelings of patriotism
-travel narratives and battles accounts < the Ind. captivity narratives
-relig. journals and sermons
-political satires on public controversies, esp. political pamphlets – T. Paine
-patriotic verse ballads
-occasional essays < highly derivative in structure and themes from Br. models
L i t e r a t u r e o f t h e N e w R e p u b l i c :
-the orig. 13 states suffered under economic and cultural dependence on En, little national sentiment, and political and relig. tensions (the Constitution controversy, Deism x Protestantism, etc.)
-conditions for writers – often portrayed in writing:
(–) materialism: lack of financial resources for artists
(–) inadequate copyright law: reprinting Br. lit. cheaper than buying the Am.
(+) growth of subscription libraries and new magazines
(+) An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828), by Webster: outlined the specifics of the newly created independent, purified, and simplified language
-the ‘Connecticut Wits’ incl. P. Freneau, W. C. Bryant, & oth.: adapted the neo-classical form to native subjects x the later originality of W. Whitman & E. Dickinson
-the ‘Knickerbocker School’ incl. W. C. Bryant, W. Irving, and J. F. Cooper = a loosely assembled group of well-to-do and well-read bachelors displaying their wit and sophistication in NY’s taverns: explored Am. subjects and themes
-an urgent need to establ. a specifically Am. historical context, to create a world where the imagination might flourish: W. Irving’s provincial Sleepy Hollow, J. F. Cooper’s woods of the frontier, N. Hawthorne’s Salem, H. D. Thoreau’s Walden Pond, H. Melville’s boundless ocean, and W. Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County
-result:
(a)W. Irving: his career as a writer parallel to the new nation’s career as a culture, his work illustr. the struggle of Am. culture for autonomy against the prevailing opinion of the 19th c. that Am. lacks subject matter suitable for lit., his work suggests the Am. experience suitable x but: only resistant to the Eur. forms
(b)J. F. Cooper: establ. frontier as the primary fact of the Am. history, and landscape as the fundamental reality of Am. life
+ H u g h H e n r y B r a c k e n r i d g e ( 1 7 4 8 – 1 8 1 6 )
L i f e :
-founded the Pittsburgh Gazette, the city’s 1st newsp
-helped to establ. the today’s Uni of Pittsburgh (PA)
W o r k :
-his early work incl. 2 patriotic plays, and some verse
“A Poem on the Rising Glory of America”:
-in collab. with P. Freneau (F. also contrib. to his United States Magazine)
The Modern Chivalry
-< inspired by Tobias Smollett and Cervantes’s Don Quijote
-a satirical picaresque comedy in a vigorous style
-the 1st novelist treatment of the frontier: pictures backwoods life in Am., and ridicules the excesses of a raw democracy
-captain Farrago = a bookish man of principle, travels with his Ir. low and base servant to the Am. frontier
Father Bombo’s Pilgrimage to Mecca in Arabia:
-an unfinished novel
+ C h a r l e s B r o c k d e n B r o w n ( 1 7 7 1 – 1 8 1 0 )
L i f e :
-consid. the 1st professional Am. novelist
-to support himself became a merchant; ed. successively 3 periodicals, wrote political pamphlets, and projected a compendium on geography
W o r k :
-< W. Godwin’s Caleb Williams > introd. gothic romances
-explores abnormal states of mind, paranormal phenomena, and questions the natural morality celebrated by his contemp.
-instead of superstitions, manners, Gothic castles, and chimeras, the Am. writer should draw on the incidents of Ind. hostility, and the perils of western wilderness
-> N. Hawthorne and E. A. Poe
Wieland
Ormond
Edgar Huntly
W a s h i n g t o n I r v i n g ( 1 7 8 3 – 1 8 5 9 )
L i f e :
-b. the y. the War ended, named after its most prominent hero
-grew up in a Federalist and Calvinist home in NY
-received little formal education x but: absorbed more enduring education from the city’s streets, and from merchant and seamen’s homespun tales
-associated with the Knickerbocker School
W o r k :
-a lifelong tension btw the lit. nationalism x the Eur. cultural forms
-neo-classical in style x but: employs humour, and a half-Romantic sensibility, melancholy, and the picturesque
N Y P h a se :
-treats directly and often satirically the absence of Am. cultural traditions
-his 1st publ. writing a series of essays satirising the Am. political, social, and lit. provincialism
Salmagundi:
-a series of pamphlets in the spirit of the Knickerbocker School
-an intellectual mixture of social criticism, lit. reviews, latest trends in politics and the theatre, and self-parody at the same time
History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker:
-his major work, a burlesque parody of the methods of contemp. historians, and of the short Am. history
-conc. with the NY’s Dutch colonial history
-admired for its technical skill and wit by W. Scott, G. G. Byron, and S. T. Coleridge
E u r o p e a n P h a se :
-< the E Romantic poets and W. Scott
-a sense of dislocation H. James and the ‘Lost Generation’ of E. Pound, T. S. Eliot, G. Stein, and E. Hemingway
-an urgent need to establ. a specifically Am. historical context
The Sketch Book:
-adapts the Eur.’s rich cultural heritage of local histories and legends to Am. settings
-> “The Christmas Dinner” and “Westminster Abbey”: familiar essays nostalgically surveying the traditions of E life
-> “Rip Van Winkle”, the 1st Am. tale based on a Ger. Legend, and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”: Americanised renditions of Eur. folktales
-> “Christmas Eve”, “Peter the Headstrong”, and “The Author’s Account of Himself”
-becomes a lit. celebrity, the 1st Am. writer to draw international audience
-helped to develop a short story
History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus:
-compares C.’s fate to his own = torn btw the Old World and the New
U S P h a se :
A Tour on the Prairies:
-< his own experience of the tour through the Am. South and West
-shifts from a detached cynicism and reserve to the direct authorial participation
-= establ. a distinctively Am. identity for himself
-secured the legitimacy of Am. authorship
F i n a l P h a se :
Life of George Washington:
-a massive 5-vol. biography, a prose epic
-W.’s life = an instructive paradigm for Am. to re-create a distinguished past
I n d i a n C a p t i vi t y N a r r a t i ve s ( 1 7 t h – l a t e 1 9 t h c . )
-stories of men and particularly women of Eur. descent captured by the ‘uncivilised enemies’ in the form of Native Am.
-often with a theme of redemption by faith in the face of the threats and temptations of an alien way of life
-often based on real events x but: frequently with fictional elements, sometimes entirely fictional
-pop. in both Am. and Eur. from the 17th c. until the close of the Am. frontier in the late 19th c.
-> Mary Rowlandson’s A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs Mary Rowlandson
J a m e s F e n i m o r e C o o p e r ( 1 7 8 9 – 1 8 5 1 )
L i f e :
-b. in Cooperstown = founded and named by his father
-> the source for his aristocratic view of the frontier and its inhabitants
-> the model for the frontier setting of his The Pioneers
-his strong-willed father, a country gentleman, Federalist, and political and social conservative
-the tension with his father anticipated the tension in his writing
-= the tension in the nation’s culture: desire for the personal and cultural originality x the luring of the establ. forms and inherited contexts
W o r k :
-aimed to produce a purely Am. work on the theme of love of country
F i c t i o n :
Precaution:
-an early novel of manners in the tradition of J. Austen
The Spy:
-set in the Revolutionary War
-believed Am. history could be a suitable setting for fiction
‘The Leatherstocking Tales’:
-a series of the novels connected by the character Natty Bumppo = Hawkeye
-the name: from Hawkeye’s nickname based on his habit of wearing long deerskin leggings
-not publ. accord. to the regular course of their incidents
-a long interval of time btw the publ. of the 1st and the last novel
-The Pioneers: Hawkeye already old
-The Last of the Mohicans: H. in his 40s
-The Prairie: H. dies x but: the regard for the character induced the author to resuscitate him
-The Pathfinder: H. 2 y. older than in LOM
-The Deerslayer: H. in his 20s
-the chronology wrt to the character of H.: The Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneers, and The Prairie
-a sense of loss: an impossible vision of the land gradually diminishes x but: remains a powerful imagined alternative to material progress
-articulated the Am. myth of the movement from old age to youth, and of the past’s continued presence:
‘The L. novels...go backwards from old age to golden youth. That is the true myth of America. She starts old, wrinkled and writhing in an old skin. And there is gradual sloughing off of the old skin, twd a new youth. It is the myth of America.’ (D. H. Lawrence)
-defined the frontier as the primary fact of Am. history, and landscape as the fundamental reality of Am. life
-establ. the prototypical Am. hero: H. = the cultural mediator btw the wilderness x the civilisation
-= a metaphor for C.’s own lit. achievement: a balanced existence receding ceaselessly into the past
-> H. Melville’s Ishmael, M. Twain’s Huck Finn, W. Faulkner’s Ike McCaslin, and E. Hemingway’s protagonists
-(–) his difficulty in style criticised by M. Twain and J. R. Lowell
The Pilot:
-a sea novel blending technical detail, memorable characters, and patriotic appeal to create a successful novel
-> H. Melville and J. Conrad
The Red Rover, The Wept of Wishton-Wish, and The Water Witch:
-sea novels blending the Am. history and the life at sea
C r i t i c i sm :
(a)defends the Am. culture and democracy:
Notions of the Americans:
-a series of fictional letters from a sophisticated Eur.
(b)criticises the Am. social and political life:
-disappointed by President Jackson’s policies
-wrote to provide a moral leadership
-aristocratic ideals: the Am. life should be led by an elite minority, democracy should be in the possibility of social mobility, and this would elevate the best people to the positions of power
A Letter to His Countrymen
Gleanings in Europe
The American Democrat
Homeward Bound and Home as Found:
-expresses his ideals in fictional terms
C o n t r i b u t i o n :
-his life and work had already taken on mythic dimensions
-the 1st Am. novelist to and define native themes, settings, and characters
-launched distinct genres in Am. fiction: the Am. novel of manners, the sea novel, the Eur.-Am. novel, and the novel of the mythic frontier – his ‘The Leatherstocking Tales’
-opened new territories for Am. fiction: the nation’s past, frontier, and life at sea
-contrib. to the issues of Am. identity in his social criticism: the qualities of leadership, standards of excellence, and measures for minority and majority voices
ad The Last of the Mohicans:
Genre(s):
-sentimental novel, adventure novel, and historical frontier romance:
(a)nature < Walter Scott’s ‘Weaverly novels’
(b)a quest and a journey = the saving of the ladies, preceded by a series of chases and narrow escapes
(c)the siege of Fort Henry: does not demonise the Fr., despite their failure to prevent the Ind. from attacking the E troops x but: the massacre of Fort Henry caused by the cultural difference btw the whites x the Ind., the guilt is also of the whites unable to control the Ind.’s behaviour
Theme(s):
-the thematic line of a loss – with Unkas not only his tribe dies out x but: also the Ind. as such, Unkas and Chingackgook = kings without kingdoms
-the consequences of the westward movement of the civilisation, the clash of civilisation and wilderness, and the clash of cultures
-the shaping of the Am. culture – in the wilderness Duncan becomes an Am.
-the nostalgia of heroic times
Indians:
-the Algonkin tribes in the the North East (the Delawares and the Mohicans [= Mahicans])
-the Iroquois tribes (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and Mohawks), Deganawida and Hiawatha founders of their federation
-the Hurons, the same language group (like Tuscarora and Cherokee in the South)
Characters:
-David Gamut = a comic character – saves the ladies through singing
-Unkas and Chingackgook = Noble Savages – shocked by the massacre
-the Noble Savage = the Ind., a natural man believing in the distinctive folk indigenous culture
-the Man of no Cross [= of unmixed orig.] = an ideal hybrid
-the Loss = a metaphor for the rise and fall of civilisations, tragic x but: inevitable – a dying nation accompanied by the pathos of a loss
ad Hawkeye:
-in a moral sense purely a creation
-possessing little of civilisation x but: its highest principles
-too proud of his white orig. to sink into the condition of the wild Ind. x but: too much a man of the woods to absorb more than was desirable from his companions
-melts civilisation and wilderness = ‘a fit subject to repres. the better qualities of both conditions, without pushing either to extremes’
-his relig.: finds the impress of the Deity in all the works of nature
-his drawbacks: would become a ‘monster of goodness’ without any drawbacks of humanity
-reaction to some criticism objecting the picture of the red men being more favourable than he deserves: a privilege of romances to present the highest form of beauty [see the Preface to ‘The Leatherstocking Tales’]
S t J o h n D e C r e v e c o e u r
[see C. under ‘29 Genres in the Lit. of Am. Rev.’]