The Literature of the

American PeopleAN HISTORICAL AND

CRITICAL SURVEY

EDITED BY

ARTHUR HOBSON QUINNUniversity of Pennsylvania

APPLETON-CENTURY-CROFTS, INC.

New York

ContentsPART I

The Colonial and Revolutionary PeriodCHAPTER . PAGE

1. THE BACKGROUND OF COLONIAL LITERATURE . 3Definition—intellectual sources—Renaissance and Reformation—themiddle class—motives for colonization, economic, patriotic, and re-ligious—conditions for literature in the early colonies—Virginia andthe southern and middle colonies—New England

2. EARLY TRAVELLERS AND OBSERVERS . . . . . 17

Captain John Smith; his "American" quality—John Pory—WilliamStrachey—Colonel Henry Norwood—John Hammond—GeorgeAlsop—Adriaen van der Donck—Daniel Denton—the Swedish set-tlements—the Carolinas—John Lawson—William Penn and thePennsylvania Quakers—William Byrd of Virginia

3. PURITAN PREACHERS AND PROSE WRITERS . . . 3 5

Character of early New England literature—William Wood—Thomas Morton—Francis Higginson—Puritanism; its encourage-ment of learning and writing—the Puritan literary theory; itstheological and psychological bases—the influence, of the audience

—the "plain style"—Nathaniel Ward—Roger Williams—Puritansermons—Thomas Hooker—Thomas Shepard—later changes in thesermon style—drama form in Puritan writing—Puritan story-telling—Joseph Morgan—books of "remarkable providences"—Increase •Mather—the Mather family—Cotton Mather; his views on style;his Political Fables; his "spiritualizing essays"—the later influenceof Puritanism

4. POETS AND POETASTERS 53The Puritan impulse toward poetry—lack of interest outside NewEngland—early Virginian verse—Ebenezer Cook of Maryland— <Thomas Godfrey and William Livingston—New England verse—Edward Taylor—Mather Byles and Joseph Green—BenjaminTompson—The "Bay Psalm Book"—Michael Wigglesworth—Anne Bradstreet

5. COLONIAL HISTORIANS 66

Motives for colonial historiography—William Strachey—CaptainJohn Smith's Generall Historie—n narrative of Bacon's rebellion—Robert Beverley—histories in Carolina and Georgia—/! True and

viii CONTENTSCHAPTER PAGE

Historical Narrative by Tailfer and others—Samuel Smith—WilliamSmith of New York—Cadwallader Colden—special motives for his-torical writing in New England—the providential interpretation ofhistory—William Bradford—John Winthrop—Edward Johnson-attempts to revive piety by providential history—Nathaniel Morton—historians of the Indian wars—Increase Mather—John Mason-Benjamin Church—Samuel Penhallow—William Hubbard; his Gen-eral History; his neglect of the providential theory—the Indian"captivities"—Mary Rowlandson—Jonathan Dickinson—the effectof the "captivities"—Daniel Gookin's defense of the Indians; hisplan for a general history—Cotton Mather's Magnolia—ThomasPrince—William Stith—Dr. William Douglass—Thomas Hutch-inson

6. ASPECTS OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURYCOLONIAL CULTURE . 85

Population—lines of cleavage in the colonies—unifying forces—the fine arts and the analogy to literature—foreign vs. nativestandards—colonial scientific interests—the secularization of societyand the decline of the old religious ardors—the ideas of the En-lightenment—education^ the colleges—libraries—booksellers andprinters—almanacs—the Ameses and their almanac—newspapers—Boston News-Letter—the Zeng'er trial—the New England Courant—New England Weekly journal-Virginia Gazette—PennsylvaniaGazette—magazines—General Magazine and American Magazine—nature and importance of the magazines—William Livingston—Provost William Smith—encouragement of native writers—varietyin content of magazines—music—the feminine audience—illustra-tions—foreign language periodicals—Noah Webster's AmericanMagazine—Cotton Mather, the scientist—Charles Chauncy, thetheologian—the Great Awakening—Samuel Johnson, scholar andphilosopher—Sarah Knight's account of her colonial travels—Dr.Alexander Hamilton's ltinerarium

7. JONATHAN EDWARDS AND BENJAMIN FRANKLIN . 106The contrast between the two—Edwards's life; reading of Lockeand Newton; his conversion; the "new simple idea"; concern foremotion in religion and study of religious psychology; views onchurch membership; defense of Northampton revivals and GreatAwakening; central theological doctrines; opposition to Armini-anism; Enquiry into the freedom of the will; vision of true freedom;idea of virtue and of God's purpose in creation; imaginative and

. intellectual power in the History of ... Redemption; style; Imagesor Shadows of Divine Things; use of images from nature; senseof mystery; importance for later artists—Franklin's life; variedachievements; religious attitude; relation to Puritanism; practicalmoral attitude; position as an American hero and prophet; viewson music; on education; scientific attitude; adaptation of literarymethod to audience; use of the hoax; letter to Mme Helvetius;aphorisms; interest in living language; in the comic—importance ofFranklin and Edwards in American intellectual history

CONTENTS ixCHAPTER . PAGE

8. WOOLMAN, CREVECOEUR, AND THE ROMANTICVISION OF AMERICA 124

Woolman the spokesman of colonial Quakerism; his life; Journal;essays—Sewall and other writers against Slavery—Woolman's anti-Slavery views; pacificism; economic principles; style—Michel-Guillaume Jean de Crevecoeur; his life; style; Letters from anAmerican Farmer; attitude toward the New World; love of nature;popularity abroad—influence of colonial writing on some Europeanideas about America—Jonathan Carver's Travels—John Bartram—Lewis Evans—William Bartram

9. THE LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTIONARYCONTROVERSY 136

The literary background of the Revolution—John Wise—JonathanMay hew—contribution of the nonconformist clergy to the Revo-lution; their influence in the colleges—the attitude of the colonialAnglicans—Jacob Duche—Jonathan Boucher—the lawyers—DanielDulany—James Otis—John Adams—the Loyalists—Joseph Gallo-way—Daniel Leonard—John Dickinson, the patriot penman—Sam-uel Seabury, the best of the Loyalist writers—Alexander Hamilton'sreply to him—Thomas Paine, revolutionary propagandist

10. T H E EXPANDING LITERARY HORIZON . . . . . . 156

Effect of the Revolution on writers and audiences—Francis Hop-kinson—John Trumbull—The Progress of Dullness—M'Fingal— 'Trumbull's interest in the stage—theatrical conditions in thecolonies—paucity of American playwrights—the effect of the Revo-lution on drama—Thomas Godfrey's Prince of Parthia—plays onAmerican themes—Mercy Warren's patriotic plays—other Revolu-tionary dramatists—Robert Munford—Philip Freneau; his career;forced into political and satiric writing; his ideas; his poetic tech-nique—the Tory satirists, Joseph Stansbury and Jonathan Odell—Freneau's satires; his poetic achievement—the relation of Revolu-tionary literature to colonial writing—the importance of thecolonial period in the history of American literature

PART II

The Establishment of National Literature

n. POLITICS AND POETRY 175The writings of Washington, Madison, Jefferson, and Hamilton—the Federalist papers—letters as literature, Abigail Adams—Feder-alist and Democrat in literature—Dwight, Barlow, and Humphreys—national songs

12. EARLY FICTION AND DRAMA 190

Early types of fiction—the sentimental novel of intrigue—the ro-mance of adventure—Brockden Brown's idealistic treatment of

x CONTENTSCHAPTER PAGE

native characters in a realistic background; his influence on Ameri-can and British writers—difficulties of the theatre—the coming ofcomedy in Roy all Tyler—William Dunlap, first playwright pro-ducer—James N. Barker, dramatist of national themes—John How-ard Payne, playwright of universal motives

13. NATIONAL AND UNIVERSAL THEMES 211

The combination of national and universal impulses in WashingtonIrving, a pioneer in the short story; his familiar essay; his historyand biography; his attack on the "small town mind"—James K.Paulding's fiction—John Neal in fiction and essay—NathanielParker Willis, the urbane note in essay and fiction

14. T H E ROMANCE OF HISTORY AND T H E FRONTIER 226

James Fenimore Cooper, novelist of the forest and the sea—thefrontier of the West and South—Timothy Flint and James Hall—Mrs. Kirkland's Northwest—Longstreet's Georgia Scenes—NewEngland romance by Miss Sedgwick and Mrs. Child—Robert M.Bird's romance of Mexico, of the Revolution, and of Kentucky—theSouthern romances of history, John P. Kennedy, William GilmoreSimms—Herman Melville's exotic frontier; the conflict of man andbeast in Moby Dick

15. T H E FRONTIERS OF LIFE AND DEATH 248

William Cullen Bryant, the poet of the abstract, of nature, death,and the past; his translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey; his prose;Lectures on Poetry; his public addresses and editorials; his descrip-tion of the American Scene; his unique contribution to our litera-ture—Fitz-Greene Halleck; his concrete poetry of Death; his versetributes to Drake and Burns—Joseph Rodman Drake, poet of fancy—Richard Henry Dana

16. IDEALISTIC REVOLT AND REFORM . . . . . 2 6 2

Unitarianism and Transcendentalism in New England—W. E.Channing the elder—Theodore Parker—native and foreign inspira-tion—the "Transcendental Club"—Brook Farm—the Dial—OrestesBrownson's Boston Quarterly — other periodicals—Henry DavidThoreau, the individualist, the lover of nature; his limitations

17. INTUITION AND INDEPENDENCE , . . 2 7 6

Emerson's many sided life; his Transcendental period; his first bookNature; his central thought, the supremacy of the primal mind; therelation of the primal mind and the individual lead to his study ofOriental philosophy; the independence of the individual; his prac-tical idealism; his volumes of essays; his artistry in verse; his choiceof "Representative Men"; his description of England; his criticismof science; his influence on the thought of his own day in Americaand England

CONTENTS xiCHAPTER , PAGE

18. BEAUTY AND THE SUPERNATURAL 292. . Poe's ancestry and early life; his devotion to poetry and his first

volume in 1831; his hard struggle and his early fiction; his successas editor of the Southern Literary Messenger and Grahanfs Maga-zine; The Raven and Other Poems establishes his reputation; thedeath of Virginia and his friendship with women; his death andGriswold's forgeries in his attack upon Poe's reputation; defencesby Willis and Graham; analysis of Poe's poetry and fiction; hismastery of verse; his treatment of the supernatural and of science;his great influence here and in Europe and South America; hisstories of, ratiocination—Fitz-James O'Brien as a pupil of Poe

19. T H E ROMANCE OF T H E MORAL LIFE 308

Hawthorne's life, his short stories of Colonial history and of thesupernatural; his progress from the short story to the novel; theeffect of sin in The Scarlet Letter; the origin of that symbol; the tra-dition of evil in The House of Seven Gables; the satire on reformersin The Blithedale Romance; his consulate at Liverpool; the maturityof conscience in The Marble Faun; the novels unfinished at hisdeath; the tributes by Emerson and Holmes; his permanent artistry

20. WIDENING HORIZONS IN POETRY 322

Longfellow as a representative of two tendencies, to relate poetry tonative scenes and to broaden the horizons of interest; early narra-tives and prose romances; the great narratives, Evangeline,Hiawatha, Miles Standish; dramatic poetry; his philosophy ofcomposition; his supreme achievements, the sonnets; foreign influ-ence upon Longfellow; Longfellow's influence upon European andAsiatic literatures; the great number of translations of his poetry;his supreme position as a world artist

2 1 . T H E H E I G H T O F T H E P R O V I N C I A L . . . . . . : 3 4 7

Early life and influence on Whittier; he joins the Abolition crusade;his most significant work, the description of New England life inSnow Bound and other poems; his hatred of persecution and hislove of democracy; his prose; the uneven quality of his work andhis sectional appeal—Bayard Taylor's early life; his encouragementby Whittier; popularity of his travel books; his most significantwork, the poetry of rural Pennsylvania; his best novel, The Storyof Kennett, a provincial institution; his translation of Faust stillthe best in English; his Ministry to Germany

22. T H E RATIONALIST IN LITERATURE 361

The significance of Holmes in the development of Americanthought; his poetry; the Breakfast Table Series of Essays; hisimaginative treatment of versification; his success with social verse;his one great novel, Elsie Venner; his devotion to New England

xiv , CONTENTSCHAPTER PAGE

sculpture begins with the Yankee stone cutters—Horatio Greenoughdevelops the functional purpose in art—Hiram Powers' "GreekSlave" shocks the public—Hawthorne's analysis of American sculp-ture—the combination of poet and sculptor in W. W. Story—anative democratic art in the "Rogers Groups"—Jefferson and Emer-son support the classical influence in architecture—Hawthorne'slove of the Gothic—Poe's theories concerning landscape architec-ture—Longfellow's comparison of architecture, painting, and sculp-ture in Michael Angela—development of the folk songs—the Negrospirituals—Stephen Foster's songs—the folk songs of Spanish andFrench origin—symphonic compositions based on the works ofIrving, Longfellow, Poe, Hawthorne, and Whitman

PART III

The hater Nineteenth Century

2 9 . T H E A G E O F T H E M O N T H L Y M A G A Z I N E . . . . 5 6 9Effects of the Civil War on literary production—Lincoln and otherfigures given prominence by the war—chief trends in the period1865-1900—major contributions in literature of the era—accomplish-ments in wood engraving, painting, sculpture, architecture, andmusic—popular taste and the book trade—the periodicals

30. DEMOCRACY IN FREE VERSE 598Whitman's background; his interest in democratic trends through-out the world; his attitude toward democratic progress in America;his career and the history of Leaves of Grass; the arrangement ofhis poems in the definitive edition; his later prose

31. N E W W I N E IN OLD BOTTLES 622

Status of poetry after the Civil War; its epigenous nature—Aid-rich, Stedman, Miller, Hayne, Lanier—the vogue of verse in dialect

32. EXPLOITATION OF T H E PROVINCES 639

The terms "local-color" and "regional"—the tradition of local-color fiction and the similarity of the movement in America andEurope—Harte and the Far Western authors—the Middle-Westernschool, Eggleston, Garland—the Southerners, Cable, Harris—NewEnglanders in the wake of Mrs. Stowe, Sarah Jewett, Mary WilkinsFreeman—decline of interest in genre fiction of the late nineteenthcentury

33. REALISM FOR T H E MIDDLE CLASS 661

Signs of a small trend toward realism—Rebecca Harding Davis—DeForest—Howells; his career; his fiction, verse, and criticism

CONTENTS xvCHAPTER > • PAGE

34. ESCAPE FROM THE COMMONPLACE 681The tradition of respect for European material and the lure of theforeign—the travel-book writers—the expatriates—Crawford, Hearn—Henry James; his vogue, career, fiction, plays, and criticism; hisemphasis on consciousness rather than conscience

35. MIRTH FOR T H E MILLION . 7 0 1

Humor as escape from the commonplace—the widespread traditionof mirth in print—lowbrow humorists, the journalists, ArtemusWard—highbrow humorists, Warner, Stockton, Bunner, and Bangs—Mark Twain; reasons for interest of intellectuals in Clemensafter his death;' his career; the insignificance of his philosophicalopinions; his better works; his continuing popularity

36. N E W VOICES IN VERSE 721

Verse published in the later years of the nineteenth century—lightverse—Tabb, Cawein, Hovey, Sill, Woodberry, VanDyke, Lodge,

. Stickney—the female poets—Emily Dickinson; her life and work;history of publication of her books; nature of her subject matter;unfinished condition of many of her poems

37. THE FACTS OF LIFE VERSUS PLEASANT READING . 737Prevailing attitude toward naturalism or advanced realism—ro-mance favored—treatment of sex—Saltus—Frederic, Fuller, Norris—Crane, his career and accomplishments in prose and verse—his-torical importance—more typical fiction of the late century to befound in the stories of Bierce, Davis, and Townsend

38. T H E CHALLENGE OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS AND OFSCIENCE 763

Literature of the late century less interested in such problems thanis the case at present—examples of interest in sociological andeconomic subjects—Tourgee, Henry George, Bellamy—attitudetoward "socialism"—Science honored but not very influential onbelles-lettres—Burroughs, Muir—vogue of Spencer—Fiske—"evolu-tion" a catchword—Weir Mitchell—historians affected by scientifictemper—Mahan—Parkman—Adams; his career and interest in sci-ence; his fiction, history, and letters

39. AMUSEMENTS ON T H E STAGE 790

Increase in number of actors and playwrights—taste of public—Ben-Hur and Wallace—star system and "theatrical trust"—copy-right situation—Howells as playwright—Harrigan, Howard, Herne,Gillette, Belasco—promise held out by nineties for future develop-ments

X V I CONTENTS

PART IV

The Twentieth CenturyCHAPTER PAGE

40. LINGERING URBANITY 813

Transition to a new century—instability of late nineteenth-centuryculture—W. C. Brownell as upholder of standards—the familiaressay, Agnes Repplier—in the wake of Henry James, Edith Whar-ton and the novel of social relationships—international contrasts asstudied by Anne Douglas Sedgwick—the poetry of E. A. Robinson,

.- characters, philosophy, psychic probings, redemption by art—Lizette Reese and lesser poets—dramatists of the 'first decade,Thomas, Fitch, Belasco Q

41. THE CONSCIENCE OF LIBERALISM . . . 825Mounting disillusionment with the American system—Markham andthe poetry of social protest—Moody's poems on political issues—the Muckrakers, Ida Tarbell, Steff ens,, Baker; their autobiographies—social satire, propaganda, and criticism in the fiction of D. G.Phillips, Upton Sinclair, and Robert Herrick—spiritual revolt in thedrama, Moody's plays, Josephine Peabody and poetic drama, PercyMacKaye and the community drama—Randolph Bourne's laststand for the life of reason—poems inspired by the First WorldWar, notably the war songs of G. M. Cohan

42. SPOKESMEN OF T H E PLAIN PEOPLE 835

Popular humorists, Dunne, Rogers, George Ade—"O. Henry" in, the hearts of the four million—Tarkington and Bromfield as nov-

elists of the average American—JJearl^ Buck and the Orient—poetsof the valley of democracy, Vachel Lindsay and Carl Sandburg

43. RESPECTABILITY DEFIED 845Decline of the genteel tradition—the glorification of the primitivein Jack London's stories—the submerged world of TheodoreDreiser; the relation of his life to his fiction; his indifference tocraftsmanship; his analysis of modern materialism—the inadequaciesof city life catalogued by James T. Farrell—Thorstein Veblenand the attack on the complacent leisure class—H. L. Mencken'sexploitation of the "booboisie"—the satires of Sinclair Lewis—thehollowness of middle class life as a theme of drama~Zona Gale,

' Connelly and Kaufman, George Kelly

4 4 . I M P R E S S I O N I S T S A N D E X P E R I M E N T E R S . . . . 8 5 7

Emphasis on new techniques of expression in all the arts—symptomsof decadence—James Gibbons Huneker as the fugelman of estheticadvance—Ezra Pound as the inventor of modernistic poetry; theinfluence of his experiments—the Imagist movement, featuring AmyLowell—the independence of John Gould Fletcher—"H. D.,

CONTENTS - xvii

Imagiste"—Gertrude Stein and her experimental techniques—Con-rad Aiken and the new psychology—the early poems of ArchibaldMacLeish

45. ANALYSTS OF DECAY 868

American literature fails to reflect the rise of the United States toworld power—reasons for its defeatist tone—the Spoon River An-thology as a symptom of the time—new attitude toward Americanvillage life in the novels of Zona Gale—Sherwood Anderson'sprobings of psychic grotesques—T. S. Eliot to The Waste Land;his satirical method in verse; the deliberate direction of his careerreflected in his critical prose—Robinson Jeffers, the complete \misanthrope—naturalism in fiction, Ring Lardner—John Dos Passos )—Ernest Hemingway—William Faulkner—Erskine Caldwell— ex-haustion of the naturalistic vein «

46. LOOPHOLES OF RETREAT 887

Various avenues of escape from contemporary dissatisfactions— :

romantic hedonists, F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Jazz Age—JamesBranch Cabell's satirical dream-allegories—Hergesheimer—histori-cal romance, Winston Churchill, James Boyd, Kenneth Roberts,Walter D. Edmonds—Stephen Vincent Benet and national epic—the romance of the pioneer, Conrad Richter—the freedom of openspaces, Stewart Edward White—scientific nature writers, WilliamBeebe, Donald Culross Peattie—lyric armor, Sara Teasdale, ElinorWylie, Edna Millay—the retreat to authority, Irving Babbitt, Paul ]Elmer More—the later T. S. Eliot, Ash-Wednesday, philosophical-religious dramas, the Four Quartets

47. IN T H E AMERICAN GRAIN . 900

Academic contributions to national letters—Robert Frost as a poetin the American tradition; the long curve of his growth from dra-matic lyric to reflective poetry; his masques—Willa Cather's search -_for a more abundant life; her studies of triumphant personalities;analysis of personal disintegration; civilization as the protagonistof her greater novels—Dorothy Canfield Fisher, a sturdy defenderof hard-won values—the meaning of America to the immigrant,Rtilvaag and Sophus Keith Winther

48. T H E RESURGENT SOUTH 914

Gradual recovery of the southern states from the paralysis inducedby war and reconstruction—a candid appraisal of rigid conventionsin the novels of Ellen Glasgow; strong elements of realism in hersocial comedy—other regionalists, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, T. S.Stribling, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings—exploitation of Negro themesby white authors, Du Bose Heyward, Julia Peterkin, Roark Brad-ford—the contributions of Negro writers to a national culture—regional drama in the work of Paul Green and others—regional-conscious poets and critics, the Fugitive group, John Crowe Ransom,

xviii CONTENTS

Allen Tate, and others—the outpourings of Thomas Wojfe—womenwriters of fiction, Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora Welty, AnneGoodwin Winslow

49. VITALIZERS OF T H E DRAMA . 9 2 7

The movement begun by Moody continued by Edward Sheldonand Rachel Crothers—contribution of the Little Theatre—the pre-eminence of Eugene O'Neill as an experimental dramatist; his earlyone-act plays; Beyond the Horizon; tragedies of frustration; sym-bolic plays; the poetic theme of Lazarus Laughed; Strange Interlude,Mourning Becomes Electra, The Iceman Cometh—adventures outof sight of land, Philip Barry, Thornton Wilder, Maxwell Anderson—some outstanding single plays—favorite themes, the heroism ofscience, the anatomy of politics—growing maturity of Americanaudiences °

t>

50. CROSS-CURRENTS IN AMERICAN T H O U G H T . . . 942

Over-emphasis on analytic thinking in an age of science and result-ing unbalance—influence of European thinkers—the Harvard Yardphilosophers, Josiah Royce, William James, George Santayana—theinstrumentalism of John Dewey—influence of the new physicsthrough Alfred North Whitehead—writers on sociology, law, andgovernment, William Graham Sumner, Oliver Wendell Holmes,Jr., Woodrow Wilson—the scientific historians, James Ford Rhodes,John B. McMaster, Edward P. Cheyney, James Harvey Robinson—the economic determinism of Charles A. Beard—fresh interest inAmerican backgrounds—industrial and military history

51. PROLETARIAN LEANINGS 954

Interest in the working man previous to the Russian Revolution-John Reed—the effect of the depression period on unstable in-tellectuals, Max Eastman and others—the case of Granville Hicks-Marxian novels—Proletarian Literature in the United States—thesocial significance and dubious literary significance of John Stein-/beck—left-wing drama, Clifford Odets, Irwin Shaw, and others—the theatre not a happy medium for the expression of Marxistideology

52. N E W MOVEMENTS IN POETRY 963

Poetic reactions in a time of cultural disintegration—the stimulusof Freudian psychology, folk-lore, anthropology—the perpetualadolescence of Edward Estlin Cummings—the intellectual lyricismof Marianne Moore, Louise Bogan, and Leonie Adams—Hart Cranesoars on wings of wax—masters of the symbol, Wallace Stevens andWilliam Carlos Williams—public speech, the later MacLeish andKenneth Fearing

CONTENTS xix

53. TWENTIETH-CENTURY FORMS AND PRESSURES . 973Improvement of the economic status of literary workers—effecton the quality of books produced—enlargement of the audience—new commercial outlets for books—increased freedom of expres-sion—the leveling of literature under big business—multiplication ofpressure groups—reaction to standardization and commercialism, thelittle theatre, the little magazine—the new journalism, the column,the profile—public demand for biographies and war books—newmedia of communication and their availability for literature, themovies, the radio, television—the always ambivalent future

BIBLIOGRAPHIES 985

INDEX . . . ". 1109