Outlines of English and American Literature Part 41

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE OF THE NEW NATION (1800-1840)

Behind him lay the gray Azores, Behind, the gates of Hercules; Before him not the ghost of sh.o.r.es, Before him only sh.o.r.eless seas.

The good mate said, "Now must we pray, For lo! the very stars are gone: Brave Admiral, speak; what shall I say?"

"Why say, 'Sail on! sail on! and on!'"

Joaquin Miller, "Columbus"

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND. It was in the early part of the nineteenth century that America began to be counted among the great nations of the world, and it was precisely at that time that she produced her first national literature, a literature so broadly human that it appealed not only to the whole country but to readers beyond the sea. Irving, Cooper and Bryant are commonly regarded as the first notable New World writers; and we may better understand them and their enthusiastic young contemporaries if we remember that they "grew up with the country"; that they reflected life at a time when America, having won her independence and emerged from a long period of doubt and struggle, was taking her first confident steps in the sun and becoming splendidly conscious of her destiny as a leader among the world's free people.

[Sidenote: NATIONAL ENTHUSIASM]

Indeed, there was good reason for confidence in those early days; for never had a young nation looked forth upon a more heartening prospect. The primitive hamlets of Colonial days had been replaced by a mult.i.tude of substantial towns, the somber wilderness by a prosperous farming country. The power of a thousand rivers was turning the wheels of as many mills or factories, and to the natural wealth of America was added the increase of a mighty commerce with other nations. By the Louisiana Purchase and the acquisition of Florida her territory was vastly increased, and still her st.u.r.dy pioneers were pressing eagerly into more s.p.a.cious lands beyond the Mississippi. Best of all, this enlarging nation, once a number of scattered colonies holding each to its own course, was now the Union; her people were as one in their patriotism, their loyalty, their intense conviction that the brave New World experiment in free government, once scoffed at as an idle dream, was destined to a glorious future. American democracy was not merely a success; it was an amazing triumph. Moreover, this democracy, supposed to be the weakest form of government, had already proved its power; it had sent its navy abroad to humble the insolent Barbary States, and had measured the temper of its soul and the strength of its arm in the second war with Great Britain.

In fine, the New World had brought forth a hopeful young giant of a nation; and its hopefulness was reflected, with more of zeal than of art, in the prose and poetry of its literary men. Just as the enthusiastic Elizabethan spirit reflected itself in lyric or drama after the defeat of the Armada, so the American spirit seemed to exult in the romances of Cooper and Simms; in the verse of Pinckney, Halleck, Drake and Percival; in a mult.i.tude of national songs, such as "The American Flag," Warren's Address, "Home Sweet Home" and "The Star-Spangled Banner." We would not venture to liken one set of writings to the other, for we should be on the weak side of an Elizabethan comparison; we simply note that a great national enthusiasm was largely responsible for the sudden appearance of a new literature in the one land as in the other.

LITERARY ENVIRONMENT. In the works of four writers, Irving, Cooper, Bryant and Poe, we have the best that the early national period produced; but we shall not appreciate these writers until we see them, like pines in a wood, lifting their heads over numerous companions, all drawing their nourishment from the same soil and air. The growth of towns and cities in America had led to a rapid increase of newspapers, magazines and annuals (collections of contemporary prose and verse), which called with increasing emphasis for poems, stories, essays, light or "polite" literature. The rapid growth of the nation set men to singing the old psalm of _Sursum Corda_, and every man and woman who felt the impulse added his story or his verse to the national chorus. When the first attempt at a summary of American literature was made in 1837, the author, Royal Robbins, found more than two thousand living writers demanding his attention.

[Sidenote: KNICKERBOCKER SCHOOL]

It was due, one must think, to geography rather than to any spirit of sectionalism, to difficulty of travel between the larger towns rather than to any difference of aim or motive, that the writers of this period a.s.sociated themselves in a number of so-called schools or literary centers.

New York, which now offered a better field for literary work than Boston or Philadelphia, had its important group of writers called the Knickerbocker School, which included Fitz-Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake, both poets and cheerful satirists of New World society; the versatile Nathaniel Parker Willis, writer of twenty volumes of poems, essays, stories and sketches of travel; and James Kirke Paulding, also a voluminous writer, who worked with Irving in the _Salmagundi_ essays and whose historical novels, such as _The Dutchman's Fireside_ (1831), are still mildly interesting. [Footnote: Irving, Cooper and Bryant are sometimes cla.s.sed among the Knickerbockers; but the work of these major writers is national rather than local or sectional, and will be studied later in detail.]

[Sidenote: SOUTHERN WRITERS]

In the South was another group of young writers, quite as able and enthusiastic as their northern contemporaries. Among these we note especially William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870), whose _Yema.s.see_, _Border Beagles_, _Katherine Walton_ and many other historical romances of Colonial and Revolutionary days were of more than pa.s.sing interest. He was a high-minded and most industrious writer, who produced over forty volumes of poems, essays, biographies, histories and tales; but he is now remembered chiefly by his novels, which won him the t.i.tle of "the Cooper of the South." At least one of his historical romances should be read, partly for its own sake and partly for a comparison with Cooper's work in the same field. Thus _The Yema.s.see_ (1835), dealing with frontier life and Indian warfare, may be read in connection with Cooper's _The Deerslayer_ (1841), which has the same general theme; or _The Partisan_ (1835), dealing with the bitter struggle of southern Whigs and Tories during the Revolution, may well be compared with Cooper's _The Spy_ (1821), which depicts the same struggle in a northern environment.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS]

Other notable writers of the South during this period were Richard Henry Wilde the poet, now remembered by the song (from an unfinished opera) beginning, "My life is like the summer rose"; William Wirt, the essayist and biographer; and John Pendleton Kennedy, writer of essays and stories which contain many charming pictures of social life in Virginia and Maryland in the days "before the war."

[Sidenote: NEW ENGLAND AND THE WEST]

In New England was still another group, who fortunately avoided the name of any school. Sparks, Prescott, Ticknor, Story, Dana,--the very names indicate how true was Boston to her old scholarly traditions. Meanwhile Connecticut had its popular poet in James Gates Percival; Maine had its versatile John Neal; and all the northern states were reading the "goody goody" books of Peter Parley (Samuel Goodrich), the somewhat Byronic _Zophiel_ and other emotional poems of Maria Gowen Brooks (whom Southey called "Maria del Occidente"), and the historical romances of Catherine Sedgwick and Sarah Morton.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN PENDLETON KENNEDY]

The West also (everything beyond the Alleghenies was then the West) made its voice heard in the new literature. Timothy Flint wrote a very interesting _Journal_ from his missionary experiences, and a highly colored romance from his expansive imagination; and James Hall drew some vigorous and sympathetic pictures of frontier life in _Letters from the West_, _Tales of the Border_ and _Wilderness and Warpath_.

There are many other writers who won recognition before 1840, but those we have named are more than enough; for each name is an invitation, and invitations when numerous are simply bothersome. For example, the name of Catherine Sedgwick invites us to read _Hope Leslie_ and _The Linwoods_, both excellent in their day, and still interesting as examples of the novels that won fame less than a century ago; or the name of Kennedy leads us to _Swallow Barn_ (alluring t.i.tle!) with its bright pictures of Virginia life, and to _Horseshoe Robinson_, a crude but stirring tale of Revolutionary heroism. The point in naming these minor writers, once as popular as any present-day favorite, is simply this: that the major authors, whom we ordinarily study as typical of the age, were not isolated figures but part of a great romantic movement in literature; that they were influenced on the one hand by European letters, and on the other by a host of native writers who were all intent on reflecting the expanding life of America in the early part of the nineteenth century.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON IRVING (1783-1859)

A very pleasant writer is Irving, a man of romantic and somewhat sentimental disposition, but sound of motive, careful of workmans.h.i.+p, invincibly cheerful of spirit. The genial quality of his work may be due to the fact that from joyous boyhood to serene old age he did very much as he pleased, that he lived in what seemed to him an excellent world and wrote with no other purpose than to make it happy. In summarizing his career an admirer of Irving is reminded of what the Book of Proverbs says of wisdom: "Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace."

[Sidenote: THE MAN AND HIS TIMES]

The historian sees another side of Irving's work. Should it be asked, "What did he do that had not been as well or better done before him?" the first answer is that the importance of any man's work must be measured by the age in which he did it. A schoolboy now knows more about electricity than ever Franklin learned; but that does not detract from our wonder at Franklin's kite. So the work of Irving seems impressive when viewed against the gray literary dawn of a century ago. At that time America had done a mighty work for the world politically, but had added little of value to the world's literature. She read and treasured the best books; but she made no contribution to their number, and her literary impotence galled her sensitive spirit. As if to make up for her failure, the writers of the Knickerbocker, Charleston and other "schools" praised each other's work extravagantly; but no responsive echo came from overseas, where England's terse criticism of our literary effort was expressed in the scornful question, "Who reads an American book?"

Irving answered that question effectively when his _Sketch Book_, _Bracebridge Hall_ and _Tales of a Traveller_ found a mult.i.tude of delighted readers on both sides of the Atlantic. His graceful style was hardly rivaled by any other writer of the period; and England, at a time when Scott and Byron were playing heroic parts, welcomed him heartily to a place on the literary stage. Thus he united the English and the American reader in a common interest and, as it were, charmed away the sneer from one face, the resentment from the other. He has been called "father of our American letters" for two reasons: because he was the first to win a lasting literary reputation at home and abroad, and because of the formative influence which his graceful style and artistic purpose have ever since exerted upon our prose writers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WAs.h.i.+NGTON IRVING]

LIFE. Two personal characteristics appear constantly in Irving's work: the first, that he was always a dreamer, a romance seeker; the second, that he was inclined to close his eyes to the heroic present and open them wide to the glories, real or imaginary, of the remote past. Though he lived in an American city in a day of mighty changes and discoveries, he was far less interested in the modern New York than in the ancient New Amsterdam; and though he was in Europe at the time of the Napoleonic wars, he apparently saw nothing of them, being then wholly absorbed in the battles of the long-vanished Moors. Only once, in his books of western exploration, did he seriously touch the vigorous life of his own times; and critics regard these books as the least important of all his works.

[Sidenote: BOYHOOD]

He was born in New York (1783) when the present colossal city was a provincial town that retained many of its quaint Dutch characteristics. Over all the straggling town, from the sunny Battery with its white-winged s.h.i.+ps to the Harlem woods where was good squirrel shooting, Irving rambled at ease on many a day when the neighbors said he ought to have been at his books. He was the youngest of the family; his const.i.tution was not rugged, and his gentle mother was indulgent. She would smile when he told of reading a smuggled copy of the _Arabian Nights_ in school, instead of his geography; she was silent when he slipped away from family prayers to climb out of his bedroom window and go to the theater, while his sterner father thought of him as sound asleep in his bed.

Little harm came from these escapades, for Irving was a merry lad with no meanness in him; but his schooling was sadly neglected. His brothers had graduated from Columbia; but on the plea of delicate health he abandoned the idea of college, with a sigh in which there was perhaps as much satisfaction as regret. At sixteen he entered a law office, where he gave less time to studying Blackstone than to reading novels and writing skits for the newspapers.

[Sidenote: FINDING HIMSELF]

This happy indifference to work and learning, this disposition to linger on the sunny side of the street, went with Irving through life. Experimentally he joined his brothers, who were in the hardware trade; but when he seemed to be in danger of consumption they sent him to Europe, where he enjoyed himself greatly, and whence he returned perfectly well. Next he was sent on business to England; and there, when the Irving Brothers failed, their business having been ruined by the War of 1812, Irving manfully resolved to be no longer a burden on others and turned to literature for his support. With characteristic love of doing what he liked he refused a good editorial position (which Walter Scott obtained for him) and busied himself with his _Sketch Book_ (1820). This met with a generous welcome in England and America, and it was followed by the equally popular _Bracebridge Hall_ and _Tales of a Traveller_. By these three works Irving was a.s.sured not only of literary fame but, what was to him of more consequence, of his ability to earn his living.

[Sidenote: LIFE ABROAD]

Next we find him in Spain, whither he went with the purpose of translating Navarrete's _Voyages of Columbus_, a Spanish book, in which he saw a chance of profit from his countrymen's interest in the man who discovered America. Instead of translating another man's work, however, he wrote his own _Life and Times of Columbus_ (1828). The financial success of this book (which is still our most popular biography of the great explorer) enabled Irving to live comfortably in Spain, where he read diligently and acc.u.mulated the material for his later works on Spanish history.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SUNNYSIDE," HOME OF IRVING]

By this time Irving's growing literary fame had attracted the notice of American politicians, who rewarded him with an appointment as secretary of the legation at London. This pleasant office he held for two years, but was less interested in it than in the reception which English men of letters generously offered him.

Then he apparently grew homesick, after an absence of seventeen years, and returned to his native land, where he was received with the honor due to a man who had silenced the galling question, "Who reads an American book?"

[Sidenote: HIS MELLOW AUTUMN]

The rest of Irving's long life was a continued triumph. Amazed at first, and then a little stunned by the growth, the hurry, the onward surge of his country, he settled back into the restful past, and was heard with the more pleasure by his countrymen because he seemed to speak to them from a vanished age. Once, inspired by the tide of life weeping into the West, he journeyed beyond the Mississippi and found material for his pioneering books; but an active life was far from his taste, and presently he built his house "Sunnyside" (appropriate name) at Tarrytown on the Hudson.

There he spent the remainder of his days, with the exception of four years in which he served the nation as amba.s.sador to Spain.

This honor, urged upon him by Webster and President Tyler, was accepted with characteristic modesty not as a personal reward but as a tribute which America had been wont to offer to the profession of letters.

CHIEF WORKS OF IRVING. A good way to form a general impression of Irving's works is to arrange them chronologically in five main groups. The first, consisting of the _Salmagundi_ essays, the _Knickerbocker History_ and a few other trifles, we may call the Oldstyle group, after the pseudonym a.s.sumed by the author. [Footnote: Ever since Revolutionary days it had been the fas.h.i.+on for young American writers to use an a.s.sumed name. Irving appeared at different times as "Jonathan Oldstyle," "Diedrich Knickerbocker" and "Geoffrey Crayon, Gent."] The second or Sketch-Book group includes the _Sketch Book_, _Bracebridge Hall_ and _Tales of a Traveller_. The third or Alhambra group, devoted to Spanish and Moorish themes, includes _The Conquest of Granada_, _Spanish Voyages of Discovery_, _The Alhambra_ and certain similar works of a later period, such as _Moorish Chronicles_ and _Legends of the Conquest of Spain_. The fourth or Western group contains _A Tour on the Prairies_, _Astoria_ and _Adventures of Captain Bonneville_.

The fifth or Sunnyside group is made up chiefly of biographies, _Oliver Goldsmith_, _Mahomet and his Successors_ and _The Life of Was.h.i.+ngton_. Besides these are some essays and stories a.s.sembled under the t.i.tles of _Spanish Papers_ and _Wolfert's Roost_.

The _Salmagundi_ papers and others of the Oldstyle group would have been forgotten long ago if anybody else had written them. In other words, our interest in them is due not to their intrinsic value (for they are all "small potatoes") but to the fact that their author became a famous literary man. Most candid readers would probably apply this criticism also to the _Knickerbocker History_, had not that grotesque joke won an undeserved reputation as a work of humor.

[Sidenote: KNICKERBOCKER HISTORY]

The story of the Knickerbocker fabrication ill.u.s.trates the happy-go-lucky method of all Irving's earlier work. He had tired of his _Salmagundi_ fooling and was looking for variety when his eyes lighted on Dr. Mitchill's _Picture of New York_, a grandiloquent work written by a prominent member of the Historical Society. In a light-headed moment Irving and his brother Peter resolved to burlesque this history and, in the approved fas.h.i.+on of that day, to begin with the foundation of the world. Then Peter went to Europe on more important business, and Irving went on with his joke alone. He professed to have discovered the notes of a learned Dutch antiquarian who had recently disappeared, leaving a ma.s.s of ma.n.u.script and an unpaid board-bill behind him. After advertising in the newspapers for the missing man, Irving served notice on the public that the profound value of Knickerbocker's papers justified their publication, and that the proceeds of the book would be devoted to paying the board-bill. Then appeared, in time to satisfy the aroused curiosity of the Historical Society, to whom the book was solemnly dedicated, the _History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Diedrich Knickerbocker_ (1809).

This literary hoax made an instant sensation; it was denounced for its scandalous irreverence by the members of the Historical Society, especially by those who had Dutch ancestors, but was received with roars of laughter by the rest of the population. Those who read it now (from curiosity, for its merriment has long since departed, leaving it dull as any thrice-repeated joke) are advised to skip the first two books, which are very tedious fooling, and to be content with an abridged version of the stories of Wouter van Twiller, William the Testy and Peter the Headstrong.

These are the names of real Dutch governors of New Amsterdam, and the dates given are exact dates; but there history ends and burlesque begins. The combination of fact and nonsense and the strain of gravity in which absurdities are related have led some critics to place the _Knickerbocker History_ first in time of the notable works of so-called American humor.