History of American Literature Part 35

Howells's (p. 373) _Foreword_ in the 1911 volume emphasizes Cawein's unusual power of making common things 'live and glow thereafter with inextinguishable beauty.'

Cawein actually writes much of his poetry out of doors in the presence of the nature which he is describing. His lyrics of nature are his best verse.

He can even diminish the horror of a Kentucky feud by placing it among:--

"Frail ferns and dewy mosses and dark brush,-- Impenetrable briers, deep and dense, And wiry bushes,--brush, that seemed to crush The struggling saplings with its tangle, whence Sprawled out the ramble of an old rail-fence."

In his verses the catbird nests in the trumpet vine, the pewee pours forth a woodland welcome, the redbird sings a vesper song, the lilacs are musky of the May, the bluebells and the wind flowers bloom. We hear

"... tinkling in the clover dells, The twilight sound of cattle bells."

His verse often shows exactness of observation, characteristic of modern students of nature, as well as a romantic love of the outdoor world. Note the specific references to the shape and color of individual natural objects in these lines from Cawein:--

"May-apples, ripening yellow, lean With oblong fruit, a lemon-green, Near Indian-turnips, long of stem, That bear an acorn-oval gem."

He loves the nymphs of mythology, the dryads, naiads, and the fairies. One of his poems is called _There Are Fairies_:--

"There are fairies, I could swear I have seen them busy where Rose-leaves loose their scented hair, * * * * *

Leaning from the window sill Of a rose or daffodil, Listening to their serenade, All of cricket music made."

In luxuriance of imagery and profuse appeal to the senses, he is the Keats of the South. Lines like these remind us of the greater poet's _The Eve of St. Agnes_:--

"Into the sunset's turquoise marge The moon dips, like a pearly barge Enchantment sails through magic seas To fairyland Hesperides."

Keats exclaims:--

"O for a beaker full of the warm South."

Cawein proceeds to fill the beaker from the summer of a southern land, where

"The west was hot geranium-red,"

where

"The dawn is a warp of fever, The eve is a woof of fire,"

and where

"The heliotropes breathe drowsy musk Into the jasmine-dreamy air."

Cawein sometimes suffers from profuseness and lack of pruning, but the music, sentiment, imaginative warmth, and profusion of nature's charms in his best lyrics rouse keen delight in any lover of poetry. While he revels in the color, warmth, and joys of nature, it should also be observed that he can occasionally strike that deeper note which characterizes the great nature poets of the English race. In _A Prayer for Old Age_, he asks:--

"Never to lose my faith in Nature, G.o.d: But still to find Wors.h.i.+p in trees; religion in each sod; And in the wind that breathe the universal G.o.d."

SUMMARY

The lack of towns, the widely separated population, the aristocratic nature of the civilization depending on slave labor, the absorption of the people in political questions, especially the question of slavery, the att.i.tude toward literature as a profession, the poverty of public education, the extreme conservatism and isolation of the South, and, finally, the Civil War, and the period of reconstruction after it,--were all influences that served to r.e.t.a.r.d the development of literature in the South.

The greatest name in southern literature is that of Edgar Allan Poe, the literary artist, the critic, the developer of the modern short story, the writer of superlatively melodious verse. He was followed by Simms, who was among the first in the South to live by his pen. His tales of adventure are still interesting and important for the history that they embody. Timrod's spontaneity and strength appear in lyrics of war, nature, and love. Hayne, a skilled poetic artist, is at his best in lyrics of nature. Lanier's poems of nature embody high ideals in verse of unusual melody, and voice a faith in "the greatness of G.o.d," as intense as that of any Puritan poet. Lanier shared with Simms, Hayne, and Timrod the bitter misfortunes of the war.

Father Ryan is affectionately remembered for his stirring war lyrics and Father Tabb for his nature poems, sacred verse, and entertaining humor. The nature poetry of Cawein abounds in the color and warmth of the South.

In modern southern fiction there is to be found some of the most imaginative, artistic, and romantic work of the entire country in the latter quarter of the nineteenth century. Rich local color renders much of this fiction attractive. Harris fascinates the ear of the young world with the Georgia negro's tales of Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit. The Virginia negroes live in the stories of Page. Craddock introduces the Tennessee mountaineer, and Allen, the Kentucky farmer, scholar, and gentleman, while Cable paints the refined Creole in the fascinating city of New Orleans.

Notwithstanding the use of dialect and other realistic touches of local color, the fiction is largely romantic. The careful a.n.a.lysis of motives and detailed accounts of the commonplace, such as the eastern realists developed in the last part of the nineteenth century, are for the most part absent from this southern fiction.

A strong distinguis.h.i.+ng feature of this body of fiction is the large part played by natural scenes. Allen shows unusual skill in employing nature to heighten his effects. If the poetic and vivid scenes were removed from Cable's stories, they would lose a large part of their charm. When Miss Murfree chooses eastern Tennessee for the scene of her novels, she never permits the mountains to be forgotten. These writers are lovers of nature as well as of human beings. The romantic prose fiction as well as the poetry is invested with color and beauty.

REFERENCES

Page's _The Old South_.

Page's _Social Life in Old Virginia before the War_.

Hart's _Slavery and Abolition_.

Baskerville's _Southern Writers_, 2 vols.

Link's _Pioneers of Southern Literature_, 2 vols.

Moses's _The Literature of the South_.

Holliday's _A History of Southern Literature_.

Manly's _Southern Literature_.

Painter's _Poets of the South_.

Woodberry's _The Life of Edgar Allan Poe, Personal and Literary, with his chief Correspondence with Men of Letters,_ 2 vols., 1909. (The best life.)

Woodberry and Stedman's _The Works of Edgar Allan Poe with a Memoir, Critical Introductions, and Notes_, 10 vols.

Harrison's _The Virginia Edition of the Works of Edgar Allan Poe_, 17 vols.

(Contains excellent critical essays.)

Harrison's _Life and Letters of Edgar Allan Poe_, 2 vols.

Stedman's _Poets of America_. (Poe.)

Fruit's _The Mind and Art of Poe's Poetry_.

Canby's _The Short Story in English_, Chap. XI. (Poe.)

Baldwin's _American Short Stories_. (Poe.)

Payne's _American Literary Criticism_. (Poe.)

Prescott's _Selections from the Critical Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, edited with an Introduction and Notes_.