Poets of America

Introduction

•^ I ^EN years have passed since the completion of my •*- critical survey of the poets and poetry of England from the beginning of the present reign. The scheme of the Victorian Poets included, besides an extended review of acknowledged leaders, a concise analysis of groups forming the general choir of the period represented. The work thus became somewhat complete in scope, and doubtless has served as a critical handbook and means of reference. This incidental result, however, was quite subordinate to the author's main design; and I think that such a fact was evident not only to a professional class, but to all readers interested concerning the spirit and methods of poetry, — especially of our English song. To that design I wish shortly to refer, as it is the chief motive of the present volume also. But first I would reproduce a statement made in the Preface to the former work, viz., — that the author originally had undertaken to write upon the poets of this country and the causes of their successes and failures ; that on examination he had found modern and radical changes in the conditions affecting ideal effort, at home and abroad ;

viii INTRODUCTION.

that for this and other reasons he could "more freely and graciously begin by choosing a foreign paradigm than by entering upon the home-field, and that none could be so good for the purpose as the poetry of Great Britain." It seemed to him, also, that, until after some training of this kind, "affection, reverence, national feeling, or some less worthy emotion, might be thought to prevent an American from writing without prejudice " of the poets of his own country. Certainly he could attempt this more profitably when the changes mentioned should be more complete, and the careers more rounded of the chief American writers who would pass under review. •

The time came when I felt emboldened to renew my original undertaking, and the result is set forth in this volume. My belief is strengthened that the earlier treatise was essential to it, and, in fact, the most expedient preliminary task that could be chosen. The modern conditions, as far as they relate to both countries, could be observed more directly in England than in America, their stress being there of earlier origin and less diffused. My previous synopsis of them now has only to be condensed, and supplemented by discussion of those other conditions that are peculiar to this country alone. Furthermore, I regard the treatise on British poetry as of less significance, in its field of observation, than the work now folloviTing it ; and I trust that reasons for this opinion — to which some at first may demur — will become apparent to those who give more than a cursory

INTRODUCTION. ix reading to these essays. Even now few Americans set a proper value on the relative bearing of our ideal and intellectual progress thus far. The instinctive deference of a young nation to its elders, and the frequent assurance of the latter that our progress has been restricted chiefly to physical achievement, have united until a recent date to make us accept that view of the matter. Aesop's lion discovered that the honors of a contest depend largely upon the sculptor that commemorates it. If there were a stake-boat, a winning-post, by which the comparative import (waiving the question of inherent value) of national activities could be measured exactly, various estimates might be disestablished. What is of most concern, in relation to the theme of this work, is the fact that the literature — even the poetic literature — of no country, during the last half-century, is of greater interest to the philosophical student, with respect to its bearing on the future, than that of the United States. My judgment is to this effect, after years in which I have read a good deal of native and foreign comment upon the subject. The reasons for it are generally perceptible in the ensuing chapters, but three may be stated here succinctly : i. American poetry, more than that of England during the period considered, has idealized — often inspired — the national sentiment, the historic movements, of the land whose writers have composed it. 2. This nation already, — in the second century of a growth which began not in barbarism, but in political civilization, — is gaining in strength, population, and the liberal

X INTRODUCTION.

arts, at an accelerative speed that soon must make it a typical exemplar of ideal as well as material production. Nor can there be a time when the bent of its idealitywill be more suggestive than now, for the present angle determines the arc of the future. 3. The first true course of American poetry has distinguished the principal term covered in these essays ; a first heat has been run during that time, to whose leaders special chapters are devoted. It is rare that an epoch so definitely begun and ended can be selected as the object of synthetic examination. The reader is invited to study a period as distinct in literature as our Constitutional period in politics, or the Thirty Years' War in history ; one, moreover, in which poetry bore closer relations to the life and enthusiasm of a people than it often has borne in other lands and times. -^

We see, also, that this term has been singularly concurrent with that of the Victorian hemicycle, so that an examination of the poetry of our English tongue for the last fifty years is compassed in my two books. In order to perceive the evolution of a new minstrelsy from its foreign and native germs, the opening chapters of this volume are occupied partly with the efforts of the Colonial verse - writers and their immediate successors. A final chapter contains a rapid summary of what is now doing, as a basis for speculation on the outlook and the chances of a revival in the future. The reader thus obtains a general view of American poets and poetry from their outset to the present date.

INTRODUCTION. xi

Nevertheless, the main purpose of this work, as suggested heretofore, is to continue my former effort, by obtaining further illustrations of the poetic life, and ideas with respect to the spirit and methods of the art of poetry. The marginal Analysis and topical Index are planned to accord with this intention. My views were formulated to some extent in our consideration of the transatlantic field. They can be emphasized in no way more readily than by fresh and personal examples which are a kind of object-lessons ; by criticism of a new series of poets, employing the same tongue, but varying in genius and temperament, and influenced by the conditions of a distinct environment.

The tenor of the original discussion, which I have no reason to modify seriously, was in favor of simplicity, impulse, sincerity, as opposed to obscurity, didacticism, and the affectation either of refinement or a " saucy roughness," — always in behalf of imagination, and against the multiform devices proffered, consciously or unconsciously, in lieu of that supreme quality. It placed construction before decoration, the tone of a composition above its detail, and looked to the spirit rather than the structure, — not content, however, with the half-truth of a writer who declares that poetry is a spirit, not a form, — the truth being that poetry is a spirit, taking form. Finally, I welcomed every sign of healthy passion and every promising dramatic tendency, both invigorating after a prolonged reflective period. Various sins of commission were discoverable among the lesser pupils of xii INTRODUCTION.

Wordsworth, the " spasmodic " lyrists, the Neo-Romantic artificers, etc., and frequently an absence was noted of merits that undoubtedly are found in our native verse — simplicity and honest impulse. The last-named traits do not of themselves suffice, for spontaneity must be allied with power. American singers often have been more natural than imaginative, and have risen to passion only in rare individual or public crises. Our most noted group, that of New England, distinguished for grace and scholarship, fervent in conviction and of marked intellectuality, has been pronounced too thin - blooded ; what sensuousness enriches American poetry has appeared chiefly in the work of its middle and younger schools. On the other hand, our verse has been measurably free from the vice of over-decoration, prevalent in the writings of the minor British romanticists ten years or more ago. It is to be hoped that the trace of this now observed is something from which the new school soon will free itself. And I here say to our young writers, as I have said again and again with respect to their foreign standards, that in literature, as in architecture, construction must be decorated, not decoration constructed, — that invention must precede them both, — and that, if imagination be clouded and the glow of passion unfelt, it is utter and worthless jugglery to "compose at all. An enumeration, in a closing chapter, of younger poets' and their efforts is purposely uncritical, except in the case of Lanier; it aims to show these at their best, but the fact is not gainsaid that there is a

INTRODUCTION. Xlll lull in the force and efficacy of American song. My conclusion is that we are not experiencing a decadence, but rather a diversion of imaginative energy to new forms of employment, and this not without a fair compensation. It may be well that our verse thus should escape the phase of minute realism and analysis through which modern literature is passing, and which probably will give way before a dramatic and inventive impulstby the time a second epoch of poetic achievement shaL be inaugurated.

My review of the exquisite productions of TennysoD and his compeers led to consideration of the methods ol poetry as an art. Apt illustrations were at hand, and my remarks often and designedly were addressed to fellows of the craft. The present work is less technical ; I have more to say of the poetic temperament and the conditions that affect it ; more of poetry as the music of emotion, faith, aspiration, and all the chords of life. The atmosphere in which our poets have flourished is observed, as well as their special aids and hindrances and whatever has been significant in their various careers. The personality of the noted American minstrels has been more suggestive than that of their English contemporaries. In this respect they bear a likeness to the poets of the Georgian era. With few exceptions the Victorian brotherhood, living under advanced social and literary systems, have been neither greatly involved with the action and history of their time nor picturesquely conspicuous as individuals. Nevertheless, it is not the xiv INTRODUCTION.

main thing, in writing of a poet, to consider the experiences which he shares in common with other men. He must be judged by things peculiar to himself — the creative gift and work that bring him within the franchise of literary criticism. The estimate, then, to a certain extent must be technical ; and so far as my own comment has been addressed to the literary class, its endeavor is, as a Californian author pleases me by saying, to get down to the bed-rock of poetry as an art and to its pure gold as an inspiration. If passages occur where the agreement of polite thinkers, as to established processes and conclusions, is not assumed as a matter of course, it is because I hope this volume will be read by some who hitherto have paid slight attention to its topics. There is no good reason why a critical treatise, like any other work, should not appeal to both select and general readers, though possibly on very diverse grounds of interest.

During the preparation of this work, the last of its kind that I shall publish, I have had my share of the ills from which none are quite exempt. It has been delayed by the rarity of intervals at which I could devote a wholesome energy to its completion, and feel assured that it would betray no tinge of personal discouragement. If injustice has been done, in the delicate task of making even the slightest reference to one's literary associates, it has not been of malice aforethought.

Acknowledgment is due to friends, — especially toi Messrs. Gilder, Johnson, Buel, and Carey, of "The Cen-i

INTRODUCTION. xv tury" office, — and to Mr. G. T. Elliot, the scholarly corrector at the Riverside Press, and his assistants, for professional courtesies in aid of my labor now ended ; also to my son, Arthur Stedman, for expert revision of copy and verification of names and dates. Where authorities differ, or are silent, with respect to matters of fact, I have consulted — as far as practicable — the persons directly interested, except in the cases of living female writers whose dates of birth are not given already in

standard compilations.

New York, September, 1885.

I

IT is my design to trace the current of poesy, deepening and widening in common with our streams of riches, knowledge, and power ; to show an influence upon the national sentiment no less potent, if less obvious, than that derived from the historic records of our past ; to watch the first dawning upon an eager people of " the happy, heavenly vision men call Art " ; to observe closely and to set down with an honest hand our foremost illustrations of the Rise of Poetry in America. Such is my purpose, and I deem it not a mean one. We think of power and wealth as things in themselves, but they are strong and rich only in their relations to the life of man. The essential part of that life is in his spirit, of which imagination is the king, — and the sister arts, with poetry at their front, are to be accounted its highest forms of expression.

The song of a nation is accepted as an ultimate test of the popular spirit ; as the earliest form of speech and the ripest, — whether the utterance of feelings common to all, or of the fine and daring speculations of the noblest minds. Examine it, and form opinions of the country's general literature, of the hold upon art and action and scientific achievement. If we have

The author's purpose.

National song.

EARLY AND RECENT CONDITIONS.

Cp. " Victorian Potts" : p. I.

Suggestion to the rtader.

seen a true poetic movement in America, we may be sure that we have had marches in other fields of progress. The inquiry concerning the genuineness and value of such a movement affords a title to this work, and a review of the conditions that have helped or hindered it must be included. Upon the method chosen for a study of the recent period in England, my present researches are devoted chiefly to the careers and productions of leading poets whose reputations are longestablished, and who, upon the whole, fairly represent the various tendencies of American song. And thus, incidentally and with fresh opportunities, we may extend our knowledge of "the aim and province of the art of Poetry," and obtain under a new atmosphere further illustrations of the poetic temperament and life.

The subject cannot be lightly entered upon, and as if for entertainment merely. Properly considered, there is no more suggestive undertaking than to review the first displays of lyrical genius in a land as notable as any upon earth. These may seem crude and familiar to ourselves, and possibly are not fully estimated by older nations whose very age and glory make them self-contained. But, if the future is to have a greatness of its own, a study of New World poetry is of equal importance with that devoted to the earlier or contemporary verse of the mother-land. The reader, then, will do well to bear with the details of a prefatory analysis, though they lack that interest which adheres to the lives and works of the various poets to whom his attention will be invited. The points which I shall make will not be wholly novel, but by grouping them newly, and in a logical manner, we may get some notion of the real quality of the first genuine awakening of our home-song.

For that there has been such an awakening is the

LAJVS OF GROWTH.

very cause and foundation of these essays, and if I did not perceive this fact I should have no excuse for their general endeavor. It is true that a nation's literature will not appear out of season. Poetry, its most spontaneous form, is a growth rather than an artifice, or it does not come to strengthen and to stay. Let me acknowledge, as heretofore, the bearing of the conditions under which it is produced, and that a poet must be viewed in the light and shadow of his environment; furthermore, that when a time is ripe there are found both idealists and men of action to represent it, — springing up as when, in the physical world, the pines and fir-trees of a virgin forest have been cleared away, and a novel flora suddenly appears, whose germs have been hidden in the undermould, awaiting their own season of room and light and air. But let me also, and at present no less than in our foreign excursions, include a factor which the new criticism often overlooks. Too little allowance is made for the surprises of genius. We forget that now and then some personage comes without a summons, like a stray leader from the skies ; that works appear under adverse circumstances, so new, so strong, so revolutionary, as to seem inspired creations, — men and works that overleap the stages of development, that demand the spiritual factor, the personal equation, the allowance for exception, in the problem of national growth. In the absence of a sunlit atmosphere, they shine by inward light, and communicate heat and lustre to their surroundings. When a link in the chain of evolution is missing, such are the forces that make up for it. But there are other forces, and certain modes of intellectual effort, which assist growth and somewhat forestall the ordinary process. Even criticism may do a share, and

Law of environment ;

and the factors which modify its effect.

EARLY AND RECENT CONDITIONS.

Matters first to be considered.

Question of a Home- School and its charac. teristics.

Essential quality.

often by penetrative study of the leaders that reflect or stimulate the various tendencies of a people's ideality. Of course a poet must represent his age and habitat ; a Grecian temple beside an Alleghanian trout-brook might be lovely, but surely would be out of place and date. It is now my province to discover what special aids the poets of America have experienced, and what hindrances. In no modern country has ideality been more retarded than in our own ; and I think that certain restrictions have peculiarly limited production in the field of Poetry, — the chief of imaginative arts. Yet I see that, in spite of these, the ultimate rise of an American school of poetry was swift and strong, and that its chiefs have had their aids no less than their obstacles, and have bravely confronted the latter. And thus we are brought directly to the preliminary issue.

II

Much has been written of late upon the topic of our native literature. Is there a distinctly American school ? If not, when and where shall we look for one ? What are, or should be, its special characteristics ? These and similar questions are frequently and somewhat vaguely discussed.

Now, it is first to be observed that the radical quality of any national school, in any country or period, does not wholly depend upon the types, personages, localities, and other materials utilized by its artists and men of letters ; and this is especially true with regard to the work of a poet, in distinction from that of a j5ainter. The specific tone of the former artist is not derived from the images which his genius informs with life, and from the plots that serve

NATIONAL QUALITY.

his expression of the thought, passion, imagination, of his people and time. Mere reliance upon these will not suffice. Even a painter might devote his life to copying the groups he finds in his own streets, the streets themselves, and the fields and woods beyond them, yet not produce an original art, nor execute it in a fresh and native way. The mere dialect and legends of a province or section are powerless to convey their essential quality to the song of a poet who calls them to his aid. Mr. Grant White, therefore, was perfectly right when he suggested, for these and other reasons, that it is the spirit, not the letter, which giveth life ; that we must pay regard to the flavor, rather than to the form and color, of the fruit, — to the distinctive character, not the speech and aspect, of the personage. Unless the feeling of our home-poet be novel, his vision a fresh and distinctive vision, — unless these are radically different from the French, or German, or even the English feeling and vision, — they are not American, and our time has not yet come.

But I am not with this distinguished writer in his further claim that we still are essentially English, and shall be so for a long series of years to come ; that our literature, like the language we inherit, is wholly English, and must remain so for centuries, until " Anglo-Saxon and Hollander and German and Irishman and negro and Chinese shall have so blended their blood . . . that from the fusion a new race shall have sprung," What I first call to mind is that there are few Americans, even those of but one remove, who are not instantly recognized abroad as being very different from Englishmen, not only with respect to feature, mould, and speech, — which vary according to the sections from which they come, — but in their senti-

R. G.

White, in the N. Y.

Times, Feb. 1, 1880.

A reservation.

EARLY AND RECENT CONDITIONS.

" The

Scarlet

Letter."

A distinctive national charcKter, ment, modes of thought and feeling, and way of looking at things. In both outward and inward traits they are pronounced distinctively un-English and " American," however divided among themselves. Again, by so much as the style is the man, I believe that the literary product of this new people differs from the literary product of the English, or any other people of the Old World, and I hope to make that difference clear in the course of these chapters. And I will remark, in passing, that " The Scarlet Letter," a romance which Mr. White cited in illustration, to me appears thoroughly un-English in its mystical temper, and its undertone and atmosphere ; if not broadly American, it is locally so, — the fruit and outgiving of the New England sentiment that brooded in its author's spirit, and of which it is a soul-wrought witness and dramatic chronicle.

In fine, recognizing the error of those who, by a forced effort, would anticipate creations that will come only of themselves, or through the natural impulse of foreordained artists, I also perceive that already, in various walks of art, and in none more than in that to which our present study is devoted, we have exhibited the new and broad results, both of acclimation and of a blending process, to which the ruling divisions of our population thus far have been subjected. Equally obvious are the minor distinctive phases, which, on the other hand, arise from the differentiation of the American people by influences that, in widely separated districts, have acted upon their inhabitants from the early settlements to the present time. The first-named phenomena are national, while those of the latter class may be termed sectional ; but all are American, whether they appertain to the whole, or to the subdivisions, of our intellectual yield.

THE AMERICAN TYPE.

The type first suggested, that of a broadly national character, is plainly incomplete, and has wide room for maturer development. Let us measure it only at its worth. A restless and ill-adjusted spirit still pervades the heterogeneous elements of our nationality. Here is a country as large as all Europe, embracing zones as far apart, in physical attributes, as those of Norway and Sicily. Here are the emigrants or descendants of every people in Europe, — to go no farther, — and all their languages, and customs, and traditions, and modes of feeling, at one time or another, have come with them. Hence our unconscious habitude of variety, the disinclination to cling to one way of life or thought until its perfect conclusion. There is a ferment in new blood. The American travels, and at first is delighted with the color and flavor of the region to which he has come, but soon wearies of them, and pushes on to some new place where novel characteristics can be enjoyed. This is observable of all Anglo-Saxons, capricious yet steadfast as they are, but more so among ourselves than with respect to our British kinsmen. America has absorbed the traits of many lands and people ; the currents still set this way ; our modern intercourse with the world at large is close and unintermitting, so that the raw ingredients of our national admixture are supplied quite as rapidly as the whirl and stir of the popular system can triturate and commingle them. It is too much, then, to expect that our art or song, from whatever section either may come, will exhibit a quality specifically American in the sense that the product of Italy is Italian, or that of France is French. At this distance, we who watch others as we are watched ourselves can readily see that the same causes which make our civilization assume the composite type are blend-

Its ittcom-

pleteness musi be acknowledged.

The national elements :

EARLY AND RECENT CONDITIONS.

ing the politics, manners, dress, art, and letters of the several European countries, — and this, however distinct their nationalities, in proportion to the growth of travel and interculture. But the United States are homogeneous in what pertains to the language and methods of their master-race, and to this extent their homogeneity is definitely assured. Concerning the primal influences that affect the general tone of art and literature, mutual communication and understanding are so perfect that any changes or advances are almost simultaneous throughout our territory. This being the situation, foreign critics are not far wrong in requiring that our home-product shall differ from their own ; that it shall be, at least, un-European, — manifestly of the New World, and not of the Old. Return to a consideration of the family likeness, physical and mental, which instantly is apparent to others as we visit the mother-land. If we ourselves are unconscious of it, or wonted to it ; if the air and fashion that we display seem to us imperceptible or of small account, they are not so regarded by our kinsmen, or by the guest who lands upon these shores. The stranger quickly perceives, and holds at its value, the general, the national, type. Material and psychological changes are correlative, and almost equally sure of external recognition.

So far, therefore, from demanding absolute novelty in structure, language, or theme, of our home-poet, it is the duty of the critic to value the Americanism which great and small have displayed in quality of tone, and in faithful expression of the dominant popular moods. Thus considered, it will be found they have not fallen short. Those arbiters of foreign taste who do not acknowledge this may be suspected of some unconscious insincerity. Not every mother as fair

LOCAL PRODUCTIONS.

and ripe as England, however aifectionate, can look with perfect complacence upon a daughter growing to her own height and beauty before the world. To her eyes the maiden is still a child, and she owns with reluctance and very slowly that child's attractiveness and the claims of her suitors. One by one the points of youth and inferiority, brought against America, have worn away, and now, when so many of us grant Eng land this last defence of her supremacy, it is with the respect due a mother, and with a courtesy perchance no less insincere than her avowal. The new Americanism is not so modest as to surrender any freehold or to be unconscious of its smallest advantages.

The less essential novelties of structure, theme, and dialect already are discernible in the yield that represents our territorial subdivision. The local flavor of our genre and provincial literature has long been unquestioned, but our conceit was not overfed by an acknowledgment almost wholly due to grotesque and humorous exploits, — a welcome such as a prince in his breathing-hour might give to a new-found jester or clown. American poetry, however, has not represented the popular life of our continental slopes and corners merely in their coarser traits. These sections are not so isolated as the Scottish highlands, or as those mountain nooks in Italy, where peasant women contentedly whirl the spindle, and never visit the plains that glisten below ; yet some of them are longsettled and have an abiding population, with habits more or less confirmed. Where there is the least of change and interruption, and the colonial blood is most unmixed, the national ennui does not prevail ; the sentiment and instinct of the people, if limited, are clearly understood, and have been fairly expressed in poetry and prose romance.

Minor characteristics.

lO

EARLY AND RECENT CONDITIONS.

Republicanism in these respects is on trial.