American literature

Preface

In this work an attempt is made to present in a clear and systematic manner the main facts and tendencies in American literature from the beginnings to the present. Special emphasis has been given to movements and individual characteristics which seem distinctively American. We are beginning to reahze at last that American literature is not merely an offshoot from English hterature, but that it is in a larger and truer sense a record of national traits and strivings for at least a century and a quarter. Even the Colonial and Revolutionary periods, in which no great hterature was produced, are exceedingly important as a background for the proper estimate of our later literature and should not be neglected by the serious student of American institutions. These earlier formative periods are also interesting in themselves for the lessons they teach of moral and pohtical aspiration: out of them have sprung the idealism that shines in the pages of American history and that makes worthy our national hfe of to-day. No one can understand aright this noble heritage without some study of our seventeenth and eighteenth century literature, fragmentary as it is. This conviction will account for the extended treatment of those periods in this book and the nimaerous illustrative extracts from representative writers.

After the first two periods it would be a difficult task indeed to classify our authors on a uniform national basis. They are all American, of course, but they flourished mainly in groups and by sections; when one attempts to consider them, it is the most natural thing in the world to arrange them geographically according to their development; any other arrangement, it seems to the present writer, would be confusing. What the student has a right to demand in a textbook above everything

4 PREFACE

else is clearness of presentation; and the history of literature in a big country like ours, where diversity of interest and tradition only serves to give a spice of variety to our essential national unity, cannot be clearly and truthfully presented except along the lines of its natural growth. This is not sectionalism, but diversified Americanism. The contribution of New England, with its strong moral and didactic flavor; of the Middle States, with their more metropolitan tendencies; of the South, with its romantic sentiment; of the West, with its fresh and vigorous realism; — each of these contributions is set forth as a significant element in our national development. Perhaps the most striking thing in our literary history is the picturesqueness of these several contributions, merging into a larger union of common interests. To lose sight of this characteristic of American literature is to fail to apprehend its deeper meaning.

The same general method of treatment is followed in this work as in the author's English Literature. Each chapter is introduced with a brief discussion of the historical, social, and literary movements which have been most conspicuous in the making of that period or that group. Here, as in the other volume, a special feature of the estimates of individual authors is a paragraph on the personality of each prominent writer, following the biographical sketch. Since literature is so largely a matter of personality, the stressing of this spiritual factor in the creation of artistic prose and poetry is desirable. But as far as possible the writings themselves must be read and enjoyed. It is assumed of course that a volume of representative selections or separate editions of American classics will be used with this book. For those who wish to read more widely, special reference lists have been provided at the ends of the chapters.

An effort has beeil made to present the history of American literature in a readable account free from the congestion of unimportant details. As far as the limits of the work have permitted, illustrative extracts have been introduced; especially

PREFACE 5

is tills true in the case of authors, as in the Colonial Period, whose works are not generally accessible. The main thing, after all, in a history of literature is such a vital approach to the writers through the setting, the statement of a few salient details in their lives and works, and certain suggestive comments, that the student will eagerly desire to make the further acquaintance of these literary heroes. If the author of this guidebook shall have succeeded in making his readers want to know at first hand what American poets, essayists, and story-tellers have done, he will not have labored in vain.

Since this work first appeared many new writers have become sufficiently prominent to warrant their inclusion in a history of American hterature. This is particularly true in the fields of drama and poetry. An entirely new chapter has therefore been added, in which the record of these two kinds of literature is brought down to date. As will be noted, the chapter on western writers has been enlarged and in part recast, and certain minor changes made in the preceding chapter. A few needed corrections and insertions have been made elsewhere, but in the main the body of the book remains the same.

SOME USEFUL BOOKS OF A GENERAL NATURE

Literary History and Biography. — Richardson's History of American Literature (Houghton); Wendell's Literary History of America (Scribner); Caims's History of American Literature (Oxford); Trent's History of American Literature (Appleton); Whitcomb's Chronological Outlines of American Literature (Macmillan); Boynton's History of American Literature (Ginn); Bronson's American Literature (Heath); American Men of Letters Series (Houghton); Beacon Biographies (Merrill); Great Writers Series (Scribner); Apple ton's Cyclopedia of American Biography (6 vols.); National Cyclopedia of American Biography (2 vols.) ; Adams's Dictionary of American Authors; Stedman's Poets of America; Woodberry's America in Literature; Cambridge History of American Literature.

Selections Covering the Field of American Literature. — Stedman & Hutchinson's Library of American Literature (11 vols.); Stedman's American Anthology (Houghton); Carpenter's American Prose (Macmillan); Page's Chief American Poets (Houghton); Bronson's American Poems (Chicago University Press); Long's American Poems (American Book Co.); Simonds's American Song (Putnam); Stevenson's Poems of American History (Houghton); Knowles's Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics (Page); Bronson's American Prose (Chicago Univ. Press); Pattee's Century Readings in American Literature (Century Co.); Newcomer's Three Centuries of American Poetry and Prose (Scott, Foresman & Co.); Metcalf and Handy's Readings in American Literature (Johnson): Payne's American Literary Readings (Rand McNally); Foerster's Chief American Prose Writers (Houghton); Boynton's American Poetry (Scribner).

A stimulating and suggestive little volume is C. Alphonso Smith's What Can Literature Do for Me? (Doubleday, Page).

References for special periods will be found at the end of each of the chapters.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I CoLoxiAL Period 9

Writers in Virginia - -— 19