A History of the American Drama from the Beginning to the Civil War by Arthur Hobson Quinn Review by:

Fred Lewis Pattee The American Historical Review, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Jul., 1924), pp. 773-775 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the American Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1841258 . Accessed: 13/04/2012 03:02
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Quinn: Historyof theAmericanDrama

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ings with membersof the Russian delegation,and he has caught their spiritadmirably. There is one slip in detail on page 6-perhaps a misprint-which should be correctedin the next edition. "The Bolsheviki", he writes, "who were the extreme left wing of the Social Revolutionaryparty" This should read " of the Social Democratic party". The left wing of the Social Revolutionarypartycalled themselves" the Maximalists ". It is unfortunate that such a mistakeoccurs in a work so scrupulouslycheckedup in otherdetails that it deservesto be a permanent reference book on the subject. In the several chaptersthatdeal withaspects of -thesubject with which I have some familiarity, this is the one case where I findoccasion to raise a question of fact. It would be hard for any reviewerto give higher praise to scholarlycare in such work. In general,however,I doubt whether-the author assigns sufficient importance to the influenceof error, which affectsall foreign relations not only those of the Soviets. As chief of the Russian Division in the Department State, I had to studythe available records of the outbreak of of hostilitybetween the Soviets and the Czechoslovak legions. Professor Dennis, in chapterXI., has unravelledfromthe verytangled skein of evidence a coherentaccount of the incident,but I thinkthat his account is a bit too rational-not giving enough heed to the disorganization of communications and the resultingfumbling all sides. Days after the on fighting had begun in Tchelyabinsk, the Supreme Council in Paris voted to transport Czechs to the westernfrontvia Arkhangelsk'! No one in the France had adequate knowledge of what was happening in the Urals. The Czechs, hesitatingon the border of Europe and Asia, were utterly bewilderedby the contradictory news fromParis and Moscow. I doubt if Lenin and Trotski were betterinformed. The conquest of Siberia resulted quite as much from a misunderstanding it did from any as " policy ". This criticism-if it is a sound criticism-applies to all the book. I am rather skeptical about such ex postfacto rationalizationof any nation's foreign policy; that of the Russian revolutionistswas the more likely to be haphazard as they had no traditionto guide them. In the Baltic, in Turkey or Germany, " confused" and " uncertain "-even "hit or miss"-might be a better descriptionof Soviet foreign policy -than ". "opportunistic ARTHUR BULLARD.

BOOKS OF AMERICAN HISTORY A Historyof the A4merican Drama from the Beginningto the Civil
War. and Brothers. By ARTHUR HOBSON QUINN, Professor of English in the I923. Pp. xv, 486. $4.oo.)

University Pennsylvania. (New York and London: Harper of

THE scantattention givento nativedramaby historians Amerof ican literature been a resultof the well-nigh has universal beliefthat

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Reviews of Books

America,until recently, producedno drama worthmention. As has late as I900 Professor Barrett Wendellin his Literary History Amerof ica dismissed literary this form withthedictum, So far,theAmerican " theatre produced workwhichcan claim seriousconsideration has no ". has of Professor Quinnof theUniversity Pennsylvania takenissue with critics: theseearlier fromthe rarity The failureto treatthe drama has sprungprimarily form and of the printed plays,whichwereusuallyissuedin perishable whose verypopularity provedto be theirdoom. Many of the stage have beenkeptfrom successes, bothof thepast and the present, publiinstinct theproducing of who feared cationby the protective manager, forhis pr-operty and of rights to whomtheliterary reputation theplaywright was of secondary importance. WiththisthesisProfessor the of Quinnhas rewritten history theAmerican dramato thetimeof the Civil War. A secondvolumeis to come and skillhe has searched greatmassesof later. Withrarepatience out material thatearlierhistorians thedramawereforced neglect and of to he has " recharted to use his own term, dramatic ", our areas withnew perspective.Whether has added new valuableterritory m-ust he that historians our literature a questionthat of is be considered future by will dividecritics. Granting thatmanyof thelost plays,say of R. M. were of as high merit Proand others, as Bird, RichardPenn Smith, is fessorQuinndeclares, it stillworth whileto treatAmerican dramain two volumes each thesize of Wendell'shistory our wholeliterature? of Most certainly is, even if our earlydramastillmustbe branded it whenmeasured the older Europeanstandards. Of late as inferior by a new spirithas come intoliterary is history:literature the voice of the life. Poetry, novel,the shortstory, drama-everyformof art the -all are theimperishable voicesof theperiodthatproduces them. How the without shall we understand nineteenth century knowingwhat it and enjoyed-without and going to its theatres, readingits magazines, listening its music? Dr. Quinnhas recognized to this fact and therein ", lies the chiefvalue of his volume. "The drama he explainsin his preface,"has been treatedthroughout a livingthing." To reject as the thisdramafrom literary of history Americabecause it fallsbelow is old academicstandards snobbishness. Our drama has been redolent of our new world; a history it is a vital sectionof the history of of America. In his first threechapters historian the studiesthe-earlyprejudice againstthe dramain Americaand tracesits slow evolution underthe the burden thishandicapthrough workof thepioneers of Godfrey and Tyler and othersto the year i790, whenunderthe leadership Wilof liam Dunlap, "a real personality, artistto his finger-tips the and ", dramamay be said to have begun. The first periodof the American of influence Dunlap upon everyphase of Amercian is forcibly art presented. "To him Americawas the hope of the artistof the future the where, unhampered caste or the dead hand of prestige, painter, by

McIlvain: AmericanRevolution

775

the writer,the musician could develop on the firmbasis of his intrinsic worth." The two decades following i8io were shaped largely by James M. Barker and John Howard Payne, the one insisting upon native themes and the other exploiting largely foreign material. With I830, the opening of America's Victorian era, came expansion in every varietyof dramatic art. It was marked by the dominance of Edwin Forrest and darkest tragedy. The drama as well as fiction and poetrybecame more and more ruled by romance. It was the era of Robert M. Bird and The Gkadiator, dramatized Indians, of plays of centring about American history. Then came the poetic drama of Boker and the Irish renaissance of Boucicault and the beginningof the Rip Van Winkle era. Every phase of the mid-century varie-ty most is interestingly presented. At firstsight the volume seems unbalanced-at least one-thirdof it concerns Philadelphia dramatic history,but a careful reading convinces one that the balance is correct. Philadelphia during most of the period under consideration certainly took the lead in our affairs dramatic. One may pause, however, at the excessive praise given Boker. His motto " Get out of your age as far as you can " was undoubtedlyhis undoing. So far indeed did he get out of his age that to most modern critics he has been lost sight of completely. Unquestionably he deserves respectfultreatment, but the thirtypages devoted to him here could well be reduced one-half. The history is a thoroughlycompleted study and in this firstvolume it would seem to be definitive.
FRED LEWIS PATTEE.

The American Revolution: a ConstitutionalInterpretation. By in ernment Harvard LUniversity.(New York: MacmillanCompany. 1923. Pp. xiii, I98. $2.25.)
By the Declaration of Independence the American colonies frankly cast off the only authoritywhich they at that date professed to recognize as binding them to the British realm, namely, that of the king; the authorityof Parliament to bind them had been challenged earlier. With which act of repudiation did the American Revolution beginwhen, in other words, did American opposition to the measures of the British governmentcease being constitutionaland become revolutionary? Or, to put the question in yet other terms,how is American rejection of Parliament's claims, which preceded avowed revolution, to be evaluated? Was it "absurd ", "an afterthought "a retreat" from ", one untenable legal position to another still more untenable, any stick to beat a dog with-all of which things it has been asserted to be, by American writersof recent date-or did it have really respectable support in precedent,so that an honest mind,one not overheated by controCHARLES HOWARD MCILWAIN, Professor of History and Gov-