1820-1850 Early National Literature Literature becomes belles letres.

The previous chapter was about the 18th century, and it included works written in the first decades of the 19th century. Today, a striking quality of that long 18th century is that very much non-fiction counted as literature: political writings, personal narratives, philosophy, etc. (The same applies to the 17th century, and any earlier time.) This was supposedly because fiction was still young, and occupied a marginal place in national literature, especially in America. In the 19th century the situation is different: suddenly, literature = fiction + poetry + drama. Anything else is marginal, or counts as background. This is how we understand literature today. Of course, 19th century, like any other century, produced numerous works of non-fiction, philosophy, etc. Some of them will be discussed here, but from now on, somehow they will always be secondary to artistic literature (belles letres), i.e. to fiction, poetry, and drama. For instance, Ralph Waldo Emerson's Nature (1836) is a very important philosophical text, and it will be discussed at some length. But there were many other philosophical writers, who were also important, but will not be discussed here. The thing is, Emerson is important, but he is important for American literature (i.e. for poetry and fiction). After Emerson, it is difficult to find a philosopher in history of American literature; there is philosophy in the background, all right, but no philosophy as literary text. Emerson is a sort of belated exception. So generally, in the 19th century, literature becomes independent from philosophy, science, law, and political thought; it becomes an art on its own right. It may seem natural today, but it did not used to be, and it may still seem strange, on second thoughts. Fiction. Between 1820 and 1850 American fiction became abundant, and gained great popularity at home, as well as international recognition. The genres of fiction, which were described in the previous chapter, continued to develop: sentimental novel, Gothic romance, adventure and historical romance. There were two important, and specifically American additions: domestic novel and use of Western (frontier) themes. Domestic novel was related to sentimental novel, and its main themes included, well, domestic life, everyday work, and noble, strong sentiments of ordinary people. Use of frontier themes (wild natural settings, Indians and pioneers as typical characters, typical violent storylines) was obviously related to American territorial expansion in the West; this is what made America exceptional and interesting for other nations. Finally, an important quality of American fiction of that time is that most of it was created by women writers. Among the most notable fiction authors who wrote at that time, there are W a s h i n g t o n I r v i n g (1783-1859) and J a m e s F e n i m o r e C o o p e r (1789-1851). Both became famous in the 1820s. Two Irvings works are mentioned before 1820: Salmagundi;or, The Whim-Whams and Opinions of

Launcelot Langstaff & Others (1807-8), and A History of New York ... by Diedrich Knickerbocker (1809). Both are mildly satirical accounts of American life in New York, and both include parodies of the dignified style used in 18th century fiction and non-fiction (e.g. the long, elaborate titles). However, Irving became famous with the publication of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. (1820), his most popular and best remembered book. It is a collection of stories, essays, and non-fictional accounts of travel and customs (of England and America). It includes, most importantly, Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, two fantastic American folk tales which entered American tradition, and continue to be recognizable both for adults and children today. Rip Van Winkle is a tale of upstate New York (i.e. rural countryside then). The eponymous (check that word!) protagonist goes for a hunt, falls asleep under a magical charm, and wakes up after many years as an old man. His return to the village, where everybody thought he was dead, becomes comical when it turned out that he slept through the American Revolution! The story has a deeper, symbolic level, where its theme is the cycle of death and rebirth through nature. This cycle, the perennial cycle of despair and rebirth of hope, is supposedly an American theme, which combines optimism (settlement, expansion) with tragic pessimism (inescapable passage of time, death); somehow it is also related to wild nature (as source of both). The theme returns in numerous works (poetry, fiction) in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is different, because it is not fantastic (well, it is and it isn't). The tale contrasts two stereotypical characters: a schoolmaster who is a shrewd New Englander (Yankee), and a jovial, simple (but not stupid) New York farmer (of Dutch extraction). The setting is an idyllic landscape of upstate New York (Hudson River valley). Both protagonists compete for the attentions of the same girl, and the farmer wins by playing a (sort of fantastic) trick on the New Englander. Irving's stories in The Sketchbook combined wit and elegance with exotic (American) themes, and were very warmly received both in England and America. The book was, arguably, the first American work of fiction to be recognized internationally and to be generally remembered over the next centuries. Apart from The Sketchbook, Irving wrote numerous popular (then) books, including more collections of fiction, history, and travelogues. For example, Tales of a Traveller (1824) contains several Gothic tales, most famously The Adventure of the German Student, A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828) would be described as popular history today, Astoria (1836) and Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837) are non-fictional descriptions of famous expeditions to the West, whereas The Crayon Miscellany (1835) includes the account of A Tour of the Prairies which Irving made to see the West for himself. Several writers are mentioned today as Irvings associates (the Knickerbocker school). They wrote together in New York and contributed to the efforts at establishing a national literature accepted at home and abroad. These writers usually produced poetry, fiction, and non-fiction (all mediocre and forgotten). They included F i t z - G r e e n e H a l l e c k (1790-1867), J o s e p h R o d m a n D r a k e

(1795-1820), and J a m e s K i r k e P a u l d i n g (1778-1860). Halleck wrote satirical poems, influenced by Byron and Scott, e.g. those collected in Alnwick Castle, with Other Poems (1827). Drake is the author of a quaint fantasia, similar to images from Shakespeares Mid-Summer Nights Dream, called The Culprit Fay (1835). Paulding coauthored Salmagundi with Irving, and wrote The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan (1812), an anti-English satire which introduces another stereotypical character of an honest, spontaneous American. However, the only writer who could overshadow Irving in early 19th century was James Fenimore Cooper. Irving never wrote a novel, whereas James Fenimore Cooper is best remembered for his series of novels, or rather adventure romances, set in the American West. Cooper was probably the most popular American author in the 19th century, especially among European readers. He successfully emulated the success of Sir Walter Scott, who created historical romance, combining adventurous plots with lush, half-fantastic, historical settings and backgrounds (e.g. the Middle Ages, or 18 th century Scotland). Cooper did the same, using exotic Western settings, and American Revolution or Indian Wars as historical background; he also introduced a number of characters which became typical for Western adventure: the brave American soldier, good and bad Indian, the pioneer, the brave but inexperienced newcomer to the West. Coopers first famous romance, The Spy: A Tale of the Neutral Ground (1821) is about the American Revolution; it includes historical events and characters (George Washington) with a fictional adventure plot. It immediately became a great success and continued so until quite recently (i.e. until mid-20th century). The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea (1824) was another success, this time captivating readers with the background of marine warfare during the American Revolution. Cooper's greatest fame, however, rests on the cycle of five Western romances called the Leatherstocking Tales: The Pioneers: or The Sources of the Sasquehanna (1823), The Last of the Mohicans (1826), The Prairie (1827), and The Pathfinder: or The Inland Sea (1840). The most important character of all these romances, and Coopers most important character in general, is variously called Natty Bumppo, the Leatherstocking, the Deer Slayer, and the Hawkeye. These names are symbolic, they reflect different stages of the character's life, but they do not come in the right sequence. In the first book, The Pioneers, Natty Bumpoo is an old man with a mysterious past, who does not want to life in a Western town, but prefers his abode in the woods. In The Last of the Mohicans he is in the prime of his manhood (the action is set about fifty years before The Pioneers), and he fights with English troops and Mohicans against the French and the Iroquois; it is a fantastic and violent adventure. Then, in The Prairie, he is again an old man, this time just before his death, which is the beautiful (ritual) end of his last adventure in the prairies. In the next romance, however, action (time) moves back again, to Nattys early youth, when his name is the Deerslayer. He kills a man for the first time, and gets his adult name, the Hawkeye. The last romance in the cycle, The Pathfinder, is set sometime after The Last of the Mohicans and before

The Pioneers. Because of this shifting time of action, the Leatherstocking becomes a fantastic character who can beat time: he get old, then young, then dies, then is young again (the theme of rebirth). Another important points is that the Leatherstocking was born to unknown parents in the East, he was raised by Indians. Thus, he combines many contradictory qualities, stereotypicall associated with Indians (the wild West) and whites (civilization): he is at the same time a meek Christian and a wild Indian, a sort of white noble savage. Many readers regarded this fantastic combination as a sort of dreamlike ideal of the new American existence. Many still do, and search for this kind of life, when they take tourist trips to the supposedly wild countries and places. Cooper may be regarded as the originator of this theme in American literature. Cooper, however, did not only write romances. His works include novels of manners, sentimental fiction, and non-fictional works. For instance his first novel, Precaution (1820), was an unsuccessful imitation of Jane Austins novel of manners. Cooper also wrote two books of sentimental tales for children (young adult literature, as we would say today), Stories of the Hour and Stories of Fifteen, and several volumes of satirical novels of manners, in which he criticized democratization of American life in the 1830s, most importantly Homeward Bound (1838) and Home as Found (1838). His non fiction includes European travelogues, e.g. Gleanings in Europe: France (1837), and critical essays with observations of American life, e.g. Notions of the Americans (1828), where he corrects contemporary European misconceptions about America. Other popular romancers include representatives of different American regions, who included their local scenery and history as exotic and appealing background (much in the manner of Cooper, who used historical upstate New York). William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870), for instance, wrote a series of Southern romances about South Carolina, e.g. The Yeamessee (1835), or The Forayers (1855), both notable for graphic violence and lack of idealization of characters. Simms also used scenery and history of other Southern regions, e.g. Alabama in Richard Hurdis (1838), or Mississippi in Border Eagles (1840). Two more important authors of romances will be mentioned below: Lydia Maria Child and Robert Montgomery Bird both experimented beyond the formula of historical romance, combining it with sentimental novel (Child) and the Gothic (Bird). Concurrently with Coopers successful romances, domestic novel was also becoming increasingly popular; 19th novel corresponds to what today could be called the novel of manners: it deals with feelings, especially aroused by the clash between individual freedom and constraints of society, but it also contains a lot of social observation of manners, customs, and typical characters. Most writers of fiction were women, who dominated American fiction before the 1860s. These authors did not write only domestic novels, but produced all the variety of fiction, including Gothic and adventure romances. The most successful authors include C a t h e r i n e M a r i a S e d g w i c k (1789-1867), Lydia Maria C h i l d (1802-1880), E . D . E . N . S o u t h w o r t h (1819-1899), S u s a n

W a r n e r (1819-1885), A n n a W a r n e r , and M a r i a S u s a n n a C u m m i n s (1827-1866). Sedgwick and Child, two of Coopers most important contemporaries, wrote both romances and novels. Sedgwicks New England Tale (1822) is an important novel about religious tolerance and individual freedom, which also introduced several typical elements of domestic fiction: a lonely young heroine transplanted to a new household, hard work, and self-denial. Another important work by Sedgwick, Hope Leslie: or Early Times in Massachusetts (1827) is not a novel, but a historical romance set in the 17th century. Lydia Maria Child was famous for her historical romances, including her first important work, Hobomok: A Tale of Early Times (1824), which included the theme of miscegenation between Indian man an white woman. This was a controversial theme in the 19th century, and Child presents it in tragic terms. In the 1840s and 1850s, there is an increase in the number of novelists and works, as well as their popularity. This later period is represented by E.D.E.N. Southworth, Susan and Anna Warner, and Maria Cummins. Susan Bogert Warners The Wide, Wide World (1850) was one of the most famous and popular domestic novels. It is a didactic novel, showing social constraints (related to gender, class and religion), personal aspirations, and self-denial, from the point of view of a young woman. The themes are set against the background of hard work and simple, everyday life. In this, Warner's novel includes all the defining elements of domestic fiction. Her other works include Queechy (1852), and The Carpenter's Daughter (1855), one of the works co-authored with Anna Barlett Warner, her sister. Maria Cumminss The Lamplighter (1854) was a highly successful example of this sub-genre. E.D.E.N. Southworth was one of the most famous and prolific novelist of the 1850s and 1860s. Her first novel Retribution: or The Vale of Shadows (1849) is more sensational than domestic fiction, and it can be compared to today's romance fiction. The peak of Southworth's popularity came after the 1860s, and it will be discussed in the following chapters. Parallel to the success of the novelists, E d g a r A l l a n P o e (1809-1849) developed a peculiar strain of Gothic fiction which aspired to the Romantic ideals of artistic excellence and philosophical depth, while at the same time including particularly morbid images of death and madness. Importantly, Poe was not a novelist, and his fiction consists mostly of tales, which anticipated the special position of short story in American literature later. Poe's less distinguished Gothic predecessors included Charles Brockden Brown (in early 19th century), and his contemporaries: R o b e r t M o n t g o m e r y B i r d (1806-1854) and G e o r g e L i p p a r d (1822-1854). Bird, who also wrote adventure romances and drama, is the author of Sheppard Lee (1836), a morbid fantasia about metempsychosis, which was probably inspired by his medical education. Bird was also an important author of adventure and historical romances; his Nick of the Woods: or, The Jibbenainosay; a Tale of Kentucky (1837) is notable for the figure of the protagonist, a psychotic Indian-hater, and for graphic (drastic) descriptions of warfare between whites and Indians. George Lippard's most famous novel (or romance?) was The Monks of the Monk-Hall, also known as The

Quaker City (1844), a city mystery set in Philadelphia. Its morbid imagery includes terrible murders, explicit scenes of seduction, surrealistic visions of disaster and downfall. Lippard's imagery was influenced by Eugene Sue's famous French sensational novel, Mysteries of Paris (1843). The use of explicit imagery in such novels anticipated the subsequent development of realism. Apart from The Quaker City, Lippar wrote several historical romances. Both Lippard and Bird included morbid images, but did not aspire to the philosophical depth in the way Poe did. Poe, who considered himself a poet rather than fiction writer, is the author of numerous Gothic tales whose popularity did not diminish today. His morbid themes stem from the most disturbing philosophical questions, such as the body-mind problem, uncertainty about the fate of those who died, our limited knowledge of the physical world and its mysteries, or definitions and sources of madness and normal consciousness. Poes best known tales include The Fall of the House of Usher (1840), The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1845), and The Purloined Letter (1845). Like most of Poes tales, they were first published in magazines, and then collected in books; this was to become standard practice of short-story publication in America. The Fall of the House of Usher is an allegory of the human mind, represented by a house; different levels of the house (the cellar, the library, the front, the attic) correspond to a disintegrating mind and its dark, hidden secrets. The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar is a tale of a man hypnotized at the moment of his death, so that he can neither fully die, nor awake from the hypnotic trance. In this living death, he utters the paradoxical words, I am dead, and cannot stop speaking. The story casts terrible doubts about the nature of our life and thought. The Purloined Letter is one of the first detective stories, and it introduces (probably) all the typical modern elements of the genre (Poe called it tales of ratiocination; his detective combines logic with intuition and poetic imagination). Apart from tales, Poe wrote fictional travelogues, e.g. The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym (1839), which is his longest work of fiction, and half-factual accounts of scientific discoveries and curiosities (today we could probably call them column writing). He also wrote literary criticism and poetry, which will be described in the following section. Poes work, difficult to classify and understand because of its disturbing themes and bizarre images, influenced generations of future writers, both of popular and mainstream literature. Importantly, Poe was idolized by Charles Baudelaire and other French symbolists in the 19th century.

Poetry. In prose, 1820 saw the emergence of Washington Irving as the first American writer to become an (internationally) accepted literary celebrity. Almost at the same time in poetry, the same can be said about W i l l i a m C u l l e n B r y a n t (1794-1878): his talent was universally admired because of his poetry, not because of (patriotic) sentiments or exotic (American) themes. Paradoxically, only renouncing local themes and concerns, and becoming universal (at least to an

extent), made American literature into a national literature on its own right. Bryants best remembered poems include Thanatopsis (1821), a meditation of death written in blank verse, and The Prairies (1833), which is a vision of Americas distant past and future, and a meditation of cyclical downfall and rise of empires. Bryant was a prolific poet, translator of the Iliad and the Odyssey, also an important editor and non-fiction writer. Other notable poets of early 19th century include E m m a H a r t W i l l a r d (1787-1890), L y d i a H u n t l e y S i g o u r n e y (1791-1865), G e o r g e M o s e s H o r t o n (1797?-1883?), H e n r y W a d s w o r t h L o n g f e l l o w (1807-1882), and E d g a r A l l a n P o e (1809-1849). Lydia Huntley Sigourneys poetry, with its variety of themes and forms, was one of the most popular in her day. Much of her poetry was addressed to women, and attempted to give them a sense of participation in history and national life. The principal themes of her poetry include work and everyday life, children and maternal love, and conventional poetic themes, e.g. history and contemporary current events, beauty of nature (morally symbolic), and strong emotions such as love and apprehension of death. She also wrote several poems (one of them a book-length essay in verse) about the American Indians. Sigourney used a variety of poetic forms, including the blank verse, Senserian stanza, the sonnet, the ballad, and heroic couplets. Like Bryant, she published poems in newspapers and magazines (it was a standard practice then), and subsequently in book collections. Among her most popular poems there are Death of an Infant (1827), with a mournful meditation on the beauty of a dead child, Hebrew Dirge (1834), whose theme is doubt between fear of death and denial of life, and The Indians Welcome to the Pilgrim Fathers (1835), whose theme is historical. Sigourney also wrote a long epic poem, included in one of her book collections, Pocahontas (1841). George Moses Horton was the second, after Phillis Wheatley, well known black poet who published his poetry. Unlike Wheatley, Horton was a Southerner and still a slave when he wrote and published, so his poetry frequently and openly addressed the theme of slavery and oppression (which, again, was not how Wheatley wrote). Horton published three books of poetry, The Hope of Liberty (1829), The Poetical Works of George M. Horton, the Colored Bard of North Carolina (1845), and Naked Genius (1865). The best known poems include On Liberty and Slavery (1829), George Moses Horton, Myself (1865), and The Obstructions of Genius (1865). His last poems deal with the theme of old age and longing for a full development of his poetic genius. In terms of popularity, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow probably exceeded both Bryant and Sigourney; some of his poems were prescribed reading in American primary schools even late in the 20th century. His popularity may be compared with Lord Alfred Tennyson in England (Tennyson was an important inspiration for Longfellow). He published fourteen poem collections in his lifetime, adding equally numerous long poems, dramas, and works of fiction. He was active and popular for half of the 19th century, from the 1830s till the 1880s, which makes it difficult to

classify him to any literary epoch of American literature. The best known works by Longfellow include The Song of Hiawatha (1855), a long epic poem based on Indian tales, and several (out of very many) poem collections: Voices of the Night (1836), Ballads and Other Poems (1841), Evangeline (1847), The Courtship of Miles Standish and Other Poems (1858), The Seaside and the Fireside (1850), and Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863). Those collections included numerous very popular poems, e.g. The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), and Paul Riveres Ride (1863). Late poems, meditative and elegiac, included in Ultima Thule (1880) count among his best, although they were already behind their time because of traditional style and versification. Edgar Allan Poe, who has already been mentioned as fiction writer, was also an important poet. Poetry was his first, and very unsuccessful, published book, Tamerlane and Other Poems (1827). It was followed by Al Araaf, Tamerlane and Minor Poems (1829), Poems (1830), and The Raven and Other Poems (1845). Poe spent most of his life pursuing his career as magazine editor and fiction writer, however several of his poems have also become famous: The Raven (1845), Ulalume (1847), The Bells (1848), and Annabel Lee (1849). Like with most American poems, they were first published in magazines and subsequently in book collections. The Raven is about mourning and madness caused by death of a beloved person, but also about madness caused by inescapable passage of time and loss, symbolized by the raven. Ulalume and Annabel Lee are about (the possibility and impossibility of) imaginary travels across the boundary of time and death, to a fantastic land of ideal beauty and love. The Bells were praised for their skillful use of assonance and imitation of sounds. Poes poetry was praised among the first American attempts to search for a purely aesthetic beauty, without a didactic or informative content. It concentrated on emotions and imagination, its supposedly infinite possibilities and pathetic or terrible limits. Poe is also remembered for an aesthetic agenda expressed in his criticism. Among his critical essays, Philosophy of Composition is a careful (though fictional) study of the writing of The Raven. According to Poe, poetry should be a disinterested pursuit of beauty (both intellectual and sensual, Poe blurs this border anyway). In this, poetry should (or need not be) didactic and moralizing, nor informative and instructive; it should not be burdened with social functions. Poe also points out to the seemingly inappropriate themes, e.g. death, mourning, madness, moral corruption, as sources of beauty. His prime concern, both in poetry and in fiction writing, was the effect it played on readers. The effect, morally and socially useless (or is it?), amounts to rocketing the reader into a different, better, ideal world of timeless beauty. Drama. The first decades of the 19th century saw a great rise in popularity and productivity of American dramatists, but the quality of plays was not very high and most are forgotten today. Plays would either emulate the success of romances (historical and adventure), or concentrate on stereotypical, funny and popular characters, most importantly the Yankee, the Western pioneer, and

the racial stereotypes of the Black and the Indian. Many theatre performances would include English plays, e.g. popular versions of Shakespeares works. Among notable dramatists of that day, there are G e o r g e W a s h i n g t o n P a r k e C u s t i s (1781-1857), G e o r g e H e n r y B o k e r (1823-1890), R o b e r t M o n t g o m e r y B i r d (the novelist mentioned above), and J o h n A u g u s t u s S t o n e (1801-1834) Bokers most important play, Francesca da Rimini (1853) uses, like historical romance, an exotic setting and very intensive characters. It is a verse play based on an episode from Dantes Divine Comedy. Custis's plays include The Indian Prophecy: or, Visions of Glory (1827), and Pocahontas: or, the Settlers of Virginia (1830). The Indian Prophecy is a patriotic play based on events of the War of American Independence, whereas Pocahontas is a legendary development of the well known episode of colonial history. Robert Montgomery Bird, better known as a novelist, was the author of several plays, including The Gladiator (1831), which he wrote for Edwin Forrest, a famous New York actor, who also played in Stone's Metamora: or, the Last of the Wampanoags, (1829) a successful sensational tragedy with an Indian chief character based on Metacomet (King Philip). SOME MISSING NAMES AND WORKS John Pendleton Kennedy Richard Henry Dana Timothy Flint Francis Parkman William Hickling Prescott Dorothea Dix Caroline Kirkland Davy Crockett William Lloyd Garrison Horace Greeley Rufus Wilmot Griswold Coopers other novels Poes other prose works Noah Webster