Lecture Three American Literature
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American Romanticism. The First Harvest: Washington Irving; James Fenimore.
Cooper
1. Theoretical Assumptions
Richard Chase- The American Novel and Its Tradition (1957): the main issues in
understanding American fiction is linked to the understanding of the difference between
the novel- a long-established European genre- and the romance- a new form of fiction
that flourished in 19th c. America.
The difference between them: the way they look at reality:
the novel: takes a closer look at it, it is comprehensive in intention and moral in
purpose, foregrounding strong characters against a vast social background.
the romance: proposes a poetic, imaginative representation of reality; it renders it in
less details, it focuses less on character than on plot which may sometimes be highly
exciting and not strictly bound by the laws of logic.
It favours mythical, allegorical or symbolic elements; it allows imaginative freedom and
shows a tendency to melodrama and formal abstractness, as well as an inclination to
plunge into the depth of human consciousness.
The romance does not intend to create real people; it favours types over
characters and is more interested into individuality than in personality.
Northrop Frye (The Anatomy of Criticism )- places romance halfway between
myth and naturalism by showing how the divine or mythical protagonists are displaced
- in romance- by real protagonists: In romance, the suspension of natural law and the
individualizing of the heros exploits reduce nature largely to the animal and vegetal
worldThe heros death or isolation thus has the effect of a spirit passing out of nature
and evokes a mode best described as elegiac.
The first generation of American novelists: W. Irving; J. F. Cooper, E. A. Poe; H.
Melville; N. Hawthorne- rediscovered the European mediaeval romance and turned it into
the most important form of American fiction.
The fact that romance flourished in America can be explained by the very
distinctive features of the American context:
- the immensity of the country foregrounded the concept of distance and the idea of the
open frontier.
- the mobility of the social individual is illustrated in literature by figures of lonely
wanderers or alienated explorers who seek refuge in strange, large open spaces, away
from civilization and from the love of women.
- The vastness of the American landscape had also a psychological impact: beyond the
optimism, the scenery also induced feelings of anguish, apprehension and pain in the
hero who felt himself lonely and enstranged in his own country.
This latter attitude was to be materialized in yet another type of writing that had been
transplanted from Europe: the gothic story.
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The pioneer of the genre is Americas first novelist Charles Brockden Brown (1771-
1810); Wieland; Ormond, but the gothic is a part of the fiction of much greater writers
such as Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Faulkner or Flannery OConnor.
The adoption of the gothic story of horror and mystery can be psychologically explained
by the feeling of guilt that afflicted the American white consciousness- a guilt resulting
from the formative sins of the nation (Ihab Hassan):
- the slaughter of Indians
- the slave trade
- the abuse of the land
- the evil and corruption in society
Yet, the American gothic novel differs essentially from its European counterpart:
- in the Old World the gothic had been used to deal with the past or with history, of
which young America had very little.
- The setting, too, was different: there were no castles, mansions or dungeons.
Consequently, in America, the evil resides not in society, but in nature: the forest, the sea,
or the ocean.
The American novel of terror is, ultimately, a commentary on the natural human
corruption.
2. Washington Irving (1783 - 1859)
His life spans all of Americas history and culture from the Revolution (1776) to the Civil
War (1861-1865).
Celebrated both at home and abroad as the Dean of American Letters, he was in
Thackerays words: the first Ambassador whom the New World of letters sent to the
old.
born in NY, as the son of a Scottish merchant; studied law but took an early interest in
writing and travelling. His acquaintance with the frontier of upper New York State
and eastern Canada-provided him with a great deal of folklore and traditions, esp. the
Dutch and British cultural traditions.
First literary venture - Salmagundi (1807 )- a collection of 20 pamphlets, written
together with his brother and another friend. The volume:
-a mixture of social criticism, literary reviews and lampoons of the latest
trends in politics and theatre.
-contains a certain degree of self parody.
His reputation made with A History of New York. By Diedrich Knickerbocker (1909)
The 8 book work is a comic history of the city, written in a parodical manner.
-it provides a satirical view of New Yorks Dutch colonial history.
-it contains some acid portraits of current political and literary figures, including Th.
Jefferson' s view of democracy.
Irvings sensibility is half-romantic, while his style is neo-classical; the central
issue is that of the absence of a native cultural tradition.
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His second phase started in 1815-the beginning of a 17 year residence in England and
Europe. The world of the English romantics- a suitable context for his own temperament
and inclinations. Encouraged by W. Scott, he discovered the literary potential of the
English countryside, as expressed in the works of the romantic poets, and decided to
adapt Europes rich cultural heritage to the American setting.The result- 3 volumes of
essays, sketches and stories:
- 1822- Bracebridge Hall- an account of life in pre-industrial England
- 1824- Tales of a Traveller- an unsuccessful mixture of German and American
folklore.
His fame, ensured by the first book: The Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gentl. (1819), a
collection of gracefully written essays that focus:
* on one hand, on the traditions of English life: The Christmas Dinner; A Sunday in
London; Westminster Abbey.
* on the other, it includes 6 chapters on the American scene (Traits of Indian
Character) and, most importantly, 2 Americanized versions of European (German)
folktales: Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow.
In a truly romantic fashion, Irving balanced his imagination between Europe and America
- a Europe that represents the past, the myth, the poetic
- an America that stands for the future potential and the political.
But he looks at reality poetically rather than politically, as he was searching for a
legendary past.
Rip Van Winkle
It is Americas first folk-tale: the story of the simple, good-natured fellow, RVW, an
obedient, hen-pecked husband who can trace his ancestry to the days of Peter
Stuyvesant, the 1st governor of New York.
One day, he meets the ghosts of Henry Hudsons sailors, joins them in their
drinking and then sleeps for 20 years in the Catskills Mountains in Upper New York
State.
When he returns to his village, he realizes he has slept during the Revolution.
He finds the place a perfect Babylon jargon and his old world turned upside
down. The very character of the people seems changed. There was a busy, bustling,
quarelling tone instead of the old drowsy tranquility.
Rip now becomes a legend-maker, telling stories of the world before the war and
thus translating history into myth.
The story is set in a timeless European past of America, the Dutch-American village of
the Hudson River Valley.
The setting expresses the American writers need to create a world elsewhere
(Richard Poirier), a realm of imagination. Later, American writers would follow Irvings
pattern:
- N. Hawthorne- a colonial Salem
- H. Melville- the immensity of the ocean
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- M. Twain- the majestic Mississippi
- W. Faulkner- Yoknapatawpha County.
In 1832, Irving, like Rip, returns to America, to a land of mobility, change and turmoil.
His later books, the so-called westerns are minor achievements and they deal with the
native landscape of the frontier:
- 1835- A Tour of the Prairies
- 1836- Astoria- an account of John Jacob Astors fur-trading empire.
- 1837- The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A
The first shows the difficulty of finding a suitable language to describe the western
frontier and the prairies.
The imagination is still romantic: the Indians become Arabs or Gypsies; the
mountains are European Gothic cathedrals.
3. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851)
Born in Burlington, New Jersey, as the son of a wealthy merchant and landowner.
The first American novelist
- to create an extensive body of work
- to define native themes, settings and characters.
He launched several distinct genres in American fiction: the novel of manners, the sea
novel, the novel of the frontier.
* The novel of manners-represented by Coopers earliest books:
- 1820- Precaution- influenced by Jane Austen
- 1821- The Spy-illustrates his belief that American history could be a suitable topic for
fiction.
The background is the American Revolution, the setting, the British-occupied city
of New York. The British and American characters are presented in a neutral manner, yet
his sympathy is for the Americans.
* The sea-novel is illustrated by The Pilot (1823), the 1st of Coopers 11 novels of the sea.
Shipboard life is seen as a metaphor for human fate, as embodied by the
memorable character of Long Tom Coffin: a fictional precedent for Melville and Conrad.
Coopers stories exploit the rather limited American experience, trying to define a certain
life-style on the new continent, and extract a few significant ideas out of the historical
events.
* His strength: the historical romance, i.e., stories of the Indian warfare. His celebrated
hero Natty Bamppo, one of the first American archetypal characters. He is the American
Adam, a son of nature, not corrupt by civilization. His initiation into the ways of the
world -the underlying theme of his best fiction.
As a prototypical American hero, Natty Bumpo is an antecedent of Twains Huck Finn,
Melvilles Ishmael, or Faulkners Ike Mc Caslin.
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The Pioneers (1823); the 1st in a series of 5 novels, later to be called the Leather
Stocking Tales: 1826: The Last of the Mohicans
1827: The Prairie
1840: The Pathfinder
1841: The Deerslayer
The novels, which do not follow the characters life chronologically, derive their
collective title from the heros nickname, i.e., his habit of wearing deerskin leggings .
They trace the life, adventures and death of Natty Bumppo and his Indian
companions, especially the Indian chief, Chingachgook.
The protagonist is a simple, illiterate white who is a friend of the Indians and
whose life for the wilderness and dislike of civilization remain consistent throughout the
five novels. His temperament is polarized between the white civilization and the
wilderness. As Cooper explained in his Preface to the series, the hero was a fit subject to
represent the better qualities of both conditions, without pushing either to the extreme.
The most serious objection to Coopers method regards the way he portrays the Indians.
They are shown in a poor light, pictured either as savages or as noble characters, but
totally lacking the ability to conduct their affairs.
On the other hand, the whites only are the dynamic agents of the plot; they exhibit
cruelty, abuse the landscape, provoke wars and intrude upon the Indians hunting
grounds.
Coopers shortcomings later sanctioned by M. Twain (Fenimore Coopers
Literary Offences): awkward dialogues, implausible characters, conventionality of
description and portraiture, esp. of women.
However, Cooper deals with his major theme- the victory of civilization over
wilderness- with a certain narrative power that emerges in a character of mythical
features: the proud, lonely man living on the fringe of society and believing in honesty
and justice. A brave, chivalrous man who will reject any emotional ties and wont let
himself be trapped by social conventions.
Cooper was called the American Walter Scott and, indeed, his books can be seen
as historical novels.
Scott had used the formula for a period when two cultures were in conflict: one
dying, the other being born. In such a novel, characters participate in actual historical
events and move among historical figures.
Cooper, like Scott, had a strong sense of the historical process and of the role
played by the individual in a history whose outcome he accepts as inevitable.
The natural setting is the frontier- that borderland between civilization and savagery- ,
seen by Cooper as a sort of new Arcadia.
He created the American pastoral mood, being one of the first to give literary form to
the vision of America as an earthly Paradise of infinite promise. He also managed a
reconciliation of the idealistic and the realistic, of pragmatism and romanticism- so
characteristic of all American fiction.
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