American Literature 1820 1865 Historical Context America emerges

American Literature 1820 -1865

Historical Context • America emerges on the world scene – Treaty at Yorktown 1781 – Constitution ratified 1787 – Washington elected president 1789 • Fragile national identity – – – Continued Indian skirmishes Shay’s Rebellion 1787 Whiskey Rebellion 1794 Alien and Sedition Act 1798 France and reciprocity • Lack of National Literary Identity – "In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? Or goes to an American play? Or looks at an American picture or statue? " – Sidney Smith, Edinburgh Review

An Intimate Literary Community • A smaller country – “Northwestern” = Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin; “Southwestern” = Louisiana – Improvements in transportation 18201840 – Most authors read today lived entirely within the original colonies – Few publishing centers, mostly located on the Atlantic seaboard – Literary activity focused within “major” cities (New York, Philadelphia, Boston)

• A smaller literary world – Abundant family connections between major writers – Proliferation of literary societies • Bread and Cheese Club (Manhattan, 1824) – F: Cooper; Att: Bryant, F. B. Morse, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Thomas Cole • Transcendental Club (Boston, 1836 -1840) – F: Emerson; Att: Bronson Alcott, Margaret Fuller, George Ripley • Saturday Club (Boston, 1856) – Att: Emerson, James Russell Lowell, Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, John Motley, William Prescott (Hawthorne) • Authors Club (New York, 1882)

Economics of American Publishing • National Copyright Law established 1790; legal protection not effective until 1891 – Little protection for writers leads to • bootlegging • loss of British market in 1849 • de facto copyrights ruled illegal • Self-publishing – Whitman, Thoreau • The Author’s dilemma: Sell out or sell nothing?

Literature or Propaganda? • Rhetorical strategy: link literary destiny to geo -political destiny – “The great nation of futurity must have a literature to match Niagara Falls and the Rocky Mountains. ” • Critics (generally) called for settings in the distant national past • Authors (generally) saw American grandeur in the present “Yet America is a poem in our eyes…and it will wait long for metres. ” -- Emerson not

Key Publishing Dates • • • • The Sketch Book – Irving, 1819 The Spy – Cooper, 1821 Tamerlane and Other Poems – Poe, 1827 Nature – Emerson, 1836 Twice-Told Tales – Hawthorne, 1837 Essays: First Series – Emerson, 1841 Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass – 1845 Civil Disobedience – Thoreau, 1849 The Scarlet Letter – Hawthorne, 1850 Moby Dick – Melville 1851 Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Stowe, 1852 Walden – Thoreau, 1854 Leaves of Grass – Whitman, 1855 Hiawatha – Longfellow, 1855 The Celebrated Jumping Frog – Twain, 1865 Drum Taps – Whitman, 1865

Preachers without Pulpits • Conformity, Materialism, & the Economy – Most writers saw American “self-reliance” as a sham – “Things are in the saddle and ride mankind” Emerson – Thoreau: creating “artificial wants” (Franklinesque) • Sex and Sexual Roles – Whitman • Healthy body-soul relation • Equality between the sexes • Suffering over repressed homoeroticism (privately recorded) – Dickinson • Critic of female sacrifices within marriage • Unclear sexual orientation

• Nature – 19 th Century was a time of environmental waste – Thoreau, Emerson, and others advocated for communion with nature • …not necessarily preservation of all natural areas • Criticized “rest-day strollers” – No general consensus on character of nature • Orthodox Religion – Rejection of organized Christianity; emphasis on personal experience – Common orthodox bias against most authors The churches are one vast lie; the people do not believe them and they do not believe themselves. – Whitman

• Immigration / Xenophobia – Anti-Catholic sentiment • • Riots in Boston (1834) and Philadelphia (1844) Frequent pamphleteering – Increased immigration from Southeastern Europe – Literary community reactions 1. “…if they can get here, they have God’s right to come” (Melville) 2. Romantic longing for the homogeneous past • Politics – Moral Paradox: American Idealism vs…. • • Genocide of American Indians Black slavery The “Executive’s War” against Mexico John Brown & Harper’s Ferry (1859)

• The Civil War – Turning point in literary history • Irving, Cooper, and Poe deceased before; Thoreau and Hawthorne after • Resurgence of folktale and humor; emergence of realism and regionalism – Detachment of Northern writers • Exception: Whitman and the wounded – Literature inspired by Civil War • First Time Under Fire – De. Forest, 1864 • Drum Taps – Whitman, 1865 • Battle Pieces – Melville, 1866 • The Literary Spirit of the Age …it is better to fail in originality, than to succeed in imitation. -- Melville Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem… -- Whitman

Transcendentalism • Roots and Influences – German Idealism, European Romanticism, Vedic Literature, Pantheism • Characteristics – – Piety in relationship with nature Rebellion againstitutions, esp. religion Personal religious experience Connection with “Over-Soul” / inherent human divinity – Originality of thought / intellectual self-reliance – Intuition will reveal truth

Romanticism • Characteristics – Knowledge gained through intuition • Experience of strong emotion, esp. sorrow and horror • Folk custom and tradition • Reflection on/connection with nature – – Reverence for past civilizations, esp. medieval Imagination as critical authority Emotion creates aesthetic experience Humanity is innocent, corrupted by society (Rousseau’s noble savage) – Gothic undercurrent – Nationalism