History of American Literature - LightNovelsOnl.com
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No other literature has so forcibly expressed such an inspiring belief in individuality, the aim to have each human being realize that this plastic world expects to find in him an individual hero. Emerson emphasized "the new importance given to the single person." No philosophy of individuality could be more explicit than Walt Whitman's:--
"The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual,--namely to You."
This emphasis on individuality is an added incentive to try "to yield that particular fruit which each was created to bear." We feel that the universe is our property and that we shall not stop until we have a clear t.i.tle to that part which we desire. As we study this literature, the moral greatness of the race seems to course afresh through our veins, and our individual strength becomes the strength of ten.
No other nation could have sung America's song of democracy:--
"Stuff'd with the stuff that is coa.r.s.e and stuff'd with the stuff that is fine."
The East and the West have vied in singing the song of a new social democracy, in holding up as an ideal a
"... love that lives On the errors it forgives,"
in teaching each mother to sing to her child:--
"Thou art one with the world--though I love thee the best, And to save thee from pain, I must save all the rest.
Thou wilt weep; and thy mother must dry The tears of the world, lest her darling should cry."
True poets, like the great physicians, minister to life by awakening faith.
The singers of New England have made us feel that the Divine Presence stands behind the darkest shadow, that the feeble hands groping blindly in the darkness will touch G.o.d's strengthening right hand. Amid the snows of his Northland, Whittier wrote:--
"I know not where his islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond his love and care."
Lanier calls from the southern marshes, fringed with the live oaks "and woven shades of the vine":--
"I will fly in the greatness of G.o.d as the marsh-hen flies In the freedom that fills all the s.p.a.ce 'twixt the marsh and the skies: By so many roots as the marsh-gra.s.s sends in the sod I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of G.o.d."
The impressive moral lesson taught by American literature is a presence not to be put by. Lowell's utterance is typical of our greatest authors:--
"Not failure, but low aim, is crime."
Hawthorne wrote his great masterpiece to express this central truth:--
"To the untrue man, the whole universe is false,--it is impalpable,-- it shrinks to nothing within his grasp."
Finally, American literature has striven to impress the truth voiced in these lines:--
"As children of the Infinite Soul Our Birthright is the boundless whole....
"High truths which have not yet been dreamed, Realities of all that seemed....
"No fate can rob the earnest soul Of his great Birthright in the boundless whole!"
SUPPLEMENTARY LIST OF AUTHORS AND THEIR CHIEF WORKS
[Footnote: For a complete record of the work of contemporary authors, consult _Who's Who in America_.]
EASTERN AUTHORS
ABBOTT, JACOB (1803-1879), b. Hallowell, Maine. One of America's most voluminous writers on all cla.s.ses of popular subjects. He wrote one hundred and eighty volumes and aided in the preparation of thirty-one more.
_Ill.u.s.trated Histories_, _The Rollo Books_.
ADAMS, HENRY (1838- ), b. Boston, Ma.s.s. Historian. _History of the United States_ from 1801 to 1817, that is, under Jefferson's and Madison's administrations. 9 vols. Excellent for this important period.
ALCOTT, LOUISA MAY (1832-1888), b. Germantown, Pa. Daughter of Amos Bronson Alcott. Writer of wholesome, humorous, and interesting stories for young people. _Little Women_, _An Old-Fas.h.i.+oned Girl_, _Eight Cousins_, _Rose in Bloom_.
ALLSTON, WAs.h.i.+NGTON (1779-1843), b. Waccamaw, S. C. Moved to New England and graduated at Harvard in 1800. Artist; early poet of Wordsworthian school. _The Sylphs of the Seasons, and Other Poems_.
AMES, FISHER (1758-1808), b. Dedham, Ma.s.s. Orator, statesman. Best speech, _On the British Treaty_ (1796).
AUSTIN, JANE G. (1831-1894), b. Worcester, Ma.s.s. Novelist of early colonial New England. _Standish of Standish_, _Betty Alden_, _Dr. Le Baron and his Daughters_, _A Nameless n.o.bleman_, _David Alden's Daughter, and Other Stories of Colonial Times_.
BACh.e.l.lER, IRVING (1859- ), b. Pierrepont, N. Y. Novelist. _Eben Holden_, _D'ri and I_, _Darrel of the Blessed Isles_.
BANCROFT, GEORGE (1800-1891), b. Worcester, Ma.s.s. Historian, diplomatist.
_History of the United States, from the Discovery of the Continent to the Establishment of the Const.i.tution in 1789_, 6 vols. _History of the Formation of the Const.i.tution of the United States_, 2 vols. Covers the period to the inauguration of Was.h.i.+ngton. The volumes on the Revolutionary War and the formation of the Const.i.tution are the best part of the work.
While Bancroft's improved methods of research among original authorities almost ent.i.tle him to be called the founder of the new American school of historical writing, yet the best critics do not to-day consider his work scientific. They regard it more as an apotheosis of democracy, written by a man who loved truth intensely, who s.h.i.+rked no drudgery in original investigations, but who shows the strong bias of the days of Andrew Jackson in the tendency to believe that what democracy does is almost necessarily right.
BANGS, JOHN KENDRICK (1862- ), b. Yonkers, N. Y. Humorist. _House-Boat on the Styx_, _The Idiot at Home_, _A Rebellious Heroine._
BARR, AMELIA E. (1831- ), b. Ulverston, Lancas.h.i.+re, Eng. Anglo-American novelist. _A Bow of Orange Ribbon_, _Jan Vedder's Wife_, _A Daughter of Fife_, and _Between Two Loves_.
BATES, ARLO (1850- ), b. East Machias, Me. Educator, author. _Under the Beech Tree_ (poems), _Talks on the Study of Literature_.
BEDOTT, WIDOW. See WHITCHER, FRANCES.
BEECHER, HENRY WARD (1813-1887), b. Litchfield, Conn. Congregational clergyman, widely popular as a preacher and lecturer. Delivered noted anti-slavery lectures in England. Some of his published works are _Eyes and Ears_, _Life Thoughts_, _Star Papers_, _Yale Lectures on Preaching_.
"BILLINGS, JOSH." See SHAW, HENRY WHEELER.
BOKER, GEO. H. (1823-1890), b. Philadelphia, Pa. Dramatist, poet, diplomat.
_Francesca da Rimini_, _Dirge for a Soldier_.
"BREITMANN, HANS." See LELAND, CHARLES G.o.dFREY.
BROOKS, PHILLIPS (1835-1893), b. Boston, Ma.s.s. Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Ma.s.sachusetts. One of the foremost preachers of his day. Wrote many works on religious subjects, also _Essays and Addresses_, _Letters of Travel._
BROWN, ALICE (1857- ), b. Hampton Falls, N. H. Novelist, _The Story of Thyrza, John Winterburn's Family, Country Neighbors, Tiverton Tales, The Mannerings._
BROWNE, CHARLES F. ("Artemus Ward") (1834-1867), b. Waterford, Maine.
Newspaper writer and lecturer. Famous humorist of the middle of the nineteenth century. _Artemus Ward: His Book_, _Artemus Ward: His Travels_, _Artemus Ward in London._
BROWNSON, ORESTES A. (1803-1876), b. Stockbridge, Vt. Clergyman, journalist, Christian socialist. Brownson's _Quarterly Review_ (1844-1875), _New Views of Christianity, Society, and the Church._
