History of Literature in America From the Beginnings to 1860
... are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell.” It is said, that during the Great Awakening, that people would get into conversations so emotional that it would result in mass hysteria. Edwards was one of these people. Yet, he was also one of science and reason. It was almost like he was stuck between the old Puritan beliefs, and the beliefs of the new age of Rationalism. Rationalism was the beginning of the Age of Reason. Rationalism was the belief that only through reason can one find truth. Instead of seeing God as a God who was actively involved in the universe as the Puritans did, Rationalists believed that God was more of clockmaker, as Sir Isaac Newton put it. They believed that God had perfectly made the universe, and then sit back to watch it develop on it’s own. They also had something called deism, which was the belief that God had made it possible for all people to find both spiritual and scientific truths all the time, through the gift of their own reason. They believed that God had gave man this gift of reason in order to accomplish whatever had to be done, and that man can do anything with this gift. Deists believed that God’s objective was the happiness of his creations. Therefore, the best form of worship was one of service to others. With this skill to think in a logical and orderly manner, every individual can find both spiritual and scientific truth and try to improve their own life. Although technically rationalism started in Europe, the real age of Age of Reason really started in the American Colonies. The Americans had nothing to base anything on, they were starting a whole new life, they had to achieve results with what they had, and they had to make improvements in order to thrive in a new world. For example, one such rationalist was a man named Cotton Mather. He was another Puritan minister that was scientific and was interested in medicine. When the smallpox epidemic swept across the American Colonies, Mather struggled for the cure. He discovered inoculation (taking a vaccine as a precaution against contracting a disease) created by a Turkish physician. This cure turned out to be the most effective and saved 12% more people in the long run. His experiment shows that a more scientific world was due in America. Even though the “scientists” in America basically had no tools to use, they just needed to be innovative and be willing to try things out. Another good example of a deist is Benjamin Franklin. He published his own autobiography: The Autobiography (how ironic). This novel turned out to be one of the time old stories of the self-made man. Franklin actually wrote in a Puritan style but without the religious justification. He wrote of his accounts of coming from a humble home, and working to build himself up and make something of himself. As we all know, he achieved greatness. Within his book, he showed his rationalism by using his logic to find 13 virtues he desired to obtain, and developed a plan of action. This really developed the American idea of the rags-to-riches story and was an insight for many. American Romanticism 1800-1860 American Romanticism was a movement that although originated in Europe, it had a strong influence on the American people. It basically was a movement to counter that of the Rationalists. With all the disastrous working conditions of the cities, in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, people realized the confines of rationalism. Romanticism was the belief that imagination was better than reason. The romanticists principles included ones of communing with nature and observing it in order to find truth, a focus on the expression of emotion and imagination, and the rebellion of social rules. Poetry showed to be the most desired form of literature for romantics. One good example of a romanticist was Washington Irving. Irving didn’t write poems but he was an outstanding writer that mainly wrote shorts stories. He was eventually know as the father of the short story. He was very clever in inventing funny narrators for his stories. One such narrator was that of Diedrich Knickerbocker. Irving (with the help of Knickerbocker) wrote a book called The Sketch Book. Two short stories within this book stood out and made history: Rip Van Winkle, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Both of these stories show romanticism. In Rip Van Winkle, Irving develops a very lazy character, very kind, but a very set back, always getting in trouble with the missus, type. His name is Rip Van Winkle (oddly enough). Winkle finds himself with a bunch of guys bowling in the woods one day. He doesn’t know who they are, but he bowls with them, and drinks their wine. He then falls asleep and wakes to find many changes. He comes to find out that he has slept for 20 years, and has missed the American Revolution. The amazing comes to pass and he gets to lead the lazy life he’s always wanted to lead and lives the remainder of his days with his daughter. This story shows the ideas of Romanticism, about wanting to just get away from it all. To just do what you please and not have to worry about the complexities of life. Rip Van Winkle didn’t have to mess with his bothering wife, or even the Revolution. It also shows Irving’s use of imagination, and altogether was a very popular story. This story was a big step for the American side. It further defined the American writer. Another fantastic story that Washington Irving wrote was called The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. This story was basically an American legend that Irving created. The story takes place in a town called Sleepy Hollow (in America), where coincidently there is also a headless horseman ghost that haunts the place. In Sleepy Hollow, there were two men after the same rich girl. One was Ichabod Crane, a tall gangly schoolteacher, the main character of the story. As the story develops, Crane and his contester get into more competition. Then at the climax of the story, Crane is chased down by the Headless Horseman and is never seen again. This story almost has the same kind of story to tell as Rip Van Winkle. That you should just get away from it all. As Ichabod may have done. If your life gets complicated then you can just get away from it all and it will get better. It was an outstanding piece that was a big bragger for Americans. It was one of the first “legends” for the American people. As it has been said before, a big piece of the literature of the Romanticist era was of poetry. Many poets rose up at this time and created original American pieces. One such poet was William Cullen Bryant. In his life, Bryant was immensely popular. He was writing poems even from a young age. With the publication of one of his greatest pieces: Thatnatopsis, his road as a poet was chose for him. The title of the poem was taken from two Greek words: thanatos which means death, and opsis which means seeing. In essence, the title means “seeing death.” His poem is all about communing with nature. He basically says in his poem to not fear death. He shows how he sees death as a celebration rather than a loss. He says that when you die, your body becomes one with the ground and so therefore you become one with nature when you die. You join with the great kings and rulers of the past, and become one with “Mother Nature.” This poem is really deep and really shows the ideas of romanticism. It was all about being one with nature and learning it’s lessons. Another great writer of the Romanticist period was Derek Walcott. He wrote the poem: Sea Canes. Walcott almost had the same idea as Bryant. It was that nature keeps those that pass on. Walcott was basically saying that if we miss those that are now gone, we can look to nature and we can find them there. He focuses on sea canes to his lost ones in this poem, which was probably just his inspiration that day. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a poet that wrote romanticist poems as well. He actually turned out to be one of the most popular American poets next to Robert Frost. He wrote to the audience’s appeal for sermons and lessons which made him have popularity. He wrote the poem The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls, which was a short, but a very romanticist type poem. It just tells about a traveler visiting the sea side. It gives the lesson that you can find truth in nature, within all aspects. Some of the things he mentions are the ocean waves, and the sea foam, the horses, and so forth. I don’t know what the traveler learned but it must have been important. Longfellow also wrote the poem The Cross of Snow. It’s just in memory of his late wife who apparently he had waited seven years before she agreed to marry him. He actually didn’t give this poem to the public, he saved it for himself. The poem actually mentions his wife, and how she was, and then refers to a mountain that has a cross of snow on it. He also refers to death being related to nature. He relates this cross to the one he wears in memory of his wife. Yet another poet, John Greenleaf Whittier was a very influential man in his time. He was a Quaker and had no formal education. When the editor of the local newspaper published one of his poems, he was inspired to help Whittier out. This editor was William Lloyd Garrison, a very strong and influential abolitionist. With Garrison’s help, Whittier got more education, got involved in editing, and got involved in the antislavery movement. He published things, and was elected on The Massachusetts state legislature. After the Civil War, he became an accomplished poet and lived quite comfortably the rest of his days. One of the first poems that made him popular was called Snow-Bound: A Winter Idyll. It was a very long and detailed poem that told the story of boys fascinated by the enchantment of winter. In his poem, Whittier wrote: “…We minded that the sharpest ear The buried brooklet could not hear, The music of whose liquid lip Had been to us companionship, And, in our lonely life, had grown To have an almost human tone.” This part of the poem shows that nature had almost a human voice. That it could teach you things if you really listened carefully. Oliver Wendell Holmes was a witty poet that was a physician on the side. He was a good one, too. He received the a medical degree from Harvard. He didn’t see it weird to combine poetry and science. He compared the rhythm in poetry to the beating of a heart. When the United States government was going to destroy the famous USS Constitution, Holmes wrote Old Ironsides. This poem really told the story of the epic old ship. The legendary ship that holds secrets and adventures. The pride that people had in that ship. It led to way to the preservation of the USS Constitution, and much of the public’s agreement. Another great poem that he wrote was The Chambered Nautilus. Within this poem, Holmes compared the nautilus, or the delicate spiraling shell of one, really, to life. The nautilus shell is made up of many chambers, each one bigger than the rest. He compared this to life and how when you build and make your life your own, you forget the mistakes, or maybe the bad beginnings of before. It doesn’t matter what happened in the past, it only matters what you have accomplished and how you use that in life. All the poets of this time came to be called “fireside poets” because their poems came to be read at firesides and for family enjoyment. They were also known as “Schoolroom Poets” because their predictable rhythms were often memorized and recited in American classrooms. As shown above, the poems of these poets were often on easy to relate to subjects. They were also a lot of the time very American subjects such as the American frontier, the issues in America such as slavery, the Indian culture, and the American celebrations. However, they just weren’t entirely American. They still stuck to the traditional European styles and shapes. They truly needed to be completely original in order to create true American poetry. The American Renaissance 1840-1860 A Literary Coming of Age Renaissance means “rebirth” as it were. During this time, authors and poets argued that America would never get a voice of their own. They had always taken many of their ideas from Europe and prominently England. Two excellent writers of the time, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, who actually became friends, knew the American people would develop their own uniqueness. They pushed the American people to become more than their European fathers. This resulted in an explosion of the best of American literature. From 1849 to 1855, American writers wrote outstanding literature, and a lot of it. “Renaissance” refers to the European renaissance from about 1300 to 1600. What happened in America was really a “Coming of Age.” One of the movements of the renaissance period was one of transcendentalism. This was the idea of a simplistic life was better than a complicated one. It was an idea that dated back to ancient Greece. That was the idea of idealism. This was that the terrible dirty city life was horrible and that the simple country life was a much better one. That one needs to find an effortlessness life, in essence. It was also the belief in intuition. That one should learn immediately and spontaneously rather than through reason. One of the greatest of these kinds of writers was Ralph Waldo Emerson. Although he didn’t support the transcendentalism group, he was a big one himself. He believed in the “power of intuition,” which was the ability to learn without using the rational process, unlike the rationalists. One story that he wrote was called Nature. It was basically a statement that said to man to stop and observe nature than to simply live in it. He was complaining of all the people that never stop to look around, and never enjoy the beauty around them. He also said that even a sad person can find enjoyment in nature. He said to the reader, that they should go out and “feel” nature, and become one with it, and learn from it. Instead of analyzing it like past writers had encouraged. This was intuition. Another writer like Emerson was Henry David Thoreau. Although Thoreau was somewhat of a loser in his days, he was quite a good writer. He was a transcendentalist as well, and took this to the extreme. When he was twenty-six years old, he came back to his hometown and borrowed some land. On this land, next to Walden Pond, Thoreau did an experiment. He decided to go to the extreme of simplicity. He built his own house on the land he was using. He lived in it for over ...