The American Spirit in Literature | Page 5

unconscious selection as this has been at work in the
classification of our representative men. The building of the nation and
the literary expression of its purpose and ideals are tasks which have
called forth the strength of a great variety of individuals. Some of these
men have proved to be peculiarly fitted for a specific service,
irrespective of the question of their general intellectual powers, or their
rank as judged by the standard of European performance in the same

field. Thus the battle of New Orleans, in European eyes a mere bit of
frontier fighting, made Andrew Jackson a "hero" as indubitably as if he
had defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. It gave him the Presidency.
The analogy holds in literature. Certain expressions of American
sentiment or conviction have served to summarize or to clarify the
spirit of the nation. The authors of these productions have frequently
won the recognition and affection of their contemporaries by means of
prose and verse quite unsuited to sustain the test of severe critical
standards. Neither Longfellow's "Excelsior" nor Poe's "Bells" nor
Whittier's "Maud Muller" is among the best poems of the three writers
in question, yet there was something in each of these productions which
caught the fancy of a whole American generation. It expressed one
phase of the national mind in a given historical period.
The historian of literature is bound to take account of this question of
literary vogue, as it is highly significant of the temper of successive
generations in any country. But it is of peculiar interest to the student of
the literature produced in the United States. Is this literature
"American," or is it "English literature in America," as Professor
Wendell and other scholars have preferred to call it? I should be one of
the last to minimize the enormous influence of England upon the mind
and the writing of all the English-speaking countries of the globe. Yet it
will be one of the purposes of the present book to indicate the existence
here, even in colonial times, of a point of view differing from that of
the mother country, and destined to differ increasingly with the lapse of
time. Since the formation of our Federal Union, in particular, the books
produced in the United States have tended to exhibit certain
characteristics which differentiate them from the books produced in
other English speaking countries. We must beware, of course, of what
the late Charles Francis Adams once called the "filiopietistic" fallacy.
The "American" qualities of our literature must be judged in connection
with its conformity to universal standards of excellence. Tested by any
universal standard, "The Scarlet Letter" is a notable romance. It has
won a secure place among the literature written by men of English
blood and speech. Yet to overlook the peculiarly local or provincial
characteristics of this remarkable story is to miss the secret of its
inspiration. It could have been written only by a New Englander, in the
atmosphere of a certain epoch.

Our task, then, in this rapid review of the chief interpreters of the
American spirit in literature, is a twofold one. We are primarily
concerned with a procession of men, each of whom is interesting as an
individual and as a writer. But we cannot watch the individuals long
without perceiving the general direction of their march, the ideas that
animate them, the common hopes and loyalties that make up the life of
their spirit. To become aware of these general tendencies is to
understand the "American" note in our national writing.
Our historians have taught us that the history of the United States is an
evolution towards political unity. The separatist, particularist
movements are gradually thrust to one side. In literary history, likewise,
we best remember those authors who fall into line with what we now
perceive to have been the course of our literary development. The
erratic men and women, the "sports" of the great experiment, are
ultimately neglected by the critics, unless, like the leaders of political
insurrections, those writing men and women have raised a notable
standard of revolt. No doubt the apparently unique literary specimens,
if clearly understood in their origins and surroundings, would be found
rooted in the general laws of literary evolution. But these laws are not
easy to codify and we must avoid the temptation to discover, in any
particular period, more of unity than there actually was. And we must
always remember that there will be beautiful prose and verse unrelated
to the main national tendencies save as "the literature of escape." We
owe this lesson to the genius of Edgar Allan Poe.
Let us test these principles by applying them to the earliest colonists.
The first book written on the soil of what is now the United States was
Captain John Smith's "True