History of American Literature

North. The result was a rural aristocracy of rich planters, many of them of the highest breeding and culture. A retinue of slaves attended to their work and relieved them from all manual la

movement which aroused New England was scarcely felt as far south as Virginia. The tide of commercial activity which swept over the East and sent men to explore the West did not aff

land. There was little town life to bring together all classes of men. Such life has always been found essential to literary

eded, they were less able to see how the step could be taken. As a Virginian statesman expressed it, they were holding a wolf by the ears, and it was as dangerous to let him go as to hold on. At the North, slavery was an abstract question of moral right or wrong, which i

mas Jefferson of Virginia wrote one of the most memorable political documents in the world, that James Madison, a Virginian President of the United States, aided in producing the Federalist papers (p. 71), that George Washington's Farewell Address (p. 100) deals with such vital matters as morality almost entirely from a political p

admission of free and slave states to the Union, the war with Mexico, the division of the new territory secured in that conflict, the right of a state to secede from the Union. Consequently, in ante bellum days, the brilliant young men of the South had, li

ften published their work anonymously. Richard Henry Wilde (1789-1847), a young lawyer, wrote verses that won Byron's praise, and yet did not acknowledge them unt

lovelier th

eir p

excelled

etest

ing like poetry; you might make yourself, with all your sense and judgment, a useful man in settling neighborho

ch families had private tutors, but the poor frequently went without any schooling. William Gilmore Simms (p. 306) says that he "learned little or nothing" a

ican literature was generally considered trashy or unimportant. So conservative was the South in its opinions, that individuality in literature was often considered an offense against good taste. This was prec

ew method of life had to be undertaken by a conservative people; when the uncertain position of the negro led to frequent trouble; when the unscrupulous politician, guided only by desire for personal gain, played on the ignorance of th

her sections of the country. Men are running mills as well as driving the plow. Small farms have often taken the place of the large plantation. A system of free public schools has been developed, and compulsory education for all has been demanded. Excellent higher institutions of learn

much of her innate love of aristocracy, loyalty to tradition, disinclination to be guided by merely practical aims, and aversion to rapid change. This condition is

and yet we shall find that he has won the admiration of a great part of the world for characteristics, many of which are too essentially southern to be possessed in the same degree by authors in other sections of the country. The poets o

pell which

hery ma

thmical

ll'd him

el that we can say to the South wha

ic shal

ic from

e and the flowers, and the strong contrasts of light and shade and color are ofte

light that w

scarlet-h

evening sta

ering ch

of dusk the

will!' of 'w

wein, Red Lea

re of the life distinctive of the various sections,-of the Creoles of Louisiana, of the mountaineers of Tennessee, of the blue grass r

LAN POE,

ion: EDGAR

, who were strolling actors, had come there to fill an engagement. His grandfather, Daniel Poe, a citizen of Baltimore, was a general in the Revolutio

ng the long sailing voyage across the ocean. He was placed for five years in the Manor School House, a boarding school, at Stoke Newington, a suburb of London. Here, he could walk by the very house in which Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe. But nothing could make up to Poe the loss of a mother a

ter the custom of undergraduates, between the recitation room, the punch bowl, the card-table, athletic sports, and pedestrianism." Although Poe does not seem to have been censured by the faculty, Mr. A

iving both an assumed name and age. He finally secured an appointment to West Point after he was slightly beyond the legal age of entrance. The cadets said in a joking way that Poe had secured the appointment for his son, bu

is power in writing prose tales. In 1833 his story, MS. Found in a Bottle, won a prize of one hundred dollars offered by a Baltimore paper. In 18

criticisms of books. In Baltimore he had tested his power of writing short stories, but in Richmond his work laid the foundation of his reputation as a literary critic. While here, he married his cousin, Virginia Clemm. Perhaps it was irregular habits th

OE'S COTTAGE, FO

is to-day famous. With the publication of his poem, The Raven, in New York in 1845, he reached the summit of his fame. In that year he wrote to a friend, "The Raven has had a great 'run'-but I wrote it for the express pu

to live even in the North without a salaried position, and conditions were worse in

ion: VIRGI

of food and warmth. The saddest scene in which any great American author figured was witnessed in that cottage in "the bleak December," when his wife, Virginia, lay

e end came to him in Baltimore in 1849, the same year in which he wrote the beautiful dirge of Annabel Lee for his dead wife. He was only fo

his end, he had w

of all

rture t

ted-the

re of

napthali

sion a

drank o

nches al

er and Ligeia, (2) of conscience, like William Wilson, that remarkable forerunner of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, (3) of pseudo-science, like A Descent into the Maelstrom, (4) of analysis or ratiocination, like The Gold Bug and that

ral beauty. He specially liked to invest an impossible story with scientific reality, and he employed Defoe's specific concrete method of mingling fact with fiction. With all the seriousness of a teacher of physics, Poe describes the lunar trip of one Hans Pfaall with his balloon, air-condenser, and cat. He tells how the old cat had difficulty in breathing at a vast altitude, while the kittens, born on the upward journey, and never used to a dense atmosphere, suffered little inconvenience from the rarefactio

usual, the terrible, or the supernatural. Some of these materials suggest Charles Brockden

its modern form. He banished the little essays, the moralizing, and the philosophizing, which his predecessors, and even his great contemporary, Hawthorne, had scattered through their short stories. Poe's aim in writing a short story was to secure by the shortest air-line passage the precise

ect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents,-he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbring

sher, should be read in connection with this criticism. His

ely low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country;

prematurely in a vault directly underneath the guest's room, the midnight winds blowing from every direction toward the House of Usher, the chance reading of a sentence from an old and

s from an opening in that ceiling. But we know when the dim light, purposely admitted from above, discloses the prisoner strapped immovably on his back, and reveals the giant pendulum, edged with the sharpest steel, slowly descending, its arc of vibration increasing as

on the one hand, with those written by Irving or Hawthorne, on the other, will show the

OUSE WHERE POE W

-fourth Stre

s a favorite article of his poetic creed that there could be no such creation as a long poem, that such a poem would in reality be a series of poems. He thought that each poem should caus

olely "the creation

all experience has shown that this tone is one of sadness. Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, i

Philosophy of

is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world." From the popularity of The Raven at home and abroad, in comparison

sorrow laden if, with

nted maiden whom the

iant maiden whom the

SIMILE OF FIRST ST

written for his wife, and it is the one great poe

the angels in

ons down un

ever my soul

utiful ANN

st of them make us feel the presence of the great Shadow. The following lines show

my days a

my night

thy dark e

thy footst

ethereal

eternal

To One in

quisite melody. His liquid notes soften the harshness of death. No matter what his

ia! L

autif

harshe

o melo

motional effects with his sad music. He wedded his songs of the death of beautiful women to the most wonderful melodies, which at times almost transcend the limits of language and pass into the realm of pure music. His v

im in both prose and poetry was to produce a pronounced effect by artistic means. His continued wide circulation shows that he was successful in his aim

who desire to make a vivid impression. Poe selected with great care the point which he wished to emphasize. He then discarded everything which did

for moral issues, except in so far as the immoral was ugly. Hawthorne appreciated beauty only as a true revelation of the inner life. Poe loved beauty and the melody of sound for t

analytic to overload his sentences with ornament, and too definite to be obscure. He had the s

ST OF POE IN UNIV

and polished them from year to year, until they stand unsurpassed in their restricted field. He received only ten dollars for The Raven while he was alive, but the ap

he realism of his touch and the romanticism of his thought. It is true that many foreign critics consider Poe America's greatest author. An eminent English critic says that Poe has surpassed all the rest of our writers in playing the part of

would have been vastly greater if he had joined high moral aim to his quest of beauty. He overemphasized the romantic elements of strangeness, sadness, and horror. He was deficient in humor and sentiment, and his guiding s

n author has ever known, the editions of Poe's works continue to increase. The circle of those who fall under his hypnotic charm, in which there is nothing base or unclean, is enlarged with the passing of the years.

LMORE SIMM

into the wilds of Mississippi. The boy was left behind to be reared by his grandmother, a poor but clever woman, who related to him tales of the Revolutionary War, through which she had lived. D

n: WILLIAM G

terary men in Charleston, of whom Hayne and Timrod were the most famous. The war, however, ruined Simms. His property and library were destroyed, and, though he continued to write, he never foun

as the Concord and Cambridge writers enjoyed. He found no publishers nearer than New York, to which city he personally had to carry his manuscripts for publication. Yet with all these handicaps, h

f the uprising of the Indians in Carolina. The midnight massacre, the fight at the blockhouse, and the blood-curdling description of the dishonoring of the Indian chief's son are told with infectious vigor and rapidity. The Partisan

ss, his best works fill a large place in southern literature and history. They tell in an interesting way the life of the border states, of southern crossroads towns, of colonial wars, and of Indian customs. What Cooper did for the No

IMROD,

tion: HEN

vil War were not propitious for a poor poet. As he was not strong enough to bear arms at the outbreak of hostilities, he went to the field as a war correspondent for a newspaper in Charleston and he became later an associate editor in Columbia. His printing office was demolished in Sherman's march to the sea, and at the close of the war Timrod was left in a desperate condition. He wa

ontaneous nature and love lyrics in the South. In this stanza to

heart of ever

od is a

look about the

dreamed o

of Poesy that the

into wine, And flush them throug

This description of the wide stretches of a white cotton

los

imson hills a

plains which ro

the Even

d

otest poin

aze upon no

ss field

ole landsc

shining l

accumula

ould flash benea

short and their volume slight, but a few of them, like Spring and The Lily Confidante, seem almost to have sung themsel

scarce wo

a beech'

ad, stepping fo

me! I

in his war poetry. No more ringing lines were written for the southern cause du

TON HAYNE,

on: PAUL HA

was the first editor of Russell's Magazine, an ambitious venture launched by the literary circle at the house of Simms. Hayne married happily, and had every prospect of a prosperous and brilliant career when the war broke out. He enlisted, but his health soon failed, and at the close of the war he found himself an invalid wi

rhyme, and, in general, a high level of artistic finish. He is a skilled craftsman, his ear is finely attuned to harmonious arrangements of sounds

ift withi

es make the

ees, the rif

rees, the t

once-of lov

harsher mea

eart's Arca

' discord i

d Phases, one of the finest of these, he tells h

, betwixt h

e in her fad

ng to our Fa

on her mys

cenes about his forest home: in the "fairy South W

ng rill That twinkles like

solit

he woodland's

ines, smit by

k on rank, lik

he Georgian hills, i

roat Wears for a gem th

mocking-b

es fill the e

ought bars they

ngs of the mo

are a tender love of nature, a profusion of fig

ANIER, 1

tion: SID

tic ability. He was born in Macon, Georgia, in 1842. He served in the Confederate army during the four years of the war, and was taken prisoner and exposed t

of first flute in the Peabody orchestra, and, by sheer force of genius, took up the most difficult scores and faultlessly led all the flutes. He read and studied, wrote and lectured like one who had suffered from mental starvation. In 1879 he received the appointment of lecturer on English literature at the Johns Hopkins University, a position which his friends had long wished to see him fi

their clear setting forth of his theory of versification and art. In his poetry he strives to embody the ideals proclaimed in his prose work, which are, first, to write nothing that is not moral a

ld be an inspiration for good to h

market is th

rice some litt

s, In Absence, Evening Song, and Laus Mariae. In The Symphony, which voices the social sorrow

Plato's brai

rt of a child c

e poem, he s

ve in search

or humanity, impassioned love of nature, an

Lanier's best verse is seen in t

aughed in th

North, a fi

are red and

es wave us gl

shall reap b

ong, and the

*

ith the sun an

king of the

he sun his tor

own through the

y scythe, rea

under the or

s one of Lanier's finest lyrical outbursts. The Song of the Chattahoochee is another of his great succes

pirit of the broad open marshes and to interpret their meaning to the heart of man, while the long, sweepi

d in the marsh and

soul seems

of fate and the sa

readth and the sweep of

beautiful, both in sub

ng faith in G

secretly builds

ld me a nest on th

reatness of God as

ls all the space 'twixt

as the marsh-gras

y me a-hold of the

of The Marshes of Glynn, and voices in some of the lines a veritable rhapsody of faith. Yet for sustained elevation of feeling and for unbroken music

clothe this ecstasy in language that will be a harmonious accompaniment to the thought. This striving after practically impossible effects sometimes gives

assionate exaltation. He is a nature poet. The color, the sunshine, the cornfields, the hills, and the marshes of the South are found in his work. But more than th

in The Marshes of Glynn. Few surpass him in the long, swinging, grave harmonies of his most highly inspired verse. In individual lines, in selected stanzas, Lanier h

RYAN, 1

tion: FAT

c priest who served as chaplain in the Confederate army, and though longing and waiting only for death in order to go to the land that held joy for hi

pitied her plight, and

oiced the woe of a

Banner, sof

gently-it

oops abov

not-unfol

p there, fu

ple's hopes

STER TABB,

on: JOHN BA

y stores. He was taken prisoner, and placed in Point Lookout Prison, where Lanier also was confined. After the war, Tabb devoted some time to music and taught school. His studies led him toward the church, an

ines long. Some of these verses are comic, while others are grave and full of religious ardor. The most beaut

mountain

s a messe

I loiter

hat I am s

is reveri

sing it al

r here the s

many a mi

e: Poems

dainty product, full of

fragrant fo

ifted throug

, to a l

tless wave

from the

tain-summ

lossom o

in the foa

Water Lily, fro

or dependent on unexpected changes in the meaning of wo

her taste d

not a trin

pt after tak

ith a ring

poems, especially the sacred ones, sometimes seem to have too slight a body to carry their full weight of thought, but the idea is always f

LER HARRIS

n: JOEL CHAN

r rare tales when another would probably have found only silence. Sometimes, while waiting for a train, he would saunter up to a group of negroes and start to tell a story himself and soon have them on tiptoe to tell him one that he did not already know. In many ways he became the possessor of a large part of the negro folklore. He loved a story and he early commenced to write down these fables, making of them such delightful works of art that all America is his debtor, not only for thus preserving the folklore of a primitive people in their American environment, but also for the genuine pleasure derived from the stories themselves. They are related with such humor, skill, and poetic spirit that they almost challenge comparison with Kipling's tales of the jungle. The hero is the poor, meek, timid rabbit

ome you ain't skeer'd er

run when dey h

ome de fleas on you ain'

ler dan w

s mighty good fer you d

ry I'd a-snapped you up

u'd done dat, you'd er h

t you g

ne ter let you off dis t

watch

s you so monst'us perlit

nex' time you see me,

BRER RABBIT A

of D. Appl

bit's nonchalant bearing is humo

ez a colt in a barley-patch. He wunk at de trees, he shuck his fisties at de stumps, he make like he

e one thing in these books that is absolutely the creation of Harris is the character of Uncle Remus. He is a patriarchal ex-slave, who seems to be a storehouse of knowledge concerning Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, Brer B'ar, and indeed all the animals of those bygone days when animals talked and lived in houses. He understands child nature as well as he know

presents a vivid picture of the Georgia "crackers" and "moonshiners"; but his inimitable animal stories, and Uncle Remus who tells them, have overshadowed all his other work, and remain his most di

ELSON PA

shington and Lee University in 1872, and took a degree in law at the University of Virginia in 1874. He pr

on: THOMAS

ts into immediate motion and makes us acquainted with his characters through their actions and speech. The regal mistresses of the plantations, the lordly but kind-hearted masters, the loving, simple-minded slaves, and handsome young men and maidens are

et the brush "twuz cause twuz a bob-tailed fox." In Meh Lady the negro relating the tale is the true but unconscious hero. This kindly presentation of the finest traits of slave days, the idealizing of the characters, and the sympathetic portrayal of the warm affection existing between master an

W. CABL

ion: GEORG

nces. The boy thereupon left school and went to work. Four years later he entered the Confederate army. So youthful was his appearance, that a planter, catching sight of him, exclaimed, "Great heavens! Abe Lincoln told the truth. We are robbing the cradle and the grave!" He served two years in the southern army, and after the war returned penniless to

uddenly it stopped, how he never again left the old home where he and an African mute lived, and how Jean's younger brother mysteriously disappeared, and the suspicion of his murder rested upon Jean's shoulders. The explanation of these points is unfolded by hints, conjectu

one fails, the mother heart makes one grand sacrifice by which the end is gained, and she dies at the foot of the altar in an agony of remorse and love. The beautiful land of flowers, the jasmine-scented night of the South, the poetic chivalry of a proud, high-souled race are p

thou love, and

ary. There is also the beautiful quadroon, Palmyre Philosophe. The "united grace and pride of her movement was inspiring, but-what shall we say?-feline? It was a femininity without humanity,-something that made her, with all her superbness, a creature that one would want to find chained." Beside her are the dwarf Congo woman and Clemence, the sharp-tongued negress, who sells her wares in the streets and sends her bright retorts back to the young bloods who taunt her. There is Bras Coupe', the savage slave, who had once been a chief in Africa and who fights like a fiend against enslavement, blights the broad acres with his curse, lives an exile in snake-infested swamps, and finally meets a most tragic fate. These unusual and somewhat sensational characters give high color, warmth, and variety to t

reams very vivid realities to his readers. He has warmth of feeling and a most refined and subtle humor. His scenes are sometimes blood-curdling, his characters unusual, and the deeds descr

ANE ALL

nd all his early and most impressionable years were passed amid Kentucky scenes. Many of these years were spent on a farm, where his faculty for observing was used to good advantage. As he grew older, he took his share in

ion: JAMES

of a heroism from which many heroes might have flinched. All of the stories are romantic and pathetic. The Kentucky Cardinal (1894) and Aftermath (1895) are poetic idyls, whose scenes are practically confined within one small Kentucky garden, where the

r at John's mistaken act of chivalry, which causes the bitterest sorrow to him and Mrs. Falconer. Allen's later works, The Reign of Law (1900), The Mettle of the Pasture (1903), The Bride of the Mistletoe (1909), lose in charm and grace wh

e frontier garden of Mrs. Falconer, in The Choir Invisible, the ambitious, fiery John Gray seems not out of harmony because the presence of the adjacent wild forest affects the entire scene. In one way or another, the landscapes, by preparing the reader for the moods of the characters, play a part in

(CHARLES EGBERT

among the people of whom she writes. Her pen name of Charles Egbert Craddock deceived her publishers into the belief that she was a man. Both Howells and Thomas Bailey Aldrich acce

and many similar incidents, which make up the life of a people separated from the modern world by almost inaccessible mountains. The rifle is used freely by this people, and murder is f

N. MURFREE (Charle

he people in some direct way. To Cynthia Ware, for instance, in the story, Drifting D

barrier ever came back again. One by one the days passed over it, and in splendid apotheosis, in purple and crimson and gold, they were received into the heavens and returned no more. She beheld lov

no means so tragically sad as this one, but all are overshadowed by the mountains. Among the best of the novels, Down the Ravine and The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountain may be mentioned. Craddock shows marked ability in delineating this primitive type of level-headed, independent people, and s

. CAWEIN,

on: MADISON

umes (1907) and later in one volume (1911). The appreciative English critic, Edmund Gosse, in his Introduction to the 1907 collection, calls Cawein "the only hermit thrush" singing "through an inte

the nature which he is describing. His lyrics of nature are his best verse

d dewy mosses a

briers, dee

s,-brush, that

saplings with i

e ramble of an

orth a woodland welcome, the redbird sings a vesper song, the lilacs a

over dells, The twiligh

nature, as well as a romantic love of the outdoor world. Note the specific referenc

, ripening

fruit, a l

-turnips, l

an acorn

ryads, naiads, and the fairies. One of

fairies, I

en them b

loose their

*

rom the w

se or d

to their

icket mus

nses, he is the Keats of the South. Lines like these

unset's tur

ps, like a

sails throug

land Hes

excl

er full of th

he beaker from the summer

was hot ge

h

is a war

s a woof

wh

opes breathe

jasmine-d

his best lyrics rouse keen delight in any lover of poetry. While he revels in the color, warmth, and joys of nature, it should also be observed t

e my faith in

till

ees; religion

n the

he the uni

MM

stions, especially the question of slavery, the attitude toward literature as a profession, the poverty of public education, the extreme conservatism and isolation of

mportant for the history that they embody. Timrod's spontaneity and strength appear in lyrics of war, nature, and love. Hayne, a skilled poetic artist, is at his best in lyrics of nature. Lanier's poems of nature embody high ideals in verse of unusual melody, and voice a faith in "the greatness of God," as intense as th

lor renders much of this fiction attractive. Harris fascinates the ear of the young world with the Georgia negro's tales of Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit. The Virginia negroes live in the stories

ic. The careful analysis of motives and detailed accounts of the commonplace, such as the eastern realists d

c and vivid scenes were removed from Cable's stories, they would lose a large part of their charm. When Miss Murfree chooses eastern Tennessee for the scene of her novels, she never p

ERE

The Old

fe in Old Virgin

avery and

Southern Wri

of Southern Li

Literature o

istory of Sout

outhern L

Poets of

l and Literary, with his chief Correspondence wi

s The Works of Edgar A

ductions, and

Edition of the Works of

cellent crit

d Letters of Edgar

oets of Ame

ind and Art o

Story in English

rican Short S

an Literary Cr

ical Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, e

es and Apprec

lliam Gilm

ng American Nov

Lanier, in Poems of Sidney

The Lan

le's The Cab

e Page St

TED RE

Mims and Payne's Southern Prose and Poetry for Schools, 440 pages. Selections from the majority of the poets are given in Painter's Poets of the South,

ET

short, and may soon be

dise, The Raven, Th

alume, Israfel, Le

outh Winds, Aspects of

A Storm in t

onfidante, An Exotic, The

ong of the Chattahoochee, Tampa Robins, Love

d Banner, and The

489 and 490) of Stedman's An American Anthology. Much of Tabb's

ll, There are Fairies,

olitary Places, A Twi

and Art, A Pray

ky Poems (1902), 264 pages, edited with an excellent Introduction by Edmund Gosse, and New Poems (1909), 248 pages. His be

R

r A Descent into the Maelstrom. There are many poor editions of Poe's Tales. Cody's The Best Tales of Edgar Allan Poe and Macmillan's Pocket Classics edition may be

give (pp. 50-69) a g

Indian episode in the

s on the one hand, and t

) from The Partisan, a s

olution

, Nights with Uncle Remus (1881), Uncle Remus and his Friends (1892). An

n, two of Cable's best short stories, are

OCK.-From Page, read e

g Solomon of Kentucky

and Violin, or The Ke

raddock, selections fro

or The Prophet of the

S AND SU

rce of your pleasure in reading him? Do you feel like reading any of his poems a second time or repeating parts

odious as Tennyson's The Brook? Which is the most beautiful stanza in My Springs? What are the strongest and most distinguishing q

elf alone? Select the best stanza from Timrod's The Lily Confidante and compare it with your favorite stanza from Lanier's

ism and the pathos i

of his poems in accordance with Poe's dictum? Select some pass

with Hayne's. What specific references in Cawein's nature poems please you most? Compare Keats's poems On the Grasshopper and C

r to hold the attention of an average audience, should you select for reading one of Irving's, Hawthorne's, or Poe's sh

Cooper? In the selection from The Yemassee (Mims and Payne) a

cial characteristics of Uncle Remus are revealed in these tales? What are the most prominent qualities of Brer Rabbit? Why does the negro select him for his hero? What

lor? Give instances of his poetic touch and of his power to draw character. Does he reveal his char

stics of Virginia life do the stories of Page reveal? Wh

you? What are some of the strong situations in The Choir Invis

ity of the characters strongly marked or are they more frequently general types? In what parts of the South are the scenes of the stor