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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book, The New world and the New book (search)
e and worth. The five words of Jefferson—words, which Matthew Arnold pronounced not solid, thus prove themselves solid enough to sustain not merely the government of sixty-three million people, but their literature. Instead of avoiding, with Goethe, the common, das Gemeinde, American literature must freely seek the common; its fiction must record not queens and Cleopatras alone, but the emotion in the heart of the schoolgirl and the sempstress; its history must record, not great generals al uses them, and that wreck would have long since passed from memory had there not been a Robinson Crusoe. I am willing to be censured for too much national self-confidence, for it is still true that we, like the young Cicero, need that quality. Goethe's world-literature is, no doubt, the ultimate aim, but a strong national literature must come first. The new book must express the spirit of the New World. We need some repressing, no doubt, and every European newspaper is free to apply it; we
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book, V (search)
use we forget that the invention of printing has in a manner placed all nations on a level. Literature is the only art whose choicest works are easily transportable. Once secure a public library in every town—a condition now in process of fulfilment in our older American States —and every bright boy or girl has a literary Louvre and Vatican at command. Given a taste for literature and there are at hand all the masters of the art—Plato and Homer, Cicero and Horace, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe. Travel is still needed, but not for books—only for other forms of art, for variety of acquaintanceship, and for the habit of dealing with men and women of many nationalities. The most fastidious American in Europe should not look with shame, but with pride and hope, upon those throngs of his fellow-countrymen whom he sees crowding the art-galleries of Europe, looking about them as ignorantly, if you please, as the German barbarians when they entered Rome. It is not so hard to gain cultu
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book, VII (search)
ing the heroes of his books from among those who had gone through a similar ordeal, and it will be many years before the force of that great impulse is spent. For one thing, the results of the war have liberated the Southern literary genius, and that part of the nation, so strangely unprolific till within twenty-five years, is now arresting its full share of attention, and perhaps even more than its share. It is difficult to say just how far the influence of a literary tonic extends, and Goethe might doubtless be cited as an instance where art was its own sufficient stimulus. In the cases of a writer like Poe, we trace no tonic element. The great anti-slavery agitation and the general reformatory mood of half a century ago undoubtedly gave us Channing, Emerson, Whittier, Longfellow, and Lowell; not that they would not have been conspicuous in any case, but that the moral attribute in their natures might have been far less marked. The great temporary fame of Mrs. Stowe was identi
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book, X (search)
he stars is astrology, not astronomy, to adopt Thoreau's distinction. Heine points out, in his essay on German Romanticism, that we greatly err in supposing that Goethe's early fame bore much comparison with his deserts. He was, indeed, praised for Werther and Gotz von Berlichingen, but the romances of August La Fontaine were inwere Wieland and Ramler; and Kotzebue and Iffland ruled the stage. Even forty years ago, I remember well, it was considered an open subject of discussion whether Goethe or Schiller was the greater name; and Professor Felton of Harvard University took the pains to translate a long history of German literature by Menzel, the one object of which was to show that Goethe was quite a secondary figure, and not destined to any lasting reputation. It was one of the objections to Margaret Fuller, in the cultivated Cambridge circle of that day, that she spoke disrespectfully of Menzel in the Dial, and called him a Philistine—the first introduction into English, so
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book, XI (search)
XI Concerning high-water marks in Eckermann's conversations with Goethe, the poet is described as once showing his admirer a letter from Zelter which was obviously witten in a fortunate hour. Pen, paper, handwriting, were all favorable; so that for once, Goethe said, there was a true and complete expression of the man, and perhaps one never again to be obtained in like perfection. The student of literature is constantly impressed with the existence of these single autographs, these highGoethe said, there was a true and complete expression of the man, and perhaps one never again to be obtained in like perfection. The student of literature is constantly impressed with the existence of these single autographs, these high-water marks as it were, of individual genius. It is in the perfection and precision of the instantaneous line, wrote Ruskin in his earlier days, that the claim of immortality is made. Dr. Holmes somewhere counsels a young author to be wary of the fate that submerges so many famous works, and advises him to risk his all upon a small volume of poems, among which there may be one, conceived in some happy hour, that shall live. After the few great reputations there is perhaps no better anchor
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book, XVII (search)
XVII American translators the English-speaking race has a strong instinct for translation, extending through both its branches. Miss Mitford says of one of her heroes in a country town, He translated Horace, as all gentlemen do; and Mrs. Austin speaks of Goethe's Faust as that untranslatable poem which every Englishman translates. Americans are not behind their British cousins in these labors; and Professor Boyesen —who, as a Norseman by birth and an American by adoption, is free of all languages—has written an agreeable paper in Book News 1 August, 1888. on the general subject of translations. In this he says that America has produced three of the greatest translators of modern times; a statement which every patriotic American would perhaps indorse, were he himself only allowed to make the selection. To two out of three of Mr. Boyesen's favorites I should certainly take decided objection; and, curiously enough, should nominate as substitutes two other translators of the
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book, XXI (search)
in the way of sentimentality on his friend Chaucer. But the Byronic atmosphere certainly spread to Germany, as may be seen by the place conceded to that poet in Goethe's Faust; although Goethe's Werther, and Schiller's Die Rauber showed that the tendency itself was at one time indigenous everywhere. In England, Bulwer and the yGoethe's Werther, and Schiller's Die Rauber showed that the tendency itself was at one time indigenous everywhere. In England, Bulwer and the younger Disraeli aimed to be prose Byrons; and in Moore and Mrs. Hemans, followed by Mrs. Norton and L. E. L., we see the sentimental spirit in successive degrees of dilution. All the vocal music of forty or fifty years ago —when the great German composers were but just beginning to make their power felt in this country—was of awas expressed, for Lamartine was then much read, and even his travels in the East were saturated with it; and so were the writings of Jean Paul, who then rivalled Goethe in the affections of the newly enrolled students of German, his Siebenkas which avowedly records the life, death, and wedding of a hero who deliberately counterfe
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book, XXII (search)
written, it certainly illustrates the concentration of fame upon a single name. With scarcely less superb exclusiveness, Goethe described Napoleon as a compendium of the world (Dieses Compendium der Welt). In allusion to such instances as these, Goethe expressed to Eckermann the conviction that the higher powers had pleased themselves by placing among men certain detached figures, so alluring as to set everybody striving after them, yet so great as to be beyond all reach (Die so anlockend si He instanced also Raphael and Napoleon; and the loyal Eckermann inwardly added the speaker himself to the list. I refer Goethe said to the natural dowry, the inborn wealth (Das Naturell, das grosse Angeborene der Natur).It will be a theme for nevelses. Dante, of all great writers, is the least explainable in this way; but in the case of Shakespeare, of Voltaire, of Goethe, it is obvious enough. The last named was always ready to admit his own obligations, not merely to his own fellow-countr
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book, XXVIII (search)
XXVIII A world-literature in Eckermann's Conversations with Goethe that poet is represented as having said, in January, 1827, that the time for separate national literatures had gone by. Nationown especial models Aristophanes, Cervantes, and Moliere —a Greek, a Spaniard, and a Frenchman. Goethe himself thinks that we cannot comprehend Calderon without Hafiz,— Nur wer Hafis liebt und kebreaking — up and rearranging, the preparation for a world-literature has been so neglected. If Goethe's view is correct,— and who stands for the modern world if Goethe does not?—then no one is fitteGoethe does not?—then no one is fitted to give the higher literary training in our colleges who has not had some training in world-literature for himself, who does not know something of Calderon through knowing something of Hafiz. And observe that Goethe himself is compelled to recognize the fact that in this worldliterature, whether we will or no, we must recognize the exceptional position of the Greek product. In this res
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book, Index (search)
rican, 75. Felton, C. C., 90, 174. Fields, J. T., 51. Firdousi, 186. Fiske, Willard, 172,185. Fitzgerald, P. H., 229. Fontenelle, Bernard de, 86. Fuller, M. F., see Ossoli. Fuller, Thomas, 93. Franklin, Benjamin, 5, 63,155. Francis, Philip, 190. Frederick II., 83. Freeman, E. A., 168. Froude, J. A., 116, 158, 203. G. Garfield, J. A., 111. Garrison, W. L., 49, 62. George IV., 111. Giants, concerning, 185. Gilder, R. W., 113. Gladstone, W. E., 110, 167. Goethe, J. W., 6, 17, 48, 66, 90, 97, 179, 182, 188, 189, 228, 229, 233. Goodale, G. H., 163. Gosse, E. W., 123, 195, Gordon Julien, see Cruger. Grant, U. S., 84, 123, 155. Greeley, Horace, 27. H. Hafiz, M. S., 229, 232. Haggard, Rider, 14, 93, 197, 198, 202, 205. Hale, E. E., 101. Hamerton, P. G., 168. Hardenberg, Friedrich von, 99. Hardy, A. S., 15, 202. Haring, John, 6. Harte, Bret, 11, 57, 58. Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 9, 41, 66, 84, 124, 126, 155, 218, 219. Hayley, William, 21