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Browsing named entities in a specific section of Cambridge History of American Literature: volume 2 (ed. Trent, William Peterfield, 1862-1939., Erskine, John, 1879-1951., Sherman, Stuart Pratt, 1881-1926., Van Doren, Carl, 1885-1950.). Search the whole document.

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1860 AD (search for this): chapter 2.18
of both numbers. The same is true of the verb to be, though is has not in the language of Uncle Remus entirely succeeded in dispossessing am and are. II. dialects of the whites Why dialect should have been so sparingly used by American writers before the Civil War and why it should have become so constituent a part of American fiction immediately after the Civil War are questions not easily answered. A partial explanation would seem to lie in the increasing sectionalism from 1830 to 1860 which, culminating in 1865, gave place not only to an increasing sense of national solidarity but to a keener interest in how the other half lived. Sectionalism meant indifference and ignorance; union means reciprocal interest and understanding. There can at least be no doubt that the American short story See Book III, Chap. VI. has been the chief vehicle of dialect since the Civil War, and the American short story, by its fidelity to local usages, has done more during these years to ac
1864 AD (search for this): chapter 2.18
is deceitful jug and gathering up his bag, ana I bouna dat my ole muskit'll go off 'tween me ana dat same nigger yit, ana he'll be at de bad eena, ana dis seetful jug'll 'fuse ter go ter de funer'l. The quaint indirectness of that is more distinctive of the old-time negro speech than anything ever said by Uncle Tom. If the novel with a purpose is not a suitable theatre for the display of negro character, neither is the comic minstrel show. The songs written by Stephen Collins Foster (1826-64) retain still their deserved popularity but they do not portray the negro from within. Old black Joe, Old Uncle Ned, My old Kentucky home, Old Folks at home, or Way down upon the Suwanee River are the best-known songs ever written by an American. Words, music, and sentiment are welded into perfect unity and harmony. Old Folks at home, says Louis C. Elson, History of American music (1904). is the chief American folk-song, and Stephen Collins Foster is as truly the folk-song genius of Americ
1865 AD (search for this): chapter 2.18
is true of the verb to be, though is has not in the language of Uncle Remus entirely succeeded in dispossessing am and are. II. dialects of the whites Why dialect should have been so sparingly used by American writers before the Civil War and why it should have become so constituent a part of American fiction immediately after the Civil War are questions not easily answered. A partial explanation would seem to lie in the increasing sectionalism from 1830 to 1860 which, culminating in 1865, gave place not only to an increasing sense of national solidarity but to a keener interest in how the other half lived. Sectionalism meant indifference and ignorance; union means reciprocal interest and understanding. There can at least be no doubt that the American short story See Book III, Chap. VI. has been the chief vehicle of dialect since the Civil War, and the American short story, by its fidelity to local usages, has done more during these years to acquaint or re-acquaint the N
1866 AD (search for this): chapter 2.18
in this dialect or in the dialect of any other part of the United States is to be found our best reservoir of fresh and vigorous English or our surest safeguard against slovenly pronunciation would be manifestly absurd. While much remains to be done in accurately classifying American speech peculiarities, it needs no proof that the strongest impetus to a fresh study and appraisal of American dialect was given by James Russell Lowell See Book II, Chap. XXIV. in his Biglow papers (1848, 1866) and in the Introductions with which he prefaced them. The early masters of the short story, Irving, Poe, and Hawthorne, looked askance at dialect, as did Longfellow and Whittier in their abolition poems. But Bret Harte See Book III, Chap. VI. gave new force to Lowell's views by his effective use of dialect in the stories of the forty-niners, and from 1870 to the present time dialect has played a leading part in the attempt to portray and interpret American character against the backgro
1852 AD (search for this): chapter 2.18
osition in which a freedman in those days found himself. See in this connection the powerful story by Joel Chandler Harris, Free Joe and the rest of the world (in Free Joe and other Georgian sketches). Neither Hector nor Jupiter, however, can be said to have any individuality of his own. They are mere types, not individuals. Apart from their masters they have no separate existence at all. The best-known negro character in fiction is, of course, Uncle Tom, the hero of Uncle Tom's cabin (1852). The dramatic power shown in this book is undeniable. More than any other one book it hastened the Civil War and made necessary the emancipation of all slaves. But Uncle Tom is portrayed so plainly for a purpose, the scenes in the book are so skilfully arranged to excite public indignation, that one can hardly call it a great work of art or even a work of art at all. Mrs. Stowe knew the negro chiefly as she had seen him on the right bank of the Ohio River. Ohio was a free state and the ne
1853 AD (search for this): chapter 2.18
ongs are not folk-songs, therefore, because the dialect is purely artificial, because neither words nor music originated with the negroes, and because the sentiment they express is alien to the race by whom these songs are supposed to be sung. They are sung, in fact, so far as the writer's observation goes, only by white people, never by negroes, except in a minstrel show. The man who really discovered the literary material latent in negro character and in negro dialect was Irwin Russell (1853-79), of Mississippi. The two men best qualified to pass judgment, Joel Chandler Harris and Thomas Nelson Page, have both borne grateful testimony to Russell's genius and to their indebtedness to him. It is noteworthy also that the first marble bust that the State of Mississippi has placed in her Hall of Fame is that of Irwin Russell. Russell's greatest poem is Christmas night in the quarters (1878). In its fidelity to the humble life that it seeks to portray, in the simplicity of its styl
1915 AD (search for this): chapter 2.18
of the writer of the Uncle Remus stories, near Atlanta, and to convert it into a suitable memorial. This has now been done. The significance of Uncle Remus as a study in negro character can best be understood by a comparison of Harris's work with that of others, especially his predecessors, in the same field. The negroes themselves, by the way, can show an orator, two prose-writers, and one poet of merited eminence. These are Frederick Douglass (1817-95); Booker T. Washington (c. 1859-1915); W. E. Burghardt DuBois, and Paul Lawrence Dunbar (1872-1906). Up from slavery (1900) by Washington and The souls of black Folk (1903) by DuBois are works of almost diametrically opposite styles. The former makes its appeal by its simplicity and restraint; the latter by its emotionalism, its note of lyric intensity. Neither author, however, is of unmixed negro blood, and neither has come as close to the heart of his race as did Dunbar, a pure negro, in his Lyrics of lowly life (1896). He w
January 6th (search for this): chapter 2.18
preservation of old words or old idioms. The speech of the mountain districts, especially that of the Southern Appalachian region, retains, it is true, a few words and locutions of old and honourable origin; but these are by no means numerous enough to be used for regenerative purposes on a large scale. Hit (it), holp (helped), ax (ask), afeard (afraid), fray (combat), fraction (as in Troilus and Cressida II, III, 107), antic (clown), humans (human beings), mought (might), Old Christmas (6 January), hone (yearn), tilth (agriculture), back a letter (address an envelope), and a few others may be heard in the mountains of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. But to affirm that in this dialect or in the dialect of any other part of the United States is to be found our best reservoir of fresh and vigorous English or our surest safeguard against slovenly pronunciation would be manifestly absurd. While much remains to be done in accurately classifying American speech pecu
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