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Heine (search for this): chapter 2
al society, and paint what they see. Thus they dwell often on unhappy marriages, because such things grow naturally from the false social system in France. On the other hand, in France there is very little house-breaking, and bigamy is almost impossible, so that we hear delightfully little about them; whereas, if you subtract these from the current English novels, what is there left? Germany furnishes at present no models of prose style; and all her past models, except perhaps Goethe and Heine, seem to be already losing their charm. Yet for knowledge we go to Germany, more than ever, and there is a certain exuberant wealth that can even impart fascination to a bad style, as to that of Jean Paul. Such an author may therefore be very useful to a student who can withstand him, which poor Carlyle could not. There was a time, it is said, when English and American literature seemed to be expiring of conventionalism. Carlyle was the Jenner who inoculated and saved us all by this virus
Thackeray (search for this): chapter 2
delicate, so brilliant, so equable, so strong,--touching all themes, not with the blacksmith's hand of iron, but with the surgeon's hand of steel? In the average type of French novels, one feels the superiority to the English in quiet power, in the absence of the sensational and exaggerated, and in keeping close to the level of real human life. They rely for success upon perfection of style and the most subtile analysis of human character; and therefore they are often painful,--just as Thackeray is painful,--because they look at artificial society, and paint what they see. Thus they dwell often on unhappy marriages, because such things grow naturally from the false social system in France. On the other hand, in France there is very little house-breaking, and bigamy is almost impossible, so that we hear delightfully little about them; whereas, if you subtract these from the current English novels, what is there left? Germany furnishes at present no models of prose style; and al
Swinburne (search for this): chapter 2
rd of high art, that the study of Greek ought to be retained in our schools. The whole future of our literature may depend upon it; to abandon it is deliberately to forego the very highest models. There is no other literature which so steadily reproaches a young writer,--nothing else by which he may sustain himself till he forms a high standard of his own. Not that he should attempt direct imitations, which are almost always failures as such, however attractive in other respects; witness Swinburne's Atalanta. But the true use of Greek literature is perpetually to remind us what a wondrous thing literary art may be,--capable of what range of resources, of what thoroughness in structure, of what perfection in detail. It is a remarkable fact, that the most penetrating and fearless of all our writers, Thoreau, -he who made Nature his sole mistress, and shook himself utterly free from human tradition,--yet clung to Greek literature as the one achievement of man that seemed worthy to ta
Margaret Fuller (search for this): chapter 2
and the symmetry suggested is always that of taste rather than of logic, though logic must be always implied, or at least never violated. In some of the greatest modern authors, however, there are limitations or drawbacks to this symmetry. Margaret Fuller said admirably of her favorite Goethe, that he had the artist's hand, but not the artist's love of structure; and in all his prose writings one sees a certain divergent and centrifugal habit, which completely overpowers him before the end ofps onward, lavishing itself in splendor! What a glorious gift of heaven would have been the style of Ruskin, for instance, could he but have contained himself, and put forth only half his strength, instead of always planting, in the words of old Fuller, a piece of ordnance to batter down an aspen-leaf ! It would be hardly safe to illustrate what has been said by any multiplication of examples from our own literature. Yet perhaps there will be no danger in saying that America has as yet prod
Prescott (search for this): chapter 2
nothing to do with literature in any high sense. But to devote one's life to perfecting the manner, as well as the matter, of one's work; to expatriate one's self long years for it, like Motley; to overcome vast physical obstacles for it, like Prescott or Parkman; to live and die only to transfuse external nature into human words, like Thoreau; to chase dreams for a lifetime, like Hawthorne; to labor tranquilly and see a nation imbued with one's thoughts, like Emerson,--this it is to pursue liancy, or surprise, and to be perfectly colorless; it was a highly polished smoothness, on which the thoughts rolled like balls. But style is capable of something more than smoothness and clearness; you see this something more when you turn from Prescott to Motley, for instance; there is a new quality in the page, --it has become alive. Freshness is perhaps the best word to describe this additional element; it is a style that has blood in it. This may come from various sources,good health, anim
Dean Alford (search for this): chapter 2
speak well, and pooh-poohs all oratory, so he is beginning to show the same slipshod manner on paper. What stands between Americans and good writing is usually want of culture; we write as well as we know how, while in England the obstacle seems to be merely a boorish whim. The style of many English books and magazines is less careful than ours, --less finished, less harmonious, more inelegant, more slangy. What second-rate American writer would see any wit in describing himself, like Dean Alford in his recent book on language, as an old party in a shovel ? These bad examples are to be regretted; for doubtless ten times as many original works are annually published in England as in America, and we have an hereditary right to seek from that nation those models of culture for which we must now turn to France. In a late English magazine, there is an elaborate attempt to prove the inferiority in manliness of the French mind as compared with the English. Frenchmen are less manly, a
S. G. Goodrich (search for this): chapter 2
xquisite and complete perfection, what should I hope for myself, if I had not higher objects in view than fame? These Essays were published in a volume in 1823; and Willis records that when he was in Europe, ten years later, and just before Lamb's death, it was difficult to light upon a person who had read Elia. This brings us to a contemporary instance. Willis and Hawthorne wrote early, side by side, in The token, about 1827, forty years ago. Willis rose at once to notoriety, but Mr. S. G. Goodrich, the editor of the work, states in his autobiography, that Hawthorne's contributions did not attract the slightest attention. Ten years later, in 1837, these same sketches were collected in a volume, as Twice-told Tales ; but it was almost impossible to find a publisher for them, and when published they had no success. I well remember the apathy with which even the enlarged edition of 1842 was received, in spite of the warm admiration of a few; nor was it until the publication of The
Sydney Smith (search for this): chapter 2
et letter. Art has therefore its law; and eccentricity, though often promising as a mere trait of youth, is only a disfigurement to maturer years. It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards and reserve himself for something better. A young writer must commonly plough in his first crop, as the farmer does, to enrich the soil. Is it luxuriant, astonishing, the wonder of the neighborhood; so much the better,--in let it go! Sydney Smith said, in 1818, There does not appear to be in America, at this moment, one man of any considerable talents. Though this might not now be said, we still stand before the world with something of the Swiss reputation, as a race of thrifty republicans, patriotic and courageous, with a decided turn for mechanical invention. What we are actually producing, even to-day, in any domain of pure art, is very little; it is only the broad average intelligence of the masses that does us any credit.
Aeschylus (search for this): chapter 2
iginality in mere externals; we think, because we live in a new country, we are unworthy of ourselves if we do not Americanize the grammar and spelling-book. In a republic, must the objective case be governed by a verb? We shall yet learn that it is not new literary forms we need, but only fresh inspiration, combined with cultivated taste. The standard of good art is always much the same; modifications are trifling. Otherwise we could not enjoy any foreign literature. A fine phrase in Aeschylus or Dante affects us as if we had read it in Emerson. A structural completeness in a work of art seems the same in the Oedipus Tyrannus as in The scarlet letter. Art has therefore its law; and eccentricity, though often promising as a mere trait of youth, is only a disfigurement to maturer years. It is no discredit to Walt Whitman that he wrote Leaves of grass, only that he did not burn it afterwards and reserve himself for something better. A young writer must commonly plough in his fi
Duvergier Hauranne (search for this): chapter 2
e only of which I now aim to speak. For under one of these two heads all literature must fall; it may be either a contribution to science through its matter, or to art through its form. The form of literature is usually called style; and of the highest kind of literature, called poetry or belles-lettres, the style is an essential, and almost the essential part It is in this aspect that the matter is now to be considered,--literature as an art. The latest French traveller, Ernest Duvergier de Hauranne, says well, that, for what he calls the academic class — or class devoted to pure literature — there is as yet no place in America. Such a class must as yet conceal itself, he says, beneath the politician's garb, or the clergyman's cravat. We may observe that, when our people speak of literature, they are very apt to mean a newspaper article, or perhaps a sermon, or a legal plea. One editor said that it could no longer be asserted that literature was ill paid in America, since Gov
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