^ i Pi ^ Ilil: in A HISTORY OF LITERATURE IN AMERICA BY BARRETT WENDELL PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AT HARVARD COLLEGE AND CHESTER NOYES GREENOUGH FORMERLY INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH AT HARVARD COLLEGE NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1907 Copyright, 1904, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS >A y PREFACE When it was proposed that Wendell's Literary History oj America should be reprinted in a school edition, it was clear to us that for such use the book needed thorough revision. Many passages, which properly found place in a book intended for general reading, involved expressions of opinion obviously unsuitable for schools. In prepar- ing this school version, our object has accordingly been to omit needless or debatable matter, but to preserve the general outline and all available portions of the original work. To aid us in our task, we submitted the Literary His- tory, chapter by chapter, to an advanced class of students at Harvard College, whom we encouraged to criticise it minutely in writing. The energy and good sense with which they did so have enabled us to correct many slight errors, and, at the same time, have strengthened our conviction that the earlier book was historically sound. We cannot too heartily acknowledge our debt to this critical collaboration of our pupils. B. W. C. N. G. GENERAL REFERENCES (A) English History S. R. Gardiner, A Siiidc-iifs History of England, London and New York: Longmans, 1900. (B) English Literature Stopford Brooke, Primer of English Literature, New York: Mac- millan, 1889. Henry Craik, English Prose, 5 vols., New York: Macmillan, 1893- 1896. Frederick Ryland, Chronological Outlines of English Literature, New York: Macmillan, 1896. T. H. Ward, English Poets, 4 vols., New York: Macmillan, 1896- 1900. (C) American History Edward Channing, A Student's History of the United States, New York : Macmillan, 1899. Edward Channing and A. B. Hart, Guide to the Study of American LListory, Boston : Ginn, i8g6. Indispensable. A. B. Hart, Formation of the Union, 1750-1829, New York: Long- mans, 1897. R. G. Thwaites, The Colonies, 1492-1750, New York: Longmans, 1897. WOODROW Wilson, Division and Reunion, 1829-1889, New York; Longmans, 1898. Justin Winsor, A^arrative and Critical History of America, 8 vols., Boston: Houghton, 1886-1889. Indispensable for the advanced student. Not a consecutive history. viii General References (D) American Literature I. Literary Histories W. C. Bronson, a Short History of American Literature, Boston: Heath, 1902. John NiCHOl., American Literature, Edinburgh: Black, 1882. H. S. Pancoast, Introduction to American I^iterature, New York : Holt, 1898. C. F. Richardson, American Literature, 2 vols.. New York: Put- nam, 1887. W. P. Trent, A History of American Literature, New York: Apple- ton, 1903. E. C. Stedman, Poets of Afnerica, Boston: Houghton, 1885. M. C. Tyler, A History of American Literature during ilie Colonial Time, 2 vols.. New York: Putnam, 1897. M. C. Tyi.er, llie Literary Historv of the American Revolution, 2 vols., New York : Putnam, 1897. 2. Collections of Extracts G. R. Carpenter, American Prose, _]>{^w York: Macmillan, 1903. E. A. and G. L. Duyckinck;,' Cyclopcedia of Americati Literature, 2 vols.. New York, 1855. "• R. W. Griswold, The Poets and Poetry erf America, Philadelphia, 1842. R. W. Griswold, Prose Waiters of America, Philadelphia, 1847. A. B. Hart, American History told by Contemporaries, 4 vols., New York: Macmillan, 1897-1901. Particularly useful for the seven- teenth and eighteenth centuries. E. C. Stedman, An American Anthology, Boston : Houghton, 1900. Very good ; excellent short biographies. E. C. Stedman and E. M. Hutchinson, Library of American Liter- ature, II vols.. New York, 1888-1890. The best collection of its kind. The indexes and biographies are very well made. 3 . Bibliograph ies P. K. Foley, American Aut/iors [i 795-1895] ; a Bibliography of First and Abatable Editions chronologically arranged, with Notes. Boston: Privately printed, l897« General References ix Joseph Sabin, Bidliot/ura Americana ; a Dictionary of Books relating to America, 20 vols., New York : Sabin, 1858-1892. S. L. Whitcomb, Chronological Outlines of American Literature, New York : Macmillan, 1894. Very useful. In the reference lists at the beginnings of chapters, the following abbreviations are used: "AML" for the " American Men of Letters'' series; "AS" for the "American Statesmen" series; " BB " for the "Beacon Biographies ";" EML '' for the "English Men of Letters" " " " " series ; GW for the Great Writers series. Asterisks indicate the best editions and most useful sources of infor mation. CONTENTS BOOK I The Seventeenth Century CHAPTER PAGE I. English History from 1600 to 1700 11 II. English Literature from 1600 to 1700 18 III. American History from 1600 to 1700 23 IV. Literature in America from 1600 to 1700 . , -31 V. Cotton Mather 42 VI. Summary 50 BOOK II The Eighteenth Century I. English History from 1700 to 1800 53 II. English Literature from 1700 to 1800 55 III. American History from 1700 to 1800 69 IV. Literature in America from 1700 to 1776 71 V. Jonathan Edwards 77 VI. Benjamin Franklin ..... 83 VII. The American Revolution 92 VIII. Literature in America from 1776 to 1800 IX. Summary xii Contents BOOK III The Nineteenth Century THAPTER PAGE I. English History from 1800 to 1900 113 II. English Literature from 1800 to 1900 118 III. American History from 1800 to 1900 121 IV. Literature in America from 1800 to 1900 . .125 BOOK IV Literature in the Middle States from 1798 to 1857 I. Charles Brockden Brown 129 II. Washington Irving 136 III. James Fenimore Cooper 148 IV. William Cullen Bryant . .158 V. Edgar Allan Poe 169 VI. The Knickerbocker School 179 BOOK V The Renaissance of New England I. Some General Characteristics of New England . 189 II. The New England Orators 201 III. The New England Scholars and Historians . .210 IV. Unitarianism 229 V. Transcendentalism 239 VI. Ralph Waldo Emerson 254 VII. The Lesser Men of Concord 266 Contents xiii CHAPTER PACE VIII. The Antislavery Movement 275 IX. John Greenleaf Whittier , . 289 X. The Atlantic Monthly 298 XI. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 305 XII. James Russell Lowell 315 XIII. Oliver Wendell Holmes 327 XIV. Nathaniel Hawthorne 340 BOOK VI The Rest of the Story I. New York Since 1857 355 II. Walt Whitman 371 III. Later New England 379 IV. The Novel: Ho wells, James, and Crawford . 395 V. The South 399 VI. The West 412 VII. Mark Twain 421 VIII. Conclusion 425 Index 437 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PACE John Winthrop 26 Samuel Sewall 28 Cotton Mather 45 Jonathan Edwards 78 Benjamin Franklin 84 Timothy Dwight 102 Joel Barlow 106 Charles Brockden Brown 130 Washington Irving 138 Sunnyside, Irving's Home at Tarrytown ..... 139 James Fenimore Cooper 150 William CuUen Bryant 160 Allan Poe Edgar . 170 Nathaniel Parker Willis 182 Daniel Webster 204 Edward Everett 206 George Ticknor 216 William Hickling Prescott 221 Francis Parkman 226 William ElJery Channing 234 Margaret Fuller 247 Brook Farm 249 George Ripley 252 Ralph Waldo Emerson 258 xvi IJ.st of Uhistrdtions PAGE Amos Bronson Alcott 267 Henry David Thoreau ........ o . 269 William Lloyd Garrison . 278 Harriet Beecher Stowe 284 John Greenleaf Whittier 291 James Thomas Fields 302 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 306 Longfellow's Home, Craigie House, Cambridge .... 308 Longfellow in his Library 312 James Russell Lowell . 317 Elmwood, Cambridge, Mass., Birthplace of James Russell Lowell 318 Oliver Wendell Holmes 328 Holmes's Birthplace, Cambridge 329 Commencement Day at Harvard in Holmes's Time . -331 Nathaniel Hawthorne 342 An Early Home of Hawthorne, Old Manse, Concord . 343 Wayside, Concord, Home of Nathaniel Hawthorne . 347 Walt Whitman 373 Samuel Langhorne Clemens 422 A HISTORY OF LITERATURE IN AMERICA INTRODUCTION Literature, the lasting expression in words of the meaning of Hfe, is of all fine arts the most national : each Literature ^^i^'*'- language grows to associate with itself the ideals and the '" aspirations and the fates of those peoples with whose life it is inextricably intermingled. Languages grow and live and die in accordance with laws of their own. This English of ours may be taken as typical. Originating from the union and confusion of older tongues, it has struggled through the infantile diseases of dialect, each of which has left some trace, until long ago it not only had become the sole means of expression for millions of people, but also had assumed the form which now makes its literature in some respects the most remark- able of modern times. Whatever else it may be, this Ht- erature is the most spontaneous, the least formal and con- scious, the most instinctively creative, the most free from excess of culture, and so, seemingly, the most normal. Its earliest forms were artless; songs and sayings began to stray from oral tradition into written record, laws were sometimes phrased and chronicles made in the robust young terms which carried meaning to unlearned folk as well as to those versed in more polite tongues, such as French or Latin. Presently came forms of literature which, at least comparatively, were artistic. The earliest of these which has lasted in general literary memory reached its height in the works of Chaucer (about 1340- — 2 Introduction 1400). After his time came a century or more of civil disturbance, when Enghshmen were too busy with wars of the Roses and the hke for further progress in the arts of peace. Then, with the new national integrity which grew under the Tudors, came a stronger literary impulse, un- surpassed in vigorous spontaneity. In 1575 there was hardly such a thing as modern Eng- lish literature; in 1625 that great body of English litera- ture which we call Elizabethan was complete. Fifty years had given us not only incomparable lyric verse and the final version of the Enghsh Bible (161 1), but the works too of Spenser (i 552-1 599), of Shakspere (i 564-1616) and the other great dramatists, of Hooker (i 553-1600), of Ralegh (1552-1618), of Bacon (1561-1626), and of all their fellows.