DOCSLIB.ORG

Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle f*mMi ii, '3> «.-(*!:- p»%fif '.S^?^;. <."-:.•" | », Mi i'-wjbc--- ~»jvr^ •^s=.i«fiia>>tMMBHWW"^ . i —iju University of California • Berkeley BRUCE PORTER COLLECTION Gift of Mrs. Robert Bruce Porter LETTERS OF THOMAS CARLYLE Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation Iittp://www.arcliive.org/details/earlylettersofth02carlricli -^^^^^ c7^^z^^^rJ^-^>^^ea^, 6a^-^^y^^<^-7^^UrJ^L^.. ^S'£^ EARLY LETTERS OF THOMAS CARLYLE EDITED BY CHARLES ELIOT NORTON VOL. IL 1821 — 1826 ?LontJon MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1886 All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT 1886 Bv CHARLES ELIOT NORTON . LETTERS OF THOMAS CARLYLE LXXV.—To his Father, Mainhill. Edinburgh, 9 Jamaica Street, I "jth November 1 8 2 1 My dear Father— I was extremely glad to-day on passing along the North Bridge to see the countenance of Parliament Geordie,^ all in the Annandale style : —not so much on his own account (for the man had little to say of importance), as because it afforded me an opportunity of writing to you, which I felt no less anxious to do than you to suffer. I could write but a very hurried and vague epistle to Sandy on the former occasion ; and I was wlth- ^ Dr. Little, "a clever and original" neighbour at Eccle- fechan. VOL. II. B — 2 LETTERS OF THOMAS CARLYLE 1821 in an inch of missing the chance of sending even that, Garthwaite being already under way, when I met him with it in my hand. So I dare- say you will open this sheet with an additional portion of eagerness. It struck me also that the Doctor mio^ht be a convenient means of enabling me to execute a small project which I have meditated for a while, —the project of sending my mother and you each a pair of spectacles.^ You will find them wrapt up in the accompanying parcel. Yours I need not say are the silver ones. This is the first thing, I believe, you ever got from me ; and though a trifle, I know it will be acceptable as coming from such a quarter. It affords a true delight to me to think, that, perhaps I may thus add a little to 1 " Through hfe I had given him [my Father] very Httle, having Httle to give : he needed Httle, and from me expected nothing. Thou who wouldst give, give quickly : in the grave thy loved one can receive no kindness. I once bought him a pair of silver spectacles ; at receipt of which and the letter that accompanied them (John told me) he was very glad, and nigh weeping. ' What I gave I have.' He read with these spec- tacles till his last days, and no doubt sometimes thought of me in using them." Reniiin'scences, i. 63. i82i TO HIS FATHER 3 the comfort of one, to whom I myself owe siofht and life and all that makes them worth enjoying. I have almost forgot to say that if the glasses do not suit exactly ; —observe merely whether you need to hold the book, or other object, too near or too fa7^ from the eye ; write this down for me pointedly ; and send the spectacles up to me by Garthwaite, that the fault may be remedied. They can put in a pair of new sights in five minutes, and I have bargained that it shall be no additional expense. In fact the present sights were put in to suit my descrip- tion, and the man told me that as they grew too young, it was the custom to get them changed' regularly. See, therefore, that you are pro- perly fitted — since alteration can be made so easily. ... I designed to write Jack every night this failed. Tell him to look for a week ; but have letter by the post in a day or two. Alick is it in my debt : but I will have him deeper in ere long. You must write me the very first evening you have leisure : it will be a whole- 4 LETTERS OF THOMAS CARLYLE 1821 some exercise to yourself, and a grateful treat to me. — I am ever, my dear Father, your affec- tionate Son, Thomas Carlyle. LXXVL—To his Mother. Edinburgh, 9 Jamaica Street, Friday nigJit \i"]tJi Noveinber 1821]. My dear Mother — Litde appointed six o'clock as the hour of taking in my letters, which is just at hand : so that I have but a very few minutes to be with you ; and the first of these, I must devote to beg that you will accept the brown pair of spectacles which I have waled^ for you, and w^ear them for my sake. They are not nearly so good as my father's, though of the best Ladies' kind : but I will come again some other time. If they help you to read your book at nights, and thereby yield you any pleasure, think that it is all returned to me fourfold. They can at once be changed if they do not fit. I felt rather low in the humour several days ^ Chosen 1 1 82 TO HIS MOTHER 5 after I went away. The fineness of the weather did not prevent the journey from trashing me a good deal : I felt nervous and spiritless ; when I went to sleep, the picture of Mainhill and all my beloved friends there would flash across my brain so vividly and so "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought"—that I often started from my incipient slumber, and recol- lected with some painful feelings that I had changed my home and kindred for the habita- tion of a stranger/ But this soon went away : 1 " Unwearied kindness," says Carlyle, recalling the summers that he, " for cheapness' sake and health's sake," spent at Main- hill, "all that tenderest anxious affection could do, was always mine from my incomparable Mother, from my dear brothers, little clever active sisters, and from every one, brave Father, in his tacit grim way, not at all excepted. There was good talk also; with Mother at evening tea, often on theology (where I did learn at length, by judicious endeavour, to speak piously and agreeably to one so pious, without unveracity on, my part, nay, it was a kind of interesting exercise to wind softly out of those anxious affec- tionate cavils of her dear heart on such occasions, and get real sympathy, real assent under borrowed forms). Oh, her patience with me! oh, her never-tiring love! Blessed be 'poverty' which was never indigence in any form, and which has made all that tenfold more dear and sacred to me ! With my two eldest brothers also, Alick and John, who were full of ingenu- ous curiosity, and had (especially John) abundant intellect, there was nice talking as we roamed about the fields m gloaming- — 6 LETTERS OF THOMAS CARLYLE 1821 and by dint of the ordinary remedies, I am now as well as when I left you. Not that I am altogether settled yet ; though altogether in my usual health. I have done no work—except reading a little : and till work fairly begins you know well there Is no settlement. The reasons of my wavering are various. On Saturday after Johnstone departed, I set about the weary duty of seeking lodgings all round the environs of this city, —that if possible I might secure a place provided with the requisite comforts, and situated beyond the region of smoke and tumult. After wandering little less than the shoemaker of Jerusalem did, I at length pitched upon this situation, which is a neat little room and bed- time after their work was done. All this was something, but in all this I gave more than I got, and it left a sense of isolation, of sadness ; as the rest of my imprisoned life all with emphasis did. I kept daily studious, reading diligently what few books I could get, learning what was possible, German, etc. Sometimes Dr. Brewster turned me to account (on most frugal terms always) in wretched little translations, compila- tions, which were very welcome too, though never other than dreary. Life was all dreary, ' oury ' (Scotticc), tinted with the hues of imprisonment and impossibility ; hope practically not there, only obstinacy, and a grim steadfastness to strive with- out hope as with." Reminiscences^ i. 1S1-183. — iS2i TO HIS MOTHER 7 room, at the very north-west corner of the New- Town, above a mile from the centre of the Old. It Is kept by a trim, little, burring Northum- brian, and commands a view of the Firth and the Fifeshire mountains. Beine a back-room, also, I thought it would needs be quiet as possible. But it is scarcely so ; there are about hfty masons chopping away at a new Circus on my right hand and on my left, by day ; and when their rattling;" has ceased, various other noises take up their nightly tale. Now the question is. Whether shall I stand all this, and get Inured to it as I certainly might, or try my luck elsewhere ? Provost Swan, who greatly wishes me to be in the neio-hbourhood of his bov, called here the other niofht, and advised that I should move to Union Street or there- abouts (the North-east angle of the city), where Mrs. David Swan—a friend of his, with whom the bov is settled, —would find me out lodorinors by her own experience among her neighbours. This ofood ladv undertook the task ; I am to see her this evening, when the matter will be I shall shift if I decided ; and — shift at all — 8 LETTERS OF THOMAS CARLYLE 1821 to-morrow.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Purloined Life of Edgar Allan Poe by Jeffrey Steinberg Edgar Allan Poe
    Click here for Full Issue of Fidelio Volume 15, Number 1-2, Spring-Summer 2006 EDGAR ALLAN POE and the Spirit of the American Republic The Purloined Life Of Edgar Allan Poe by Jeffrey Steinberg Edgar Allan Poe great deal of what people think they know about dark side, and the dark side is that most really creative Edgar Allan Poe, is wrong. Furthermore, there geniuses are insane, and usually something bad comes of Ais not that much known about him—other than them, because the very thing that gives them the talent to that people have read at least one of his short stories, or be creative is what ultimately destroys them. poems; and it’s common even today, that in English liter- And this lie is the flip-side of the argument that most ature classes in high school—maybe upper levels of ele- people don’t have the “innate talent” to be able to think; mentary school—you’re told about Poe. And if you ever most people are supposed to accept the fact that their lives got to the point of being told something about Poe as an are going to be routine, drab, and ultimately insignificant actual personality, you have probably heard some sum- in the long wave of things; and when there are people mary distillation of the slanders about him: He died as a who are creative, we always think of their creativity as drunk; he was crazy; he was one of these people who occurring in an attic or a basement, or in long walks demonstrate that genius and creativity always have a alone in the woods; that creativity is not a social process, but something that happens in the minds of these ran- __________ domly born madmen or madwomen.
    [Show full text]
  • Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Business Men by Elbert Hubbard
    LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF GREAT BUSINESS MEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD JOHN J. ASTOR The man who makes it the habit of his life to go to bed at nine o'clock, usually gets rich and is always reliable. Of course, going to bed does not make him rich--I merely mean that such a man will in all probability be up early in the morning and do a big day's work, so his weary bones put him to bed early. Rogues do their work at night. Honest men work by day. It's all a matter of habit, and good habits in America make any man rich. Wealth is a result of habit. --JOHN JACOB ASTOR LITTLE JOURNEYS Victor Hugo says, ``When you open a school, you close a prison.'' This seems to require a little explanation. Victor Hugo did not have in mind a theological school, nor yet a young ladies' seminary, nor an English boarding-school, nor a military academy, and least of all a parochial institute. What he was thinking of was a school where people--young and old-- were taught to be self-respecting, self-reliant and efficient--to care for themselves, to help bear the burdens of the world, to assist themselves by adding to the happiness of others. Victor Hugo fully realized that the only education that serves is the one that increases human efficiency, not the one that retards it. An education for honors, ease, medals, degrees, titles, position--immunity--may tend to exalt the individual ego, but it weakens the race and its gain on the whole is nil.
    [Show full text]
  • Beyond the American Landscape: Tourism and the Significance of Hawthorne’S Travel Sketches
    The Japanese Journal of American Studies, No. 27 (2016) Copyright © 2016 Toshikazu Masunaga. All rights reserved. This work may be used, with this notice included, for noncommercial purposes. No copies of this work may be distributed, electronically or otherwise, in whole or in part, without permission from the author. Beyond the American Landscape: Tourism and the Significance of Hawthorne’s Travel Sketches Toshikazu MASUNAGA* INTRODUCTION: 1832 After graduating from Bowdoin College in 1825, Nathaniel Hawthorne went back to his hometown, Salem, Massachusetts, where he concentrated on writing in order to become a professional writer. His early masterpieces such as “Young Goodman Brown” and “My Kinsman, Major Molineux” were written during the so-called solitary years from 1825 to 1837, and he viewed those Salem years of his literary apprenticeship as “a form of limbo, a long and weary imprisonment” (Mellow 36). But biographers of Hawthorne point out that this self-portrait of a solitary genius was partly invented by his “self-dramatizations” (E. H. Miller 87) to romanticize his younger days. In fact, he maintained social engagements, and his sister Elizabeth testified that “he was always social” (Stewart 38). He was more active and outgoing than his own fabricated self-image, and he even made several trips with his uncle Samuel Manning as well as by himself.1 While strenuously writing tales, he undertook an American grand tour alone, traveling around New England and upstate New York in 1832. He was one of those tourists who rushed to major tourist destinations of the day such as the Hudson Valley, Niagara Falls, and the White Mountains in order *Professor, Kwansei Gakuin University 1 2 TOSHIKAZU MASUNAGA to spend leisure time and to find cultural significance in the scenic beauty of the American natural landscape.
    [Show full text]
  • The Carlyle Society
    THE CARLYLE SOCIETY SESSION 2006-2007 OCCASIONAL PAPERS 19 • Edinburgh 2006 President’s Letter This number of the Occasional Papers outshines its predecessors in terms of length – and is a testament to the width of interests the Society continues to sustain. It reflects, too, the generosity of the donation which made this extended publication possible. The syllabus for 2006-7, printed at the back, suggests not only the health of the society, but its steady move in the direction of new material, new interests. Visitors and new members are always welcome, and we are all warmly invited to the annual Scott lecture jointly sponsored by the English Literature department and the Faculty of Advocates in October. A word of thanks for all the help the Society received – especially from its new co-Chair Aileen Christianson – during the President’s enforced absence in Spring 2006. Thanks, too, to the University of Edinburgh for its continued generosity as our host for our meetings, and to the members who often anonymously ensure the Society’s continued smooth running. 2006 saw the recognition of the Carlyle Letters’ international importance in the award by the new Arts and Humanities Research Council of a very substantial grant – well over £600,000 – to ensure the editing and publication of the next three annual volumes. At a time when competition for grants has never been stronger, this is a very gratifying and encouraging outcome. In the USA, too, a very substantial grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities means that later this year the eCarlyle project should become “live” on the internet, and subscribers will be able to access all the volumes to date in this form.
    [Show full text]
  • Common Place: Rereading 'Nation' in the Quoting Age, 1776-1860 Anitta
    Common Place: Rereading ‘Nation’ in the Quoting Age, 1776-1860 Anitta C. Santiago Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 © 2014 Anitta C. Santiago All rights reserved ABSTRACT Common Place: Rereading ‘Nation’ in the Quoting Age, 1776-1860 Anitta C. Santiago This dissertation examines quotation specifically, and intertextuality more generally, in the development of American/literary culture from the birth of the republic through the Civil War. This period, already known for its preoccupation with national unification and the development of a self-reliant national literature, was also a period of quotation, reprinting and copying. Within the analogy of literature and nation characterizing the rhetoric of the period, I translate the transtextual figure of quotation as a protean form that sheds a critical light on the nationalist project. This project follows both how texts move (transnational migration) and how they settle into place (national naturalization). Combining a theoretical mapping of how texts move and transform intertextually and a book historical mapping of how texts move and transform materially, I trace nineteenth century examples of the culture of quotation and how its literary mutability both disrupts and participates in the period’s national and literary movements. In the first chapter, I engage scholarship on republican print culture and on republican emulation to interrogate the literary roots of American nationalism in its transatlantic context. Looking at commonplace books, autobiographies, morality tales, and histories, I examine how quotation as a practice of memory impression functions in national re-membering.
    [Show full text]
  • Scriptures. Answer: Mary Baker .E.Qill(
    1989 High School Tournament Round One Tossups 1. A right triangle might have sides of three, four, and five. FTP--what kind of triangle has sides of three, three, and six? Answer: NQ triangle (accept imaginary triangle) 2. They were finally wiped out by the Roman general Seutonius Paulinus about A.D. 58 in their last stronghold, the island of Anglesby, off the British coast. They worshipped in oak groves, and absolutely, positively did not build Stonehenge. For 10 points--name this religious caste of ancient Britain. Answer: D..o.!i.ds 3. At the outset of the Spanish-American War, even President William McKinley confessed that he couldn't locate this island group "within 2000 miles" on a map. Nevertheless, by the Treaty of Paris, they were annexed to the U.S., receiving independence only after World War II. For 10 points-wand a chance to show up McKinley, name this island group certainly located within 2000 miles of Vietnam, Indonesia, and China. Answer: Philippines 4. Her most famous book, published in 1879, declared: "We classify disease as error, which nothing but Truth or Mind can heal, and this Mind must be divine, not human." For 10 points--name this author of Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures. Answer: Mary Baker .E.Qill( 5. It was discovered at Susa in 1902 almost 4,000 years after it was written. Consisting of a prologue, 282 paragraphs, and an epilogue, it stated its purpose as to ensure "that the strong oppress not the weak, that the orphan and widow be protected." For 10 points--name this ancient legal code.
    [Show full text]
  • Washington Irving: Historia, Literatura, Leyenda
    Washington Irving: Historia, literatura, leyenda CMn»no PflREz GÁLISo Universidad Cumpiutense Conocía muy a fondo su destino. Se sentía un poco predesti- nado para salvar a las letras americanas. Se apoyó en la historia y la biografía como prueba de que no hay mayor estilo que el culto a la verdad, y hasta cuando se acercó a] tema gótico, como en Tite Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 1820, lo hizo con una serenidad y levedad muy encomiables. Era el diplomático del río Hudson, su lugar favorito, y de su doble, Knickerbocker que compone con él una fusión de pensamientos realmente admirable. Lejos que- daría su intento juvenil de «Jonathan Oldstyle» o de Salmagundi para así llegar a esa estancia española del año 1826 a 1829 que es como el perámbulo a la segunda y definitiva. Fruto de esos tres años quedan una biografía de Colón, 1828, así como su inol- vidable Alhambra, 1823, para pasar dos años a la embajada ame- • ricana en Londres. Eu europeísmo estaba patente. Había nacido en Nueva York el 3 de abril de 1783. A la vuelta a su patria y en A Taur on tite prairies, 1835, pro- pondría un Irving inédito, lejos de sus previos «sketches», como en Astoria, 1836, o Tite Adventuras of Captain Bonneville, 1837. Temas nuevos surgen y hasta las Montañas Rocosas dejan paso a un escritor que de diplomático se ha convertido en explorador ¡ moral, como Thoreau haría en Walden. Pero su paraíso interior le lleva a su casa de Sunnyside, en Tarrytown. Es allí donde desea descansar, donde tiene su patria, su «sleepy hollow».
    [Show full text]
  • Reading Log “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving 1. AMERICAN ROMANTIC HERO
    Reading Log “Rip Van Winkle” by Washington Irving 1. A MERICAN ROMANTIC HERO ­­ Rip Van Winkle is considered an American Romantic Hero. Romantic heroes have the following qualities: they are young (or young at heart); they are innocent and pure; they have a knowledge and understanding of people and life; they love nature; and they quest for higher truth. Pick three of these characteristics to prove why Rip Van Winkle is a Romantic hero. Be sure to support each point with evidence from the story. Characteristics of How does Rip Van Winkle illustrate this characteristic? Page the American Provide examples from the text. Number Romantic Hero 1. 2. 3. 2. G ive three adjectives to describe Rip Van Winkle in the beginning of the story. What has made him this way? 3. W hen Rip awakens from his 20­year nap and is still in the woods, what three things show us that a significant amount of time has passed? 4. S everal symbols of the newly created United States of America confuse Rip, who still thinks he’s under the rule of King George III when he walks back into town. Name two patriotic items that confuse Rip, but would likely delight a reader of this story in 1819. (include page numbers). 5. C HARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTIC LITERATURE – American Romanticism can be identified by the following characteristics: distrust of civilization; nostalgia for the past; concern for individual freedom; love for beauty of the natural landscape; and interest in the supernatural. Complete the chart below giving evidence as to how “Rip Van Winkle” is representative of American Romantic literature using at least three of these characteristics.
    [Show full text]
  • UNIVERSITY of KRAGUJEVAC Faculty of Philology and Arts, Kragujevac
    UNIVERSITY OF KRAGUJEVAC Faculty of Philology and Arts, Kragujevac S Y L L A B U S Program 56: English Language and Literature Older American Literature Course Name and Code 62425 Course Structure 2+2 (lectures, seminars) Year of Study 3rd Academic Year Semester 5th ECTS Credits 5, and Course Status mandatory (mandatory or elective) Dr Biljana Vlašković Ilić, Associate Professor Instructor(s) Aleksandar Radovanović, Teaching Assistant Course Requirements / Acquainting the students with this literary period and enabling them to Course Aims independently acquire additional knowledge about it The period from 1492 to 1890: general characteristics of the age and literature “Fathers of the Nation”: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton. Thinkers: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Course Overview Short Story: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce. Novel: James Fenimore Cooper, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Stephen Crane, Henry James. Poetry: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman. The period of Progressivism, 1890-1900. lecture attendance 5%, seminar attendance 5%, Grading System participation at lectures 5%, (including segment participation at seminars 5%, percentage) midterm written essay 30% (required to qualify for the final exam), the final (oral) exam 50%. Textbooks and Mandatory Reading Mandatory: Biljana Vlašković Ilić, Early American Literature—TEXTBOOK (FILUM 2020) Recommended selections from: /1/ Aleksandar B. Nedeljković, Scripts for Older American Literature /2/ Aleksandar B. Nedeljković, History of the British and American Civilization, for the Students of Anglistics, Belgrade, 2007 /3/ Pacić, Brankica, The Big Ten: Major Nineteenth Century American Writers. Beograd-Kragujevac, 2003. /4/ Spiller et al, Istorija književnosti Sjedinjenih Američkih Država, knjiga 1 i knjiga 2, Cetinje, 1962.
    [Show full text]
  • Literaturverzeichnis
    Literaturverzeichnis Quellentexte „An Act to Organize the Territories of Nebraska and Kansas“, in: Th e Nebraska-Kansas Act of 1854, hrsg. v. John R. Wunder und Joann M. Ross, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008, S. 183-207. „An Act to provide for the more effi cient Government of the Rebel States“, in: Th e Statutes at Large, Treaties, and Proclamations of the United States of America, Bd. 14: From Decem- ber, 1865, to March, 1867, hrsg. v. George P. Sanger, Boston: Little, Brown, and Com- pany, 1868, S. 428-430. Addison, Joseph, Sir Richard Steele u.a., Th e Spectator: In Four Volumes, Bd. 3, hrsg. v. Gregory Smith, eingef. v. Peter Smithers, London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1958. Apess, William, On Our Own Ground: Th e Complete Writings of William Apess, a Pequot, hrsg. und eingef. v. Barry O’Connell, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1992. Aristoteles, Poetik: Griechisch/Deutsch, übers. und hrsg. v. Manfred Fuhrmann, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1982. – Politik, übers. u. eingef. v. Günther Bien, Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1990. Black Hawk, Life of Black Hawk or Mà-ka-tai-me-she-kià-kiàk. Dictated by Himself, hrsg. und eingef. v. J. Gerald Kennedy, New York: Penguin, 2008. Browning, Robert, Robert Browning, hrsg. v. Adam Roberts, eingef. v. Daniel Karlin, Ox- ford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Brownson, Orestes, Th e American Republic, in: ders., Th e Works of Orestes A. Brownson, Bd. 18, hrsg. v. Henry F. Brownson, Detroit: H. F. Brownson, 1905, S. 1-222. Burke, Edmund, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cases of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe Dissertation P
    THE MIDDLE EAST IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA: THE CASES OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, AND EDGAR ALLAN POE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Ahmed Nidal Almansour ***** The Ohio State University 2005 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Steven S. Fink, Adviser Professor Jared Gardner _______________________ Professor Elizabeth Hewitt Adviser English Copyright by Ahmed Nidal Almansour 2005 ABSTRACT The presence of the Middle East in the works of American artists between the Revolution and the Civil War is pervasive and considerable. What makes this outlandish element of critical significance is that its proliferation coincided with the emerging American literary identity. The wide spectrum of meanings that was related to it adds even more significance to its critical value. In its theoretical approach, this work uses Raymond Schwab’s The Oriental Renaissance as a ground for all its arguments. It considers the rise of the Oriental movement in America to be a continuation of what had already started of Oriental researches in Europe. Like their counterparts in Europe, the American writers who are selected for this study were genuinely interested in identifying with the Oriental thought. The European mediation, however, should not be allowed to hold any significance other than pointing to the fact that French, German, and English Orientalist organizations were more technically equipped. The sentiment of identification with the East resonated equally on both sides of the Atlantic. This work investigates three cases from antebellum America: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.
    [Show full text]
  • America's First Artists and Writers
    THE HUDSON RIVER VA LLEY REviEW A Journal of Regional Studies MARIST Publisher Thomas S. Wermuth, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Marist College Editors Reed Sparling, writer, Scenic Hudson Christopher Pryslopski, Program Director, Hudson River Valley Institute, Marist College Editorial Board Art Director Myra Young Armstead, Professor of History, Richard Deon Bard College Business Manager Col. Lance Betros, Professor and deputy head, Andrew Villani Department of History, U.S. Military Academy at West Point The Hudson River Valley Review (ISSN 1546-3486) is published twice Susan Ingalls Lewis, Assistant Professor of History, a year by the Hudson River Valley State University of New York at New Paltz Institute at Marist College. Sarah Olson, Superintendent, Roosevelt- James M. Johnson, Executive Director Vanderbilt National Historic Sites Roger Panetta, Professor of History, Research Assistants Fordham University Elizabeth Vielkind H. Daniel Peck, Professor of English, Emily Wist Vassar College Hudson River Valley Institute Robyn L. Rosen, Associate Professor of History, Advisory Board Marist College Todd Brinckerhoff, Chair David Schuyler, Professor of American Studies, Peter Bienstock, Vice Chair Franklin & Marshall College Dr. Frank Bumpus Thomas S. Wermuth, Vice President of Academic Frank J. Doherty Affairs, Marist College, Chair Patrick Garvey David Woolner, Associate Professor of History Marjorie Hart & Political Science, Marist College, Franklin Maureen Kangas & Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, Hyde Park Barnabas McHenry Alex Reese Denise Doring VanBuren Copyright ©2008 by the Hudson River Valley Institute Tel: 845-575-3052 Post: The Hudson River Valley Review Fax: 845-575-3176 c/o Hudson River Valley Institute E-mail: [email protected] Marist College, 3399 North Road, Web: www.hudsonrivervalley.org Poughkeepsie, NY 12601-1387 Subscription: The annual subscription rate is $20 a year (2 issues), $35 for two years (4 issues).
    [Show full text]