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This dissertation has been 62—5554 microfilmed exactly as received DANIEL, Benne Bernice, 1928— SINCLAIR LEWIS, NOVELIST AND SPEAKER; A COMPARISON OF THE THEMES iVND . RHETORICAL METHODS USED IN THREE OF HIS PUBLIC ADDRESSES TO THE THEMES AND METHODS USED IN SIX OF HIS NOVELS. The University of Oklaliorna, Ph.D., 1962 Speech — Theater University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE SINCLAIR LEWIS, NOVELIST AND SPEAKER: A COMPARISON OF THE THEMES AND RHETORICAL METHODS USED IN THREE OF HIS PUBLIC ADDRESSES TO THE THEMES AND METHODS USED IN SIX OF HIS NOVELS A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY BENNE BERNICE DANIEL Norman, Oklahoma 1962 SINCLAIR LEWIS, NOVELIST AND SPEAKER: A COMPARISON OF THE THEMES AND RHETORICAL METHODS USED IN THREE OF HIS PUBLIC ADDRESSES TO THE THEMES AND METHODS USED IN SIX OF HIS NOVELS APPROVED BY , A. /' 6/ . / I C. V-/ L-- \ -------- DISS'ERTATION COMMITTEE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writer wishes to express her appreciation to Dr Wayne E. Brockriede for his valuable assistance as director of this study and to the other members of her committee for their useful criticism and suggestions. I l l TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 1 Subject; S in c la ir Lewis ......................................... 1 Sources of the Study ................................................... 8 Purpose of the Study ................................................... 16 Method of Organization .............................................. 18 II. THE WRITER AND SPEAKER AS RHETORICIAN .................. 20 Introduction ....................................................................... 20 A Sketch of Harry Sinclair Lewis ...................... 21 The N ovelist as a R hetorician ............................. 27 Lewis's Career as a Speaker .................................. 37 Conclusion ............................................................................ 68 I I I . AN ANALYSIS OF SELECTED LEWIS ADDRESSES ............. 71 Introduction ....................................................................... 71 "The American Fear of L itera tu re" .................... 73 "Enemies of the Book" ................................................. 101 "The A r tis t, the S c ie n tis t and the Peace" . 113 Conclusion ............................................................................ 125 IV. THE NOVELIST AS RHETORICIAN .......................................... 127 Introduction ....................................................................... 127 Themes in the Novels ................................................... 131 Conclusion ............................................................................ 159 V. THE RHETORICAL METHODS OF SINCLAIR LEWIS ........... 162 Introduction ....................................................................... 162 Speaker ................................................................................... 164 IV Chapter Page Audience ................................................................................. 168 Place ........................................................................................ 173 Purpose ................................................................................... 175 Time .......................................................................................... 184 Form .......................................................................................... 186 Conclusion ............................................................................ 198 VI. CONCLUSION ................................................................................... 202 Introduction ....................................................................... 202 Sinclair Lewis: American Writer and Speaker ................................................................................... 204 The Writer as Rhetorician ................ 211 Themes in the Selected Speeches and Novels ..................................................................................... 213 Rhetorical Adaptation .......................................... 221 Summary ................................................................................... 225 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... 228 Appendix I. TEXTS OF THE SELECTED ADDRESSES ................................ 252 "The American Fear of Literatu re" ...................... 252 "Enemies of the Book".................................................... 276 "The Artist, the Scientist and the Peace" . 290 I I . A PARTIAL ACCOUNT OF THESPEAKING OF SINCLAIR LEWIS ............................................................................................... 298 SINCLAIR LEWIS, NOVELIST AND SPEAKER: A COMPARISON OF THE THEMES AND RHETORICAL METHODS USED IN THREE OF HIS PUBLIC ADDRESSES TO THE THEMES AND METHODS USED IN SIX OF HIS NOVELS CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Subj ect : S in c la ir Lewis The literary historian, Vernon L. Parrington, remem­ bered the day he finished Taine's Histoire de la littérature anglaise as the day he discovered "a method that envisaged the literature of a people as the inevitable outgrowth of their racial peculiarities, environment, and epoch.Not only American literature but American public address is recognized as an embodiment of American thought; the scholar E. H. Eby (intro.). Main Currents in American Thought by Vernon Parrington, Vol. Ill: The Beginnings of Critical Realism in America (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1930), p vii. turns to them to discover the intellectual currents of Amer­ ican culture. More than any other Amer'can writer of his time, Sinclair Lewis not only helped the world understand America but also affected the way Americans thought of themselves. The entry of the United States into World War I her­ alded sharp changes in American literature: the social criticism so strong in books like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle or Frank Norris's The Pit vanished while romantic novels like Gene Stratton-Porter's A Girl of the Limberlost, Booth Tar- kington's Penrod, or Kate Douglas Wiggin's Rebecca of Sunny- brook Farm held little charm for the disillusioned doughboy. The end of the war to end all wars began a new literary trend, a sharper trend toward realism and revolt. C ritic s and young w riters in re v o lt in p a rtic u la r against the standards of the American village turned to real­ ism in reaction to the Gene Stratton-Porter type of story. They regarded American provincialism and puritanism as the enemy. Lewis responded to these lite ra r y and so c ia l trends by using the technique of realism in writing his stories--a catalogue of the external things in the American culture along with a remarkable reproduction of the speech and thought patterns of the average citizen; he directed his ire against small-town America. He was intentionally attempting to write the great American novel which critics had been calling for since the American Revolution. "Red" Lewis became a specialist in depicting the genus Americanum. He was among the leaders of the i n te l le c ­ tual rebels that in the early part of the twentieth century divested American literature, drama, poetry, fiction, of its old restrictions. No doubt America was in a self-critical attitude as the country moved into the twenties; writers like Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, Eugene O'Neill, and Henry L. Mencken re fle c te d th is mood. In th is decade--the decade of Teapot Dome, Bathtub Gin, the Tin Lizzie, Gal Coolidge, Aimee Sample McPherson, and Dick Tracy--Lewis produced five of his great social protest novels: Main Street (1920), Babbitt (1922), Arrowsmith (1925), Elmer Gantry (1927), and Dodsworth (1929), and in 1930 he became the first American writer to be honored with the Nobel Prize for Literature.% Though Lewis's novels brought him European recogni­ tion, many of his countrymen were shocked and angered by his 2 Sinclair Lewis received the prize of approximately $4800 a t the Nobel F e stiv a l in the Stockholm Concert House on December 10, 1930. His address, "The American Fear of L ite ra tu re ," was delivered December 12, before the members of the Swedish Academy at the Stock Exchange Hall. satiric attacks upon the materialistic values of the age. His g re a te st a ssa u lt upon the "Booboisie"^ added a new word to the American language, "Babbitt.Not even the darlings of the public, the medical profession or the clergy, escaped his pen. Dr. Almus Pickerbaugh, for example, was the Billy Sunday of the medical profession and Elmer Gantry was a clergyman who worshiped not God but money, sex, and applause. Whatever he wrote of America, Lewis nevertheless loved h is nation;^ because he was of i t and loved i t , Lewis became the complete critic of middle-class American society.& O The term o rigin ated with Henry L. Mencken. ^George Follansbee Babbitt was the personification of the middle class businessman caught in a web of conformity and success worship. The term is used to identify any one who fears to act because of what people might think. ^Some Americans still believe Lewis hated America. Wlien Mark Schorer's biography was published in 1961, Elmer T. Peterson, e d ito r ia l w rite r for the Daily Oklahoman, wrote an editorial entitled, "Sinclair Lewis Hates People." In this piece he said: "He

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