Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1954 The Literary Development of Stephen Crane. James B. Colvert Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Colvert, James B., "The Literary Development of Stephen Crane." (1954). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 8119. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/8119 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Till LITERARY DEVELOPMENT OF STEPHEN CRANE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of English by James B. Colvert B* A*, Henderson State Teachers College, 1947 M # A., East Texas State Teachers College, 1949 August, 1953 UMI Number: DP69497 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI Dissertation Publishing UMI DP69497 Published by ProQuest LLC (2015). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProOuest ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 - 1346 MANUSCRIPT THESES Unpublished theses submitted for the master*s and doctor*s degrees and deposited in the Louisiana State University Library are available for inspection. Use of any thesis is limited by the rights of the author. Bibliographical references may be noted> but passages may not be copied unless the author has given permission. Credit must be given in subsequent written or published work, A library which borrows this thesis for use by its clientele is expected to make sure that the borrower is aware of the above restrictions, LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 119-a It S260 Aomc^jmxmmt The author deeply appreciates the help and encouragement of Professor Arlin Turner, under whom this study began, and Professor Lewis P„ Simpson, under who® it was completed. Thanks are also due to Professors Thomas A* Kirby, John Uhler, Clayton HoX&day and E. A, Davis for reading the study and for their helpful suggestions. The author wishes to express his debts to Miss Ruth Walling and Mrs» Anne Dyson of the Reference Department, who have been helpful in securing materials from other libraries * Finally, the author is deeply grateful to his wife, Mary Westerfield Colvert, without whose patient help this study would never have been completed* TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT, ................ • **»••#••'••••«« iv CHAPTER I Introduction........... • * « ................................... 1 CHAPTER II Crane's literary beginnings the newspaper sketches of 1892, » • . • » ........... *,*.•••*•«•• 9 CHAPTER III " The development of a moral philosophy 51 - CHAPTER IV The theory of literature.............................. 86 CHAPTER V The practice of literatures the Bowery tales, Magpie, and George's Mothers 1892-1895 ................ 103 CHAPTER 71 The practice of literatures The Red Badge of Courages 1893......... 143 CHAPTER VII Crane's poetry, 173 CHAPTER VIII The Western stories, The Third Violet» and the sequels to The Red Badge of Courages 1895-1897 .............* * 200 CHAPTER IX "The Open Boat,” the social studies, the last war stories, and the romances! 1897-1900# * 229 CHAPTER X Conclusion: Crane's literary development: 1892-1900 .......... 263 ' BIBLIOGRAPHY ............. ........... 282 VITA . 293 lii ABSTRACT Though Stephen Crane has been the subject of two biographies and numerous critical essays, his unique literary career has never been fully explained. Less than two years after he started writing in 1092, he burst upon the literary scene with The Red Badge of Courage, a novel which reflected a revolutionary departure from literary tradition in the treatment of its subject and literary technique. In terms of the literary traditions of his time Crone ca^iiot be explained at all, and historians and critics have consequently attempted to account for him, without much success, by relating him to various European writers, notably Tolstoy and Zola, despite the fact that there Is strong evidence that Crane knew little of their work. His sudden appearance in full literary armor gave rise, also, to the notion that he was An inexplicable genius who intuited an approach to literature and developed through sheer instinct a brilliant and revolutionary writing style. The purpose of this study la to determine insofar as possible the origins and nature of Crane’s art and to show in terms of literary materials, method, and style his development from the beginnings in 1892 to his death in 1900. It begins with a consideration of Crane's earliest newspaper writing in the light of his intellectual and artistic experience before 1892 and continues with an^janalysis of hi® work in the order that It waa produced. Since Crane proceeded generally upon the assumption that art is a direct reflection of life, much of Ida materials and many of his themes were drawn from actual experience, and it has been necessary to consider the biography which had direct bearing upon his Iv literary production. In addition, the study touches upon various aspects of late nineteenth-century thought and social attitudes which affected, sometimes negatively, the personal philosophy which so powerfully directed the course of his art. His thinking, which was curiously split between the materialistic monism fostered by nineteenth-century science and the orthodox faith in the dignity and strength of the self-reliant individual, can be accounted for in part by his association with intellectual radicals and In part by the orthodox faith of his parents. His theory of literature was derived in great part from the principles of the impressionist painters with whom he was associated from the late * eighties to 1895 ® J Crane's attitude toward life and art had taken characteristic shape by the time he started his career, and if the stories of Kipling, Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce guided him somewhat in hie first writing, the Bowery novels and stories of the following year probably owe little or nothing to the French naturalists. The style, method, and attitude reflected in Maggie. George's Mother and The Red Badge are essentially those of his earliest writing, and Crane's subsequent development is, except for minor modifications, a matter of refinement of the technique- of hie early newspaper sketches. The form of his poetry, though perhaps- suggested Initially by the verse of Emily Dickinson and the epigrams of Ambrose Bierce, is based upon the highly compressed metaphorical expression of his early fiction. In an early sketch, "The Men in the Storm," Crane experimented with symbolism and the patterning of language and motifs, a technique which he used with ever increasing effectiveness up to "The Open Boat," written at the high point of his career In 1897® V CHAPTI3R I INTRODUCTION When Stephan Crane died in 1900 his work all but disappeared from the public and critical view. Two books came out in the year of his death, and three more, all that remained on the hands of the publishers, had appeared by 1903# Except in the editions printed in his lifetime, most of Crane’s work was unavailable for almost twenty years. The exceptions are those works upon which his reputation has rested and to a great extent continues to reat-— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets. which has always been felt to have historical significance as the first naturalistic novel in American literature, and The Red Badge of Courage. the novel which made Crane famous and which is generally regarded as his masterpiece. But his work in the shorter form, "The Blue Hotel," "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky," and "The Open Boat," to name only three of high excellence, lay neglected in tum-of-the-centuiy books until their re publication in the thirties and 'forties. If hia work received little attention from the publishers, Crane received even leae from the critics. Moat of the piecea about him which appeared before 1920 were reminiscences by friends and fellow writers, mere literary anecdotes, for the moat part. Richard Harding Davis recalled Crane as a war correspondent, Hamlin Garland reviewed briefly the years he knew Crane as a New York Bohemian, and Carl Sandburg acknowledged him as a forerunner of the Imaglsta.^ But with the exception of H. G. Wells’ essay ^ See the Bibliography for references to books and articles mentioned in the Introduction• 1 2 in 1901 nothing which deserves consideration as serious criticism appeared* Kven the number of reminiscences is far from impressive, less than twenty appearing in as many years* Crane was for the most part forgotten. The first revival began in 1921 when Vincett Starrett edited a col­ lection of his short stories in Men* Women, and Boats. Two year® later Thomas Beer marshalled what little material was then available into the first biography, and interest in Crane began to rise. Wilson Pollett edited his complete work, which appeared in the years 1925-2? with intro­ ductions by friends and fellow writers, some with biographical recollections, a few— those by Hergesheimer, Cather, Mencken— with literary criticism of definite value. Bespite an Increased Interest in the writer, however, no extended study of his art was made, and the comparatively casual interest began to deteriorate with the advent of the sociological •thirties.