THE TECHNIQUES OP JOHN WILLIAM DE FCREST, TRANSITIONAL NOVELIST DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Dec tor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By PHILIP HASTINGS 1/FORD, ' B.A.,' M.A The Ohio State University 1953 • M t Approved by « C. Adviser Acknowledgement I should llkB to express my appreciation to Claude M. Simpson, who aided me throughout the course of my Investigations, and to William Charvat, who directed me In the final stages of the writing. P. H. P. 1 A 16467 Table of* Contents Page Chapter One. Introduction............................. 1 Chapter Two. De Forest as Social Historian............ 16 Chapter Three. The Importance of* Being Humorous .......... 9 9 Chapter Four. The Writer as C r a f t s m a n ............. 178 Chapter Five. Final Evaluations ......................... 2 4 0 Bibliography ............................................ 2 4 6 Autobiography .......................................... 251 li THE TECHNIQUES OF JCHN WILLIAM HE FOREST, IRAIBITIONAL NOVELIST Chapter One Introduction John William De Forest (1 8 2- 61 9 0 6) wrote same fifteen major works and innumerable magazine articles and stories; yet his reputation rests largely on one book, Miss Ravenel1 s Conversion from Secession to Loyalty. The standard histories of American literature are unanimous in their praise of that one work and in their scant treatment of De Forest's other writings. Some few commentators, mainly the more recent literary historians, have accorded De Forest more space but not much more depth of analysis. There has been only one full-length study, James H. Croushore's unpublished dissertation, "John William De Forest: A Biographical and Critical Study to the Year 1 8 6,*' 8 Yale, 19^ ; end it analyzes only three of De Forest's major works. Even those who pay only lip service to De Forest's reputation agree that his work should be better known than it is. This disser­ tation is an attempt to give De Forest's work some of the attention which it has been so long denied. I have been aware that my sym­ pathy with the aims of the realists and my belief that previous evaluations of De Forest have been unjust might lead me to over­ estimate him, and I have tried to avoid that pitfall by letting the evidence speak fox- itself whenever possible. 1 Because De Forest was one of the pioneers in American realism, it is difficult to separate his artistic achievements from his historical Importance. I have attempted to make a double judgment of De Forest. First, I have placed him in his own literary milieu in order to make explicit comparison of his work with that of his contemporaries. I have hoped thus to show the extent of his acceptance of or departure from the commonly followed techniques. Second, I have attempted not only to show the historical Importance of De Forest's techniques but also to evaluate their artistic worth. I have chosen to call De Forest a transitional novelist since he uses both realistic and romantic techniques. Like many other writers of the period, De Forest was caught between a desire to portray the commonplace realities of his time with unflinching accuracy, and the romantic tradition with its subjective portrayal of idealized characters in bizarre settings. Because his desires opposed the prevailing, though weakening, tradition, his work reflects a kind of uneasy compromise. To my knowledge, no previous attempt has been made to examine De Forest's conflicting techniques or their implications for a general estimate of De Forest as a novelist. The transitional! quality of De Forest's work beccxnes apparent when comparable elements of the novels are grouped for general anal­ ysis. Such a presentation, though it does violence to the organic unity of the novel, makes possible an objective comparison of De Forest's materials and methods with those of other writers. This 3 X have done "by dividing my discussion into three major areas ; materials, mode, and craftsmanship. Since the most obvious difference between romanticism and. realism was in materials, that is, in the selection of the types of settings and characters to be portrayed, my discussion opens there. De Forest made a major contribution to realism by his objective portrayal of commonplace materials, for his settings and his charac­ ters faithfully reflect his contemporary scene. Perhaps the greater achievement was his portrayal of American men and women who repre ­ sented current thought and manners in speech and action. In contrast to the frequent romantic preference for exotic scenery and heroic characters, De Forest1 s preference for the commonplace makes his works valuable social history. Important as such materials are in the development of literary realism, De Forest's choice of humor as a method was, I think, his greatest achievement as well as the motivating influence in his choice of materials. His use of humor as a corrective instrument is strikingly similar to George Meredith's, though no evidence exists that De Forest was aware of his English contemporary. An understanding of De Forest's humor is basic to a real appreciation or interpretation of his work, for it was his desire to expose those fellow citizens who transgressed the boundaries of common sense that led him to portray objectively (and thus realistically) the wide variety of characters who make up his American communities. To complete my discussion of De Forest's work, X have examined such elements of craftsmanship as plot, theme, characterization, and h dlc-fclon. Most notable are his realistic techniques for evoking the sense of community life and his conscious effort to write in idio­ matic American English rather than the traditional literary English. De Forest's historical and artistic achievements do not make him a great writer. The romantic scenes and incidents in hie work, though acceptable in themselves, are incongruous when placed in juxtaposition to the commonplace realities of life. SUrthermore, as a craftsman De Forest is frequently only second-rate. Most damning is his inability to create plots which do not falsify or distort his view of life. When De Forest was able to create a plot which functions as an organic part of the novel, as he did in Miss Ravenel and Playing the Mischief, the esthetic value of his works increases. When, as was more common, he did not, individual elements are still valuable, but they are not fused into a unified whole. Individual characters, for example, may be satisfactorily done, but their relationships to one another are arbitrary if not coincidental. Such novels as The Wbtherel Affair and Kate Beaumont make unreasonable demands on the reader and, in consequence, bewilder or exasperate him. The three divisions of my investigation are arbitrary, and their contents are by no means mutually exclusive, but through them it is my intention to show the transitional quality of De Forest's work. The following chapters are an attempt to show that in materials, tone, and technique De Forest frequently broke with the traditions of roman­ ticism and that his departures from tradition were in the direction of common sense portrayal of familiar life. Perhaps De Forest's 5 background, as well as the strength of* the romantic tradition In literature, made it impossible for him to evolve a satisfactory- realistic method. Certainly it can be said that he wrote more realistically than any of his contemporaries from I85O to 1880. Although the intent of thlB dissertation is not biographical, an understanding of De Forest's personal experiences and of the historical milieu in which he lived and wrote is necessary as a frame of reference for the discussion to follow. John William De Forest was born March 3 1, 1 8 26, in Seymour, Connecticut. As the son of a prosperous cotton manufacturer, he might well have become either a middle-class businessman or a Hew England intellectual. Indeed, up to his thirty-fifth year De Forest showed signs of becoming a typical, if second-rate, New England intellectual. His education was characteristically genteel; he attended Miss Platt's school and Miss Stoddard's, both near his home. Because of ill health, he did not attend Yale as did his three older brothers. Instead, in 1 8^6, he went to visit his brother Henry, who was a medical missionary in Syria. De Forest hoped that the change in climate would help his lung trouble (he seems to have been bothered by a chronic respiratory illness). He did not keep notebooks on his trip, but he did write detailed letters home, letters which he later published as Oriental Ac qualntance (1856). Upon his return to the United States in l8**8, he settled down to a quiet existence with his family. Since his share of his father's estate was sufficient for his needB, he did not have to work, but he worried about being a drone. Casting about for an occupation, he "began his History of the Indians of Connecticut (1851), a subject which had interested him even in his youth. Here he was following the pattern of the New England Brahmins, the pattern of Prescott, Motley, and Parkman. His history done— it is still considered the definitive work on the subject— he went to Europe where he stayed for four years. There he visited health resorts, traveled about, and learned Erench and Italian and some Spanish. He continued to write detailed letters home, which he later issued as European Acq.ua lirtance (1858). During this European period he tried to write essays and poetry, but his interest logged and in the latter part of 1853 be commenced the translation into Italian of Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables.