tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74995822432915317532024-03-05T22:23:59.150-05:00The American Literary BlogA celebration of important (and not so important)<br> dates in 19th-century American literary historyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1007125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-23676990273836306322014-12-24T07:49:00.001-05:002023-06-23T20:03:35.740-04:00Whitman's curious warble: Out of the cradle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"Our readers may, if they choose, consider as our Christmas or New Year's present to them, the curious warble by <b>Walt Whitman</b>." So said the <i>Saturday Press</i> issue for December 24, 1859, an issue which included Whitman's poem "A Child's Remembrance," later renamed "A Word Out of the Sea." Perhaps better known by its opening lines, "<a href="http://www.whitmanarchive.org/published/LG/1891/poems/107">Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking</a>," the poem went through several versions in Whitman's lifetime. Here is how its most frequently republished version begins:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,<br />
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,<br />
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,<br />
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot,<br />
Down from the shower'd halo,<br />
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they were alive,<br />
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,<br />
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,<br />
From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,<br />
From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,<br />
From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,<br />
From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,<br />
From the myriad thence-arous'd words,<br />
From the word stronger and more delicious than any,<br />
From such as now they start the scene revisiting,<br />
As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,<br />
Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,<br />
A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,<br />
Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,<br />
I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,<br />
Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,<br />
A reminiscence sing...</blockquote>
<br />
Whitman had read an early version of the poem at the famous Pfaff's and one of those in attendance, <b>Henry Clapp</b>, secured its publication. Though one reviewer called it "hopeless drivel," many scholars today consider the poem one of Whitman's best. The poem offers somewhat of a narrative: the speaker remembers a time on the beach in his boyhood when he sees two birds which soon fly away; one never returns. Many have seen the poem as describing the birth of a poet, particularly as it opens with a cradle, before culminating in a profound grasp of nature and death. The poem, then, explores both a beginning and an ending. "Pains and joys," Whitman says he has since explored, "here and hereafter."<br />
<br />
My American literature professor as an undergraduate, Dr. <b>Joseph Zaitchik</b>, once told me that the opening lines of this poem represented the best-sounding line in American poetry. "Out of the cradle, endlessly rocking" has a certain cadence, a rising and falling, a harshness with "k" and "g" sounds, along with more sonorous "o" and "s" sounds. Those sounds, perhaps, represent the same ups and downs, opposing ideas of beginning and ending, in the poem itself.<br />
<br />
With this post, I have officially posted 1,000 articles of new content, all exploring various aspects of American literary history (mostly in the 19th century). I have had the great opportunity of rediscovering forgotten writers, of enthusiastically promoting some of the greatest, and sharing it all with <i>you, the readers of the American Literary Blog</i>, since my first post in <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/birth-of-james-fields.html">December 2009</a>. I dedicate the entirety of this project to <a href="http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2012/08/02/joseph-zaitchik-professor-and-novelist/9ckzHiDAHXagC8NxqwWQZM/story.html">Dr. Zaitchik</a>, who first inspired me to love American literature.<br />
<br />
As I retire from adding new posts to the American Literary Blog, I want to offer some of Whitman's own words from this poem: "The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note." After the narrator calls out to the sea, the poem ends with an understanding that, although there was a finality in what he learned from the bird, the moment was in fact just the starting point for him:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Whereto answering, the sea,<br />
Delaying not, hurrying not,<br />
Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,<br />
Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death,<br />
And again death, death, death, death<br />
Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's heart,<br />
But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,<br />
Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,<br />
Death, death, death, death, death.<br />
Which I do not forget.<br />
But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,<br />
That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray beach,<br />
With the thousand responsive songs at random,<br />
My own songs awaked from that hour,<br />
And with them the key, the word up from the waves,<br />
The word of the sweetest song and all songs,<br />
That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,<br />
(Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet garments, bending aside,)<br />
The sea whisper'd me.</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-43672545400895701112014-12-19T07:40:00.000-05:002014-12-19T07:40:00.208-05:00Riley and Garland: Dont y' Darst!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>James Whitcomb Riley</b> was not long involved with politics, but he visited Washington, D.C. and the White House in 1888 and advocated for international copyright. When his friend and fellow <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/birth-of-riley-hoosier-poet.html">Hoosier stater</a> <b>Benjamin Harrison</b> became President of the United States, there were rumors that Riley would get some kind of political appointment. Nothing came of these rumors but, years later, when <b>William McKinley</b> was President, rumors were renewed. Wisconsin-born writer <b>Hamlin Garland</b> warned his friend in a letter dated December 19, 1898:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There is some talk here of your going abroad as a consul — but dont y' do it. Dont y' Darst! You've got a bigger mission than t'go to any dam ol' forin port. </blockquote>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
Garland was playfully using the same kind of dialect Riley became known for in <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/dana-and-riley-i-do-not-like-it-at-all.html">his poetry</a>. Garland also couldn't resist a stab at another writer, <b>Bret Harte</b>, who had recently taken successive consul appointment in Germany and Scotland. After his political appointments were up, Harte stayed in Europe and settled in London — causing some critics to suggest that his time overseas took the <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/harte-no-longer-rough-westerner.html">American-ness</a> out of him. As Garland writes to Riley:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You'll be like Bret Harte git fat an' forget what y'r country looks like — an you'll fergit the "County Ditch" an' Kingry's Mil an' all them thare things we like t' hear about.</blockquote>
<br />
Riley never was offered an appointment after all, and his work continued to utilize the same kind of folksy tone that Garland seemed to love, like that used in Riley's poem "Kingry's Mill":<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
On old Brandywine — about<br />
Where White's Lots is now laid out,<br />
And the old crick narries down<br />
To the ditch that splits the town,—<br />
Kingry's Mill stood. Hardly see<br />
Where the old dam ust to be;<br />
Shallor, long, dry trought o' grass<br />
Where the old race ust to pass!<br />
<br />
That's be'n forty years ago —<br />
Forty years o' frost and snow —<br />
Forty years o' shade and shine<br />
Sence them boyhood-days o' mine—!<br />
All the old landmarks o' town.<br />
Changed about, er rotted down!<br />
Where's the Tanyard? Where's the Still?<br />
Tell me where's old Kingry's Mill?<br />
<br />
Don't seem furder back, to me,<br />
I'll be dogg'd! Than yisterd'y,<br />
Since us fellers, in bare feet<br />
And straw hats, went through the wheat,<br />
Cuttin' 'crost the shortest shoot<br />
Fer that-air old ellum root<br />
Jest above the mill-dam — where<br />
The blame' cars now crosses there!<br />
<br />
Through the willers down the crick<br />
We could see the old mill stick<br />
Its red gable up, as if<br />
It jest knowed we'd stol'd the skiff!<br />
See the winders in the sun<br />
Blink like they wuz wonderun'<br />
What the miller ort to do<br />
With sich boys as me and you!<br />
<br />
But old Kingry—! Who could fear<br />
That old chap, with all his cheer—?<br />
Leanin' at the window-sill,<br />
Er the half-door o' the mill,<br />
Swoppin' lies, and pokin' fun,<br />
'N jigglin' like his hoppers done—<br />
Laughin' grists o' gold and red<br />
Right out o' the wagon-bed!<br />
<br />
What did he keer where we went—?<br />
"Jest keep out o' devilment,<br />
And don't fool around the belts,<br />
Bolts, ner burrs, ner nothin' else<br />
'Bout the blame machinery,<br />
And that's all I ast!" says-ee.<br />
Then we'd climb the stairs, and play<br />
In the bran-bins half the day!<br />
<br />
Rickollect the dusty wall,<br />
And the spider-webs, and all!<br />
Rickollect the trimblin' spout<br />
Where the meal come josslln' out—<br />
Stand and comb yer fingers through<br />
The fool-truck an hour er two—<br />
Felt so sorto' warm-like and<br />
Soothin' to a feller's hand!<br />
<br />
Climb, high up above the stream,<br />
And "coon" out the wobbly beam<br />
And peek down from out the lof'<br />
Where the weather-boards was off—<br />
Gee-mun-nee! w'y, it takes grit<br />
Even jest to think of it—!<br />
Lookin' 'way down there below<br />
On the worter roarin' so!<br />
<br />
Rickollect the flume, and wheel,<br />
And the worter slosh and reel<br />
And jest ravel out in froth<br />
Flossier'n satin cloth!<br />
Rickollect them paddles jest<br />
Knock the bubbles galley-west,<br />
And plunge under, and come up<br />
Drippin' like a worter-pup!<br />
<br />
And to see them old things gone<br />
That I onc't was bettin' on,<br />
In rale p'int o' fact, I feel<br />
kindo' like that worter-wheel—,<br />
Sorto' drippy-like and wet<br />
Round the eyes — but paddlin' yet,<br />
And in mem'ry, loafin' still<br />
Down around old Kingry's Mill!</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-54422484387395166132014-12-17T07:33:00.000-05:002015-12-17T15:27:34.898-05:00Birth of Dawson: if my hand may hold the pen<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Daniel L. Dawson</b> was born in Lewiston, Pennsylvania on December 17, 1856. As an adult, he began contributing original poems to the Philadelphia-based <i>Lippincott's Magazine</i>; these contributions were eventually collected in <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ssEsAAAAYAAJ"><i>The Seeker in the Marshes; and Other Poems</i></a> (1893). <b>Julian Hawthorne</b>, son of <b>Nathaniel</b>, effused praise for the book, calling Dawson "one of the truest, most inevitable poets of this age. His poems are intensely lyrical and of permanent worth." He further compared him to <b>Walt Whitman</b>.<br />
<br />
Much of his writing reflected his interest in mythology and folklore — to the chagrin of one reviewer for the <i>Methodist Review</i>, who accused Dawson of paganism and that paganism, in turn, was "fatal" to the creating of literature. The reviewer noted that the poet "had been intimate with various heathen divinities of doubtful reputation; but we judge from his poetry that he did not know Christ even when he saw him." Further, he said, if Dawson, a perpetual bachelor, was in any way comparable to Whitman, it was because both men had a similar "animality, not so healthy and well-kept."<br />
<br />
Even so, Dawson was fairly prolific as a poet and, further, was extremely athletic, tall, and well-built — as one critic noted, "little looked the poet he was." One friend said he had never known a "manlier man" than Dawson. His poem "To-day and To-morrow" was, presumably, written about the time of his 30th birthday (he died at age 38):<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Sometime when the sun is fair and warm<br />
And blue and bright on a summer's day,<br />
That is, if I fall not in any harm,<br />
I shall write some things I have wished to say;<br />
That is, if my hand may hold the pen,<br />
I will say some things for the ears of men.<br />
<br />
But I fear sometimes that a little pain<br />
Will come in this weary heart of mine;<br />
Or peace like night on my tangled brain;<br />
Or the lungs cease drinking the air like wine,<br />
And blood flow over these pallid lips<br />
And cloud the life in a red eclipse.<br />
<br />
For a score and ten are treble a score,<br />
The price we pay is dear for the years;<br />
The wisdom that falls to thirty or more<br />
Is purchased by travail and change and tears;<br />
We look and learn with larger scope,<br />
But the price we pay for this is—hope.<br />
<br />
And so would I fain myself deceive,<br />
As well as I may in my lonely room,<br />
When the shadows are falling over the eve,<br />
And night is coming with cloud and gloom,<br />
In hope that much is mine to say,<br />
Though I know to-morrow is only to-day.</blockquote>
</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-30643705688965969512014-12-04T19:28:00.001-05:002014-12-05T11:47:22.833-05:00Sigourney: an ungathered sunbeam<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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For her latest book, <b>Lydia Huntley Sigourney</b> produced over 300 pages of poems and sketches about North America, from her native state of Connecticut to the Wyoming Territory. She poeticized historical or cultural objects or events, including the <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/lowell-here-where-we-stand-stood-he.html">Washington Elm</a> in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Bunker Hill, Plymouth Rock, and the Jamestown settlement. Her poems were set all over New England (where she spent much of her life) and even Niagara Falls. The book, then, lived up to its title, <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=5DIfAAAAMAAJ"><i>Scenes in My Native Land</i></a>. In its final pages, dated December 4, 1844, from Hartford, Connecticut, she offered a conclusion:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And now, reader and friend, our hour of pleasant gossip is finished. We have said nothing of the pictured rocks, or the great western caverns, nor wandered together in spirit on the borders of our mighty lakes, or the shores of the " father of waters."
<br />
<br />
No. I have spoken only of such places as "keepers at home" may readily reach, and which probably you have yourself visited. Still it is as useful, and vastly more convenient, to admire objects near at hand than those far away; and on what the eye hath oft-times looked, we may still discover an unplucked flower, or an ungathered sunbeam, to cheer and to uplift the heart...
<br />
<br />
So now, reader and friend, unknown, perchance, but still a friend, Farewell. If it is morning with you, may the day be blessed and happy; and if it is evening,
<br />
"a fair good night,
<br /> And pleasant dreams, and slumbers light." </blockquote>
<br />
The last words were a quote from Sir <b>Walter Scott</b>. Many of the poems in the collection are several pages long. Perhaps most appropriate here is a portion of her poem "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=5DIfAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA298">The Snow-Storm</a>" which, though without a specific location mentioned in the text, gives a fairly good image of New England:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
How quietly the snow comes down,<br />
When all are fast asleep,<br />
And plays a thousand fairy pranks<br />
O'er vale and mountain steep.<br />
How cunningly it finds its way<br />
To every cranny small,<br />
And creeps through even the slightest chink<br />
In window, or in wall.<br />
<br />
To every noteless hill it brings<br />
A fairer, purer crest<br />
Than the rich ermine robe that decks<br />
The haughtiest monarch's breast.<br />
To every reaching spray it gives<br />
Whate'er its hand can hold —<br />
A beauteous thing the snow is,<br />
To all, both young and old...
</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-13268099498067143932014-11-25T16:41:00.000-05:002014-11-25T16:41:07.974-05:00Death of B. P. Shillaber ("Mrs. Partington")<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Benjamin Penhallow (B. P.) Shillaber</b> died in Chelsea, Massachusetts on November 25, 1890, after a half a century in the world of publishing. The New Hampshire-born Shillaber began working at a printing office in his teen years. In 1847, he created what would become his most enduring work: the humorous persona of "Mrs. Partington." The character was inspired by English critic <b>Sydney Smith</b>, who had mentioned a character by that name attempting to mop up the Atlantic Ocean. Shillaber continued with that vein of ridiculous humor by introducing his character this way:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
Mrs. Partington says that the price of bread may have advanced, but that she never pays more than fifty cents for half a dollar's worth.</blockquote>
<br />
These short, witty "epitaphs," often inspired by current events or concerns, became his hallmark. After several years working with Mrs. Partington at the Boston <i>Post</i>, Shillaber and <b>Charles G. Halpine</b> established their own humorous magazine, <i>Carpet Bag</i>, in 1852. Shillaber himself admitted the magazine "had more character than patronage" and it "died happily" about a year later. He took the opportunity, however, to publish a book, <i>Life and Sayings of Mrs. Partington</i> in 1854. By 1866, he was mostly retired and spent the rest of his life just outside Boston. Upon his death in 1890, newspapers reported of his unending cheerfulness, much like his work, and predicted that his Mrs. Partington character "will doubtless ever remain a unique figure in American humour."<br />
<br />
Mrs. Partington's/Shillaber's commentaries included references to violinist <b>Ole Bull</b>, the opening of the new Boston Music Hall, the temperance movement, and more. Perhaps the best representation considering the time of year is this short one:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What kin is that which all Yankees love to recognize, and which always has sweet associations connected with it? Why, pump-kin, to be sure.
</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-27888806515514763492014-11-19T19:30:00.002-05:002021-05-19T08:12:01.256-04:00Favorite last words from poets<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCz0jVX14dRZdAg3b2impuk2sRwUOc7ke6Gkn7Fb7qzqZjPA4nJx3rfxI4gX74CxIfk-p1E5O6t07IZ6VwXZNPMDqULi7TiaGATyDphbsYPQEBAxgAfOprFZ5zK9mMdU3LsMfFB0fCk2I/s1600/fgh.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCz0jVX14dRZdAg3b2impuk2sRwUOc7ke6Gkn7Fb7qzqZjPA4nJx3rfxI4gX74CxIfk-p1E5O6t07IZ6VwXZNPMDqULi7TiaGATyDphbsYPQEBAxgAfOprFZ5zK9mMdU3LsMfFB0fCk2I/s200/fgh.jpg" width="127" /></a>
"Hand me my pantaloons, if you please." </blockquote>
<br />
These were the last recorded words of Connecticut-born poet <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/death-of-halleck-in-sunbeams-of-fame.html">Fitz-Greene Halleck</a> before his death 147 years ago today on November 19, 1867.<br />
<br />
In honor of those not-so-glamorous last words, here are a few of my other favorite last words of American writers highlighted on the blog (in no particular order):<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"I want to go away."</blockquote>
—Ohio/NY poet <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/death-of-cary-i-want-to-go-away.html">Phoebe Cary</a> (died February 12, 1871) <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"All is perfect peace with me." </blockquote>
—Georgia poet <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2012/12/death-of-chivers-all-is-perfect-peace.html">Thomas Holley Chivers</a> (died December 18, 1858)<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
"Take me away. Take me away." </blockquote>
—"Poet of the Sierras" <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/miller-loudest-when-still.html">Joaquin Miller</a> (died February 17, 1913)<br />
<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
"Your kisses are always sweet to me." </blockquote>
—Painter/poet <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/death-of-read-always-sweet-to-me.html">Thomas Buchanan Read</a> (died May 11, 1872)<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Beautiful!" </blockquote>
—New Hampshire poet <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/death-of-burnham-to-us-is-weeping.html">Samuel Burnham</a> (died June 22, 1873)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiduOMKYgXFnt7YN_hVYculb0pNWyEA1Z2DKFxY4S0T6IsSvVlzWJ3PrCvhmRgvW2gx2UybASop3oURCxRn8rBMrBe2L6I-Yd7umhHVq1t3BQg0j3KmBPXKstezL5T_IrLaAtXjs7LKpQk/s1600/hdt.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiduOMKYgXFnt7YN_hVYculb0pNWyEA1Z2DKFxY4S0T6IsSvVlzWJ3PrCvhmRgvW2gx2UybASop3oURCxRn8rBMrBe2L6I-Yd7umhHVq1t3BQg0j3KmBPXKstezL5T_IrLaAtXjs7LKpQk/s320/hdt.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Moose... Indian." </blockquote>
—Massachusetts writer <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/guest-post-death-of-henry-david-thoreau.html">Henry David Thoreau</a> (died May 6, 1862)<br />
*Note: The above was a guest post by historian <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Meet-Henry-David-Thoreau/148253168554771">Richard Smith</a><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"In spite of it all, I am going to sleep; put out the lights." </blockquote>
—"Bad Boy" and poet <a href="https://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/aldrich-in-spite-of-it-all-i-am-going.html">Thomas Bailey Aldrich</a> (March 19, 1907)Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-15928118618227326202014-11-12T18:59:00.001-05:002023-06-23T20:02:20.170-04:00Harris: under the spell of the old town<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1vrL4A-QdDeJR43IZil5ikiYIpwTsGfh2RrLGt6UVV4llyed7gXLU0KKvql5YcCrO_zfVwVJCx3rgaOR1I04BOOdTWQEy8vCMOdEHNsgSUURWKgDG9nuq7LIG2WABu3RN-lecymhRxEo/s1600/jcl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1vrL4A-QdDeJR43IZil5ikiYIpwTsGfh2RrLGt6UVV4llyed7gXLU0KKvql5YcCrO_zfVwVJCx3rgaOR1I04BOOdTWQEy8vCMOdEHNsgSUURWKgDG9nuq7LIG2WABu3RN-lecymhRxEo/s200/jcl.jpg" width="181" /></a></div>
The people of Eatonton, Georgia were proud of their native son, <b>Joel Chandler Harris</b>, as he rose to literary fame. Best known for his Uncle Remus tales, Harris was then living in Atlanta, in a home he called <a href="http://www.wrensnest.org/">Wren's Nest</a>. He was some 80 miles from the town of his birth — not so very far, which made it so hard for him to turn down an offer to return to Eatonton. In a letter dated November 12, 1901, he wrote:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I have delayed answering your letter hoping to see my way clear to accepting the invitation which you were kind enough to send me, and which I assure you is very highly appreciated. Though I have been away so many years, I still feel that <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/birth-of-joel-chandler-harris.html">Eatonton is my home</a> and the people there my best friends. I love them all, so much so that I have never written anything to be published in book form that I did not ask myself if there could be anything in it which my friends there would not approve. Thus, in a way, they have been my most helpful critics. I thank you heartily for the invitation and regret that a pressure of work will prevent me from accepting.</blockquote>
<br />
Harris was then working on what would become <i>Gabriel Tolliver</i>, a book which he dedicated to his friend <b>James Whitcomb Riley</b>. He also admitted to Riley that he had allowed the interest of his characters to overshadow the story. Even so, the book was set in Shady Dale, a fictionalized version of Eatonton, which served as an equally important character in Harris's writings. <br /><br />The book begins not unlike the invitation he received in 1901: "Cephas! here is a letter for you, and it is from Shady Dale! I know you will be happy now." The narrative voice then admits that he far too often spoke of the town of his youth, that his recollections of Shady Dale were "coloured" and that he saw the people only through his "boyhood-eyes." The other character in that opening, Sophia, warns Cephas that if he were to go back, he'd learn they weren't so different from everyone else after all. "This was absurd, of course—or, rather, it would have been absurd for any one else to make the suggestion; for at that particular time, Sophia was a trifle jealous of Shady Dale and its people."<br />
<br />
From <i>Gabriel Tolliver</i>'s chapter "A Town with a History":<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Before, during, and after the war, Shady Dale presented always the same aspect of serene repose. It was, as you may say, a town with a history. Then, as now, there were towns all about that had no such fortunate appendage behind them to explain their origin... Shady Dale is no city, and it may be that its public spirited citizens stretch the meaning of the term when they call it a town. Nevertheless, the community has a well-defined history...<br />
<br />
But to set forth its origin is not to describe its beauty, which is of a character that refuses to submit to description... You are inevitably impressed with a sense of the attractiveness of the place; you fall under the spell of the old town... And yet if you were called upon to define the nature of the spell, what could you say? What name could you give to the tremulous beauty that hovers about and around the place, when the fresh green leaves of the great trees are fluttering in the cool wind, and everything is touched and illumined by the tender colours of spring? Under what heading in the catalogue of things would you place the vivid richness which animates the town and the landscape all around when the summer is at its height? And how could you describe the harmony that time has brought about between the fine, old houses and the setting in which they are grouped?<br />
<br />
All these things are elusive; they make themselves keenly felt, but they do not lend themselves to analysis.</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-18750047358810582432014-11-03T12:49:00.004-05:002017-11-03T07:19:16.980-04:00Death of George Arnold: a wasted life<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnWrw2LE5KdX6JnURVevLxCzxMpl0xBldIIeze8dsqg0D37IoyKGr7z1BBu3r_s-kv4e7umQMuV9qZkHGYUY_IXpzeVdvXO0IZVmvd7yMg4PJknd-BZFEo8tQTUKrS9KB0_kdMffCxzvQ/s1600/ga.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnWrw2LE5KdX6JnURVevLxCzxMpl0xBldIIeze8dsqg0D37IoyKGr7z1BBu3r_s-kv4e7umQMuV9qZkHGYUY_IXpzeVdvXO0IZVmvd7yMg4PJknd-BZFEo8tQTUKrS9KB0_kdMffCxzvQ/s1600/ga.jpg" width="168" /></a></div>
Though scarcely remembered today, the poet <b>George Arnold</b> was mourned by many when he died on November 3, 1865. A contributor to magazines like <i>Vanity Fair</i>, Arnold often wrote under the pseudonym "McArone," with works that crossed a variety of styles and genres but, mostly, he was a humorist.<br />
<br />
When he died at age 31, those who remembered him included the group that frequented <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfaff%27s_beer_cellar">Pfaff's</a>, a bar in Manhattan known for its Bohemian clientele of artists and writers. For that group, he allegedly first presented one of his most anthologized poems, <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182082">an ode to beer</a>. One of those who frequented the establishment was <b>Walt Whitman</b>, who once scuffled with Arnold over the question of the Confederacy. One account says their debate grew so heated, Arnold (who supported the secession of the Southern states) assaulted Whitman by grabbing him by the hair. In Whitman's own account, it was merely a loud argument, which resulted in the elder poet's leaving the building.<br />
<br />
Another of those who met him at Pfaff's was artist/poet <b>Elihu Vedder</b>. Many years after Arnold's death, Vedder recalled, "He died young; I do not know of what he died, but he seemed to be worn
out even when I first met him... He thought his life a wasted life; it
was with him a gorgeous romance of youthful despair; but into that grave
went a tender charm, great talent, and great weakness."<br />
<br />
Also among the Pfaff's crowd was <b>William Winter</b>, who elsewhere recalled Arnold's time in the established: "[He was] one of the sweetest poets in our country who have sung the beauties of Nature and the tenderness of true love; and he never came without bringing sunshine." <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/booth-our-thoughts-pursue-his-track.html">Winter</a> collected Arnold's poems and published them with a biography. <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2013/11/victorian-poets-sing-more-sweetly-there.html">Editor</a>/<a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/12/stedman-guest-of-evening.html">critic</a>/<a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2012/09/stedman-give-us-man.html">author</a> <b>Edmund Clarence Stedman</b> memorialized Arnold <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=lLURAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA281">in verse</a> not long after his burial at <a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7597423">Greenwood Cemetery</a> in Trenton, New Jersey. More appropriate than Stedman's poem, however, is Arnold's own, "The Lees of Life":<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I have had my will,<br />
Tasted every pleasure;<br />
I have drank my fill <br />
Of the purple measure;<br />
It has lost its zest,<br />
Sorrow is my guest,<br />
O, the lees are bitter, — bitter, —<br />
Give me rest!<br />
<br />
Love once filled the bowl<br />
Running o'er with blisses,<br />
Made my very soul <br />
Drunk with crimson kisses;<br />
But I drank it dry,<br />
Love has passed me by,<br />
O, the lees are bitter, — bitter, —<br />
Let me die!</blockquote>
<br />
<i>*Note: At least one source gives the date of Arnold's death as November 9.</i> Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-37890433275651245512014-10-10T08:04:00.002-04:002014-10-10T08:04:52.506-04:00Chivers: Love, Joy, and Grief<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXWEBV-taIpvlHY7mEBw_XP7OKS1CaysfgDXcgaWSkb41XLxRqbc_9IXjHSWbi5BXN_vUJX8s38craOKhg-hkxoDszcTnW7txWq_WJrx8ZzbeC4QYe13TJ0aUTAH-T9MJoiT7e1dS2iow/s1600/thc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXWEBV-taIpvlHY7mEBw_XP7OKS1CaysfgDXcgaWSkb41XLxRqbc_9IXjHSWbi5BXN_vUJX8s38craOKhg-hkxoDszcTnW7txWq_WJrx8ZzbeC4QYe13TJ0aUTAH-T9MJoiT7e1dS2iow/s200/thc.jpg" /></a></div>
<b>Thomas Holley Chivers</b> knew about love, joy, and grief. The <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/on-cotton-plantation-outside-of.html">Georgian</a> poet had experienced a troubled life but took great joy in his family, including his parents and siblings, as well as his children. <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2013/12/chivers-why-should-i-mourn.html">His children</a>, however, all died young, and his first marriage proved disastrous. By October 10, 1839, he knew enough about love, joy, and grief to write a poem appropriately called "The Poetry of Love, Joy, and Grief":<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To hang upon his breast by day.<br />
To lie close by his side by night;<br />
To heed whatever he may say,<br />
And do it with as fond delight;<br />
To make each thought of him thy sigh,<br />
To love him more than God above,<br />
And think that he can never die—<br />
This is the Poetry of Love.<br />
<br />
To think him, absent, by thy side-<br />
Whatever he may do is right;<br />
To love him as when first his bride,<br />
And think each one thy bridal night;<br />
To live through life unchanged in years.<br />
With love that time cannot destroy,<br />
And have each thought expressed in tears—<br />
This is the Poetry of Joy.<br />
<br />
To sit down by his dying bed,<br />
To count each pulse—to feel each pain—<br />
To love him after he is dead,<br />
And nevermore to smile again; <br />
To love him after as before—<br />
To find his grave thy sole relief—. <br />
And weep for him forever more—<br />
This is the Poetry of Grief. </blockquote>
<br />
The poem, written in the perspective of a woman, may also have been a somewhat passive-aggressive reference to his first wife, who had left him not long after their marriage. Or, perhaps, it was more referential to his <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/this-feeling-old-as-death-ancient-as.html">second wife</a>, who he had married not long before writing the poem. The theme of <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2014/06/chiverss-nightingale-sweet-mournful.html">death or dying</a> was fairly typical for Chivers's poetry. "The Poetry of Love, Joy, and Grief" was included in his self-published collection <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=sj0vAQAAIAAJ"><i>The Lost Pleiad</i></a> in 1845.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-81258220239918332922014-09-25T09:56:00.000-04:002014-10-29T10:55:26.248-04:00Elmore: Tramping, hurrying, rushing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmdmsEFqcyBaAztBxkFPC35RlstlytK5gKgGuBAMhwvGy28qDLszpBDFIyW8O29rQVe-mkzMN6UfruQFRJt4W-m111im6n2ljgyBi1-JcX9_yVcR89cKoYLXSoic_sUNerLswnItThMGk/s1600/jbe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmdmsEFqcyBaAztBxkFPC35RlstlytK5gKgGuBAMhwvGy28qDLszpBDFIyW8O29rQVe-mkzMN6UfruQFRJt4W-m111im6n2ljgyBi1-JcX9_yVcR89cKoYLXSoic_sUNerLswnItThMGk/s1600/jbe.jpg" height="200" width="139" /></a></div>
Indiana poet <b>James B. Elmore</b> earned a reputation writing about ordinary things, from sassafras to mushrooms, and from kittens to cuckoo clocks. His poetry was intentionally jaunty and fun, and he earned a great reputation in his region (they called him the "Bard of Alamo," after his home town in <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/elmore-masons-you-are-at-home.html">Indiana</a>). He was a layer, a preacher, and carpenter, before retiring as a farmer. He found time to write poetry every fee moment he had, and his themes represented his somewhat unpolished rural background. His poem "Streetcar and Elevator," dated September 25, 1900, took an interesting view of the modernization of society (with tongue in cheek):<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I'm in the city;<br />
I don't know what to do,<br />
Unless I take a street car<br />
And ride the whole town through.<br />
<br />
Buzz — they come a-rushing,<br />
Buzz — they pass you by;<br />
Tramping, hurrying, rushing,<br />
The people turn and sigh.<br />
<br />
A man that works a lever<br />
Is sitting on in front;<br />
Another, on the rear end,<br />
With cash, fare bell, and punch.<br />
<br />
The sparks are flying round you,<br />
And something makes a siz; <br />
Your heart is near collapsing.<br />
O, what a feeling it is!<br />
<br />
Jing-a-ling! You're stopping,<br />
And then you pass along, <br />
While holding to some straps<br />
That dangle o'er the throng.<br />
<br />
As soon as you have started<br />
They ask you for your fare; <br />
If you don't a nickel have,<br />
You're trotted off the car.<br />
<br />
Yet there is another thing<br />
Which is not very clear— <br />
How the fleeting elevator<br />
Goes up and down so queer.<br />
<br />
It is always ready;<br />
You just step in and on. <br />
You can't say your baby prayers<br />
Until your heart is gone.<br />
<br />
You're going up so very fast<br />
You cannot see about,<br />
And you feel so awful queer,<br />
As though the bottom was out.<br />
<br />
I saw a great big fellow<br />
A-standing proud and stiff,<br />
And at his first experience<br />
You should have seen him twist.<br />
<br />
He crouched down in one corner<br />
And expressed himself: "By grit!<br />
I believe I'll take that flight of stairs<br />
For fear the thing may slip."<br />
<br />
I saw him going down the stairs,<br />
Three hundred pounds avoirdupois,<br />
And by the time he'd reach the ground<br />
You'd be in Illinois.</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-21577347443916204922014-09-11T08:59:00.004-04:002014-09-12T10:08:26.814-04:00Davidson: But your fame shall never die<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzkT-dfVguPcYwDXYnulTIkvJXTbmH_ZO7PhTNZGYjNqxw1wtrHbP20TDGUYSZgeVFgne-0hzoWK-kFbtBIIykmHbAsxK0O6kN32dM48PfWNrwdpgwPE6rjCezksoorkb7aEsGkAo_qhg/s1600/LMD.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzkT-dfVguPcYwDXYnulTIkvJXTbmH_ZO7PhTNZGYjNqxw1wtrHbP20TDGUYSZgeVFgne-0hzoWK-kFbtBIIykmHbAsxK0O6kN32dM48PfWNrwdpgwPE6rjCezksoorkb7aEsGkAo_qhg/s1600/LMD.jpg" height="200" width="159" /></a>The <a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/america-victorious-on-lake-champlain">Battle of Lake Champlain</a> during the War of 1812 took place on September 11, 1814. Many of the sailors who were killed during that military engagement were buried in a mass grave on Crab Island, just outside the town of Plattsburgh, New York.<br />
<br />
About eight years later, the young <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/birth-of-davidson-rouse-thee-america.html">Plattsburgh-born</a> poet <b>Lucretia Maria Davidson</b> traveled across Lake Champlain in a steamboat and saw Crab Island. Remembering the dead that remained interred and unmarked there, the 14-year old poet wrote "Reflections, on Crossing Lake Champlain in the Steamboat Phoenix":<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Islet on the lake's calm bosom,<br />
In thy breast rich treasures lie;<br />
Heroes! there your bones shall moulder,<br />
But your fame shall never die.<br />
<br />
Islet on the lake's calm bosom,<br />
Sleep serenely in thy bed;<br />
Brightest gem our waves can boast,<br />
Guardian angel of the dead!<br />
<br />
Calm upon the waves recline,<br />
Till great Nature's reign is o'er;<br />
Until old and swift-winged time<br />
Sinks, and order is no more.<br />
<br />
Then thy guardianship shall cease,<br />
Then shall rock thy aged bed;<br />
And when Heaven's last trump shall sound,<br />
Thou shalt yield thy noble dead!</blockquote>
<br />
Davidson was already sick with the tuberculosis that would kill her about two years writing the above poem. She was 16. Her sincere interest in poetry, coupled with her young innocence, lent credence to the belief that her tuberculosis inspired her to have a strong poetic sensibility. Her supporters after her death included <b>Samuel F. B. Morse</b> and <b>Catharine Maria Sedgwick</b> each of whom assisted with <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/04/davidson-to-moulder-and-fade-on-earth.html">posthumous publications</a> of her work.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-80770276080428492392014-09-05T07:41:00.000-04:002014-09-05T07:41:00.551-04:00Cooper and Wyandotté: Merciful Providence!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis8PTI8NQzLH4tr-QEP5lRGDbLvBrSGONahWvP7AwNFSKLH3kCJi2BCRSrLGfX6d78W27JHlwrDP28JGwOP98gaVa7Sgt_IMSluozUBkmnfDQH_3jta74QvQ2osBNHlp1y8HUrU6CQ4eQ/s1600/jfc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis8PTI8NQzLH4tr-QEP5lRGDbLvBrSGONahWvP7AwNFSKLH3kCJi2BCRSrLGfX6d78W27JHlwrDP28JGwOP98gaVa7Sgt_IMSluozUBkmnfDQH_3jta74QvQ2osBNHlp1y8HUrU6CQ4eQ/s1600/jfc.jpg" height="200" width="128" /></a></div>
With the last of his <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/cooper-and-his-last-mohican.html">Leatherstocking novels</a> two years behind him, <b>James Fenimore Cooper</b> turned to another historical period for his novel <i>Wyandotté, or, The Hutted Knoll</i>: the American Revolution. Published on September 5, 1843, <i>Wyandotté</i> was not the first of Cooper's books set in that era, though it had been some twenty years since his previous books <i>The Spy</i> (1821) and <i>Lionel Lincoln</i> (1825)<br />
<br />
The action of Cooper's book takes place in a remote valley in Otsego County (where Cooper lived much of <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/death-of-james-fenimore-cooper.html">his life</a>), a bit removed from the main events of the period. Despite not focusing on famous real events, the author couched his story in reality; as he noted in his preface, the stories he told in this book were "distinctive in many of their leading facts, if not rigidly true in the details." He noted his concern about the proliferation of American Revolution related stories which were quickly becoming more legend than truth because of "pseudo-patriotism." Cooper warned, "Nothing is really patriotic, however, that is not strictly true and just." He was particularly concerned about the hard-line distinction between "good guy" Revolutionaries and "bad guy" Tories, which he intended to complicate. Here is how one Tory breaks the news of the rebellion to his family in the novel:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Merciful Providence!" exclaimed Mrs. Willoughby—"What can you mean, my son?"<br />
<br />
"I mean, mother, that civil war has actually commenced in the colonies, and that the people of your blood and race are, in open arms, against the people of my father's native country—in a word, against me."<br />
<br />
"How can that be, Robert? Who would dare to strike a blow against the king?"<br />
<br />
"When men get excited, and their passions are once inflamed, they will do much, my mother, that they might not dream of, else."<br />
<br />
"This must be a mistake! Some evil-disposed person has told you this, Robert, knowing your attachment to the crown."<br />
<br />
"I wish it were so, dear madam; but my own eyes have seen—I may say my own flesh has felt, the contrary."</blockquote>
<br />
In fact, the Willoughbys are somewhat torn in deciding their allegiance in the novel. Part of Cooper's sympathy for Tories and those who were loyal to England during the Revolution may have been personal: some of his ancestors were counted among that group. Several reviews of <i>Wyandotté</i> focused on whether or not the history in the book was accurate.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-76383208622786706672014-08-26T18:30:00.000-04:002018-08-26T09:28:57.483-04:00Death of Tucker: not the worst<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3YZuUOexndnBEpcVJvxlghSVlRnGJQkgdWxNQpZbPtZPetHzc0Cj3sS6PgDhpMnIFsryImE7GrWPVQs6IJkXGSmSmu4-OdyiYYAQ59leGmsFMojLbetHju4R1JHYkrvJn-6nka1xVcc4/s1600/nbt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3YZuUOexndnBEpcVJvxlghSVlRnGJQkgdWxNQpZbPtZPetHzc0Cj3sS6PgDhpMnIFsryImE7GrWPVQs6IJkXGSmSmu4-OdyiYYAQ59leGmsFMojLbetHju4R1JHYkrvJn-6nka1xVcc4/s1600/nbt.jpg" width="136" /></a></div>
<b>Nathaniel Beverley Tucker</b> lived a varied life before his death on August 26, 1851, just shy of his 67th birthday. He was born in Chesterfield County, Virginia, where several men in his family rose to prominence in politics, education, and the law. He served during the War of 1812 before moving to the Missouri Territory and earning the rank of judge. He outlived two of his three wives by the time he began working at his <a href="http://scholarship.law.wm.edu/nbtucker/">alma mater</a>, the College of William and Mary. By the 1830s and 1840s, he was already espousing a form of secession that allowed state sovereignty.<br />
<br />
Tucker was also a published author who published three novels and contributed to periodicals, particularly several essays in the pages of the <i>Southern Literary Messenger</i>. One of his works, <i><a href="http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/tucker/menu.html">The Partisan Leader</a>: A Tale of the Future</i>, was set in the "future" of 1849 when it was published in 1836 and, according to some, correctly predicted the birth of the Confederacy. Certainly, Tucker had been advocating for secession for years: "Disunion is not the worst of possible evils," he once claimed, and suggested breaking up the states be an open discussion.<br />
<br />
From the dialogue of a character in his novel <i><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=LzMnAAAAMAAJ">George Balcombe</a></i> (1836):<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...It is only by blunders that we learn wisdom. You are too young to have made many as yet. God forbid, that when you shall have made as many as I have, you should have profited as little by them. But it will not be so. You take the right plan to get the full benefit of all you make. I am not sure," continued he, " that we do not purchase all our good qualities by the exercise of their opposites. How else does experience of danger make men brave? If they were not scared at first, then they were brave at first. If they were scared, then the effect of fear upon the mind has been to engender courage. Virtue, indeed, may be formed by habit. But who has a habit of virtue? very few. The rest have to arrive at virtue by the roundabout road of crime and repentance; as if a man should follow the sun around the earth to reach a point but a few degrees east of that from which he started. But it is God's plan of accomplishing his greatest end, and must be the best plan."</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-88047170833754570812014-08-22T07:43:00.000-04:002014-08-22T07:43:00.574-04:00Birth of Paulding: homebred feeling<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWjLR0cXet-JjtmORrgJDghGJdE06mKjsy5yoRqticH7ifyMgm6ETpmgoxS42iZW-G9GONx1t05IDv8sNUw1HAuPE1ozIG0DQlB2IQV8AenqNXrD6nxTfGzTWr7AwuCoz-7V3L1xDJum0/s1600/jkp.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWjLR0cXet-JjtmORrgJDghGJdE06mKjsy5yoRqticH7ifyMgm6ETpmgoxS42iZW-G9GONx1t05IDv8sNUw1HAuPE1ozIG0DQlB2IQV8AenqNXrD6nxTfGzTWr7AwuCoz-7V3L1xDJum0/s1600/jkp.jpg" height="200" width="146" /></a></div>
<b>James Kirke Paulding</b>'s main goal in literature was to promote the United States, its history, its people, and its ideals. "Mr. Paulding's writings are distinguished for a decided nationality," summed up one contemporary editor, who noted all his characters were distinctly American.<br />
<br />
Born in Dutchess County in New York on August 22, 1778, he was the son of <b>William Paulding</b>, who had assisted financially with the American Revolution. Another family member was involved with the capture of <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2013/10/execution-of-john-andre-not-fear-of.html">John André</a>. His first literary effort, however, was less lofty: "in a frolicsome mood" he joined with his friend <b>Washington Irving</b> to produce the satirical <i>Salmagundi</i> (beginning in 1807). That humorous periodical, however, laid the groundwork for his more purposeful satire, <i>The Diverting History of John Bull and Brother Jonathan</i> during a period in which English critics were particularly harsh in commenting on American culture (Paulding's personification of Great Britain had "a devilish, quarrelsome, overbearing disposition, which was always getting him into some scrape or other").<br />
<br />
In fact, Paulding began experimenting with a variety of literary forms: <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/paulding-talking-potato-and-impious-race.html">satire</a>, <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/death-of-paulding-no-waters-can-cure.html">poetry</a>, novels, drama, and biography. Perhaps because he was writing so early in American literary history, at a time without significant competition, he became fairly well known as a man of letters. He was also named Secretary of the Navy in 1838.<br />
<br />
Nineteenth century critics seemed truly to admire Paulding, in part because of his connection to Irving. One contemporary noted "his affection for the democratical institutions of his country" was easily seen in his work and, further, his writing style was not "polished" but expressed "boldly and carelessly, without paying too nice a regard to the decrees of taste, and the canons of criticism." Some accounts suggest he never modified his rough drafts or preplanned his plots, preferring spontaneity in his work.<br />
<br />
Perhaps that lack of polish explains the excessive length of his ambitious poem <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=ozMTAAAAIAAJ"><i>The Backwoodsman</i></a> (1818), an early rallying cry for Americanism in literature. As he says in his preface, his hope was to invite young authors to focus their attentions to home and the United States. He cast away the legendary writers of the past like <b>Homer</b>, who represented an uncivilized age. Following this "humble theme" of nationalism, the poem evokes the landscape, history, and character of the United States as a source of literary inspiration. Further, though Paulding admits that art and poetry have not been the focus in this new country, he looks forward to the day when American culture overtakes European culture as superior:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Neglected Muse! of this our western clime,<br />
How long in servile, imitative rhyme,<br />
Wilt thou thy stifled energies impart,<br />
And miss the path that leads to every heart?<br />
How long repress the brave decisive flight,<br />
Warm'd by thy native fires, led by thy native light?<br />
Thrice happy he who first shall strike the lyre,<br />
With homebred feeling, and with homebred fire;<br />
He need not envy any favour'd bard,<br />
Who Fame's bright meed, and Fortune's smiles reward;<br />
Secure, that wheresoe'er this empire rolls,<br />
Or east, or west, or tow'rd the firm fixed poles,<br />
While Europe's ancient honours fade away,<br />
And sink the glories of her better day,</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-51363894088888422892014-08-19T08:17:00.002-04:002014-08-19T08:17:45.508-04:00Birth of Goodrich: instead of wickedness<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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In the western part of the State of Connecticut, is a small town by the name of Ridgefield. This title is descriptive, and indicates the general form and position of the place. It is, in fact, a collection of hills, rolled into one general and commanding elevation. On the west is a ridge of mountains, forming the boundary between the States of Connecticut and New York; to the south the land spreads out in wooded undulations to Long Island Sound; east and north, a succession of hills, some rising up against the sky, and others fading away in the distance, bound the horizon. In this town, in an antiquated and rather dilapidated house of shingles and clapboards, I was born on the 19th of August, 1793.</blockquote>
<br />
Thus <b>Samuel Griswold Goodrich</b> explains his own birth on August 19, 1793, in his <a href="http://books.google.com/books?ei=OTzzU5bLO4aVyASwqYDIAQ"><i>Recollections of a Lifetime</i></a> (1857). He was one of ten children (only eight of whom survived past infancy) and was raised in near poverty. His father, a minister, made only $400 a year. As such, young Goodrich was mostly self-educated. He later became a bookseller and publisher.<br />
<br />
In the literary world, Goodrich is perhaps most well-known for founding and editing the annual gift book <i>The Token</i> — which published the writings of <b>Nathaniel Parker Willis</b>, <b>Nathaniel Hawthorne</b>, and <b>Henry Wadsworth Longfellow</b>, among others — as well as the <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/death-of-samuel-griswold-goodrich.html">Peter Parley</a> series of educational anecdotes for children. Peter Parley's book featured an elderly gentleman telling stories about history, geography, biography, science, and other miscellaneous topics. The series proved both popular and lucrative; he later recalled his optimism: "Well, thought I, if this goes on I may yet rival Mother Goose!"<br />
<br />
Goodrich's self-education proved his greatest inspiration for the future. As a boy, he read <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>, the Bible, natural history, and biographies. Looking back as an adult, he believed it was all a positive influence on him. It was through this background, he writes,<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
...that I first formed the conception of the Parley Tales— the general idea of which was to make nursery books reasonable and truthful, and thus to feed the young mind upon things wholesome and pure, instead of things monstrous, false, and pestilent: that we should use the same prudence in giving aliment to the mind and soul, as to the body; and as we would not give blood and poison as food for the latter, we should not administer cruelty and violence, terror and impurity, to the other. In short, that the elements of nursery books should consist of beauty instead of deformity, goodness instead of wickedness, decency instead of vulgarity.
</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-2160036434054129482014-08-13T11:00:00.000-04:002014-08-13T17:49:05.747-04:00Bunner's Nine Cent-Girls: Catch the difference?<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuzrn3NGUcNOLo-koi8eb9oJ70PcJMrRu-aVL8iOqDn82qL-wpYx8hfo2ypSUZaMzITztSddIBTY8vDcnBSjG1wOi7svh34HwfMp0Cjr5ohLdLrq_npnUG9BX-jeRNnYh5hhWfiGVTt7s/s1600/hcb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" bua="true" closure_lm_576572="null" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuzrn3NGUcNOLo-koi8eb9oJ70PcJMrRu-aVL8iOqDn82qL-wpYx8hfo2ypSUZaMzITztSddIBTY8vDcnBSjG1wOi7svh34HwfMp0Cjr5ohLdLrq_npnUG9BX-jeRNnYh5hhWfiGVTt7s/s1600/hcb.jpg" height="200" width="148" /></a>
New York author <b>Henry Cuyler Bunner</b> certainly had a good sense of <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2012/08/ramifications-interlacements.html">humor</a>, becoming assistant editor then full editor of the comic weekly magazine <i>Puck</i>. It was in that magazine, in its August 13, 1890 issue, that he published his short story "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=PZE3Tt09BdUC&pg=PA111">The Nine Cent-Girls</a>." "The Nine-cent Girls?" asked the character Jack Winfield. "No," responded his friend Richard Cutter, "the Nine Cent-Girls. Catch the difference?"<br />
<br />
The two men are jilted, or at least unsuccessful, lovers. Winfield vows to get a wife soon, despite being stuck in the "girlless wilderness" of a ranch in Montana. His friend tells him about the town of Tusculum, New York, which is nearly overrun with women (as all the men move to New York City to make their mark). The Nine Cent-Girls are sisters who each look like the face of the Indian lady on the little red cent, "the neatest and most artistic coin that the United States government has ever struck." <br />
<br />
Despite being resigned never to marry, Cutter is deputed to visit the girls on behalf of the ranchers. But, when he calls at their home in Tusculum, he learns that the patriarch had died and no male relative had assumed a similar head of household role for them. "The whole scheme [is] busted," Cutter thinks. Still, somehow, he convinces the eldest of the women, Euphrosyne, to bring the whole group to the ranch in Montana. Euphrosyne, apparently in her 30s, is too old to get married herself, but she thinks it would be good for her sisters. Accordingly, she sells the house and prepares to go West.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxvw9m-2CJKzr4UPUz0f9z6BKHszij5K7X-4NemgZUdvEJwL-sCSZr0WcdfYK517Za1u54N0xiNaND8frEPEcSaynNmbARcxt-qk5OzrRtcvIoLoSDnjDrT_aQtf1veGLMc3WPVVfkO6g/s1600/ncg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxvw9m-2CJKzr4UPUz0f9z6BKHszij5K7X-4NemgZUdvEJwL-sCSZr0WcdfYK517Za1u54N0xiNaND8frEPEcSaynNmbARcxt-qk5OzrRtcvIoLoSDnjDrT_aQtf1veGLMc3WPVVfkO6g/s1600/ncg.jpg" height="140" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Illustration by S. B. Griffin, 1891</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On the train ride, he is self-conscious that he might be doing something wrong. Fellow passengers wonder about the man leading the nine similar-looking women (all wearing the same outfit): one thinks they are a baseball team, another a minstrel group. When those assumptions are proven wrong, other gossip spreads, and Euphrosyne changes her mind: "Nine young unmarried women can not go West with a young man — if you had heard what people were saying all around us in the cars — you don't know." Cutter sheepishly notes that if only a married woman were leading the group, it might be different. She agrees, and he admits he has taken a fancy to one of the girls.<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
"Why, Mr. Cutter!" Miss Euphrosyne cried, "I had no idea that you — you — ever — though of — is it Clytie?<br />
"No," said Mr. Cutter, "it isn't Clytie."<br />
"Is it — is it — " Miss Euphrosyne's eyes lit up with hope long since extinguished, "is it Aurora?"<br />
"No!" Dick Cutter could have been heard three rooms off. "No!" he said, with all his lungs... "It's <i>YOU</i> — Y-O-U! I want to marry <i>you</i>, and what's more, I'm going to!"</blockquote>
<br />
Sure enough, they are married an hour later (though it's not stated if the wedding took place on the train or at one of the stops). Despite the odd circumstances behind their marriage, it seems Mr. and Mrs. Cutter are quite happy — and, what's more, the other eight Cent-Girls are soon married too. The author, Henry Cuyler Bunner, was himself married, though <b>Alice Learned Bunner</b> was from neither New York nor Montana; she was from Connecticut (and a published author herself).
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-34158304783541836462014-08-09T08:20:00.001-04:002014-08-09T08:20:48.027-04:00Meek and Americanism: brilliant with the stars<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Alexander Beaufort Meek</b> was 15 years old when he enrolled at the University of Georgia, though he transferred to the new University of <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/birth-of-meek-rose-of-alabama.html">Alabama</a> in 1831. He had just turned 30 when he returned to the University of Georgia to give an address to the <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/sprague-and-clarke-phi-beta-kappa.html">Phi Betta Kappa</a> and Demosthenian Societies. By then, he was fairly accomplished in the legal world, having been named a probate judge in Alabama. "You have called me back," Meek said in his speech on August 8, 1844, "from a distant home, over a wide interval of years, to the scene of my earliest collegiate life."<br />
<br />
Meek took the opportunity to consider the reactions to revisiting a once familiar place: lament for things now gone, excitement over positive change. For Meek, who worked by then both in literature and government, change was important in his native South. Literature and government could be improved and, in turn, could improve the character of the region, as well as the nation as a whole. Writing and the law are not the end goal for mankind, they are the path to follow "to accomplish the great design for which man was created". To grow as a people is to improve constantly over time, always spiraling upward with great deeds and accomplishments, but never satisfied at attaining an end result:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
Mankind have learned that governments are somewhat more than games or machines kept in curious motion for the amusement and edification of rulers; and literatures are beginning to be regarded, not as the phantasmagoria of poets and dreamers, the sunset scaffoldings of fancy, but as something very far beyond that. The old secret has come out, that man's immortality has already begun, and, by these things, you are moulding and fashioning him in his destinies forever.</blockquote>
<br />
In literature, Meek says, the goal is to focus on "Americanism" (the speech was named "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=o0cWAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA107">Americanism in Literature</a>"). We must grow in our letters just as we have been experiencing massive population growth. Among his suggestions to improve American writing, he emphasizes it must have national purpose and, more than that, that writing must be as representative as the diversity of the landscape of the entire nation:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Our country has extended her jurisdiction over the fairest and most fertile regions. The rich bounty is poured into her lap, and breathes its influence upon her population. Their capacities are not pent and thwarted by the narrow limits which restrict the citizens of other countries... Such are some of the physical aspects of our country, and such the influence they are destined to have upon our national mind. Very evidently they constitute noble sources of inspiration, illustration and description.</blockquote>
<br />
Not just the diversity of the landscape, Meek emphasizes, but the country also has a diversity of people, with ancestry all over the world. Further, the unique version of democracy practiced in the United States offers opportunities of inspiration. Though we have already succeeded with a few great writers, particularly <b>Washington Irving</b> and historian <b>George Bancroft</b>, we continue to look to the future, Meek says, and strive to grow. Meek, of course, will contribute to that Americanism as a poet, historian, and essayist. He concludes:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="gtxt_body">Let us then abide in the faith that this country
of ours, as she is destined to present to the world, the proudest
spectacle of political greatness ever beheld, will not be neglectful of
the other, the highest interest of humanity, its intellectual ascension ;
but that both shall flourish here, in unexampled splendor, with
reciprocal benefit, beneath the ample folds of that banner, which shall
then float out, in its blue beauty, like a tropical night, brilliant
with the stars of a whole hemisphere! </span></blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-33474432319446208152014-07-31T07:33:00.000-04:002014-07-31T07:33:00.402-04:00Death of Murfree: the sun had gone down<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6qdZ4YdukF178sr7TukBmNuoKbxg8KdI_zbk_te1bg3G3LLlwTFHFhyphenhyphent5TUZYjwRIvoBIY5SjNWwsnk0NIguKeZrEFbeoc0ExFKJ8ABbNIYawML4MYtXy9UHt06Fqtj2fx7OQ8dYrPRM/s1600/mnm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6qdZ4YdukF178sr7TukBmNuoKbxg8KdI_zbk_te1bg3G3LLlwTFHFhyphenhyphent5TUZYjwRIvoBIY5SjNWwsnk0NIguKeZrEFbeoc0ExFKJ8ABbNIYawML4MYtXy9UHt06Fqtj2fx7OQ8dYrPRM/s1600/mnm.jpg" height="200" width="131" /></a></div>
When <b>Mary Noailles Murfree</b> died on July 31, 1922, the author <b>Charles Egbert Craddock</b> <a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7994948">died</a> with her. Born and raised in <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/birth-of-murfreecraddock.html">Tennessee</a>, she moved to St. Louis with her family after the Civil War. Some sort of childhood illness (usually reported as "lameness") inspired her interest in reading and literature. Nostalgia for her home state likely inspired her to begin writing "local color" stories about Tennessee. These tales and sketches portrayed a frontier, rural south, a mountainous and wild region made up of tough and rugged characters. Murfree made a good marketing decision, then, to write under the pseudonym Charles Egbert Craddock. She maintained her ruse for several years before surprising, if not shocking, New England's literary elite when her true identity <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/curtain-was-wrung-down.html">was revealed</a>.<br />
<br />
In reality, Murfree/Craddock had little contact with the Appalachian mountain men and women that she featured in her work. She came from a well-known and aristocratic family (her home town of Murfreesboro was name after her ancestor, a veteran of the American Revolution) in central Tennessee. She spent her summers with her family in the mountainous regions in the eastern part of the state, among the Appalachian folks. Her family rank, however, as well as her "lameness" prevented her from much direct interaction with those people. She instead relied on those who made their way to do business to the resort hotel where she stayed.<br />
<br />
In other words, though Murfree/Craddock presented herself as someone who knew the ins and outs of this cultural group, she was really an outsider. She certainly was sympathetic to that group of people, though her stories are more sentimental than reality. A sample from her chapter "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=XxIIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA72">Drifting Down Lost Creek</a>" from <i>In the Tennessee Mountains</i> shows both her commitment to showing the "color" of Tennessee, her romanticism of the mountains, and her use of local dialect:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
The sun had gone down, but the light yet lingered. The evening star trembled above Pine Mountain. Massive and darkling it stood against the red west. How far, ah, how far, stretched that mellow crimson glow, all adown Lost Creek Valley, and over the vast mountain solitudes on either hand! Even the eastern ranges were rich with this legacy of the dead and gone day, and purple and splendid they lay beneath the rising moon. She looked at it with full and shining eyes.<br />
"I dunno how he kin make out ter furgit the mountings," she said; and then she went on, hearing the crisp leaves rustling beneath her tread, and the sharp bark of a fox in the silence of the night-shadowed valley.
</blockquote>
<br />
*I am indebted for information in this post to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wingless-Flights-Appalachian-Women-Fiction/dp/0879727187/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406803010&sr=1-1&keywords=9780879727185"><i>Wingless Flights: Appalachian Women in Fiction</i></a>
(1996) by Danny L. MillerUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-69054087424224087482014-07-29T07:43:00.000-04:002014-07-29T07:43:00.271-04:00Birth of Tarkington: content with their own<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Although he was given the name "Newton" (after an uncle, who was governor of California) when he was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on July 29, 1869, he became better known by his middle name as <b>Booth Tarkington</b>. By the end of his life, Tarkington was a prolific novelist, short story writer, playwright, and even an illustrator, with two Pulitzer Prizes for Fiction under his belt as well as a handful of honorary degrees.<br />
<br />
An early biography of Tarkington noted that his early years and young adulthood were unlike many other writers: He was not born into poverty, nor did he struggle to make a living before being forced to use his pen to earn his bread. His father was a judge and, as a boy, young "Tark" was sent to a boarding school in New Hampshire. After two years at Purdue University, he graduated from Princeton University. A few years later, in 1899, Tarkington published his first book, <a href="https://archive.org/details/gentlemanfromin01tarkgoog"><i>A Gentleman from Indiana</i></a>. It was printed as a serial in <i>McClure's Magazine</i>. It proved successful and was soon staged as a play.<br />
<br />
This success was despite <b>Willa Cather</b>'s opinion of it as "so amateurish that it will scarcely be seriously considered among literary people — outside of Indiana — and his view of life is so shallow and puerile and sophomorically sugary that grown-ups will have little patience with it." In defense of Tarkington, the book was serialized at a time when local color writing was extremely popular. Further, the founder of <i>McClure's Magazine</i> was <b>Samuel S. McClure</b>, who had been raised partly in Indiana. Tarkington's description of a slow-paced Midwestern town was likely part of the appeal. The book opens: <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There is a fertile stretch of flat lands in Indiana where unagrarian Eastern travellers, glancing from car-windows, shudder and return their eyes to interior upholstery, preferring even the swaying caparisons of a Pullman to the monotony without. The landscape lies interminably level: bleak in winter, a desolate plain of mud and snow; hot and dusty in summer, in its flat lonesomeness, miles on miles with not one cool hill slope away from the sun. The persistent tourist who seeks for signs of man in this sad expanse perceives a reckless amount of rail fence; at intervals a large barn; and, here and there, man himself, incurious, patient, slow, looking up from the fields apathetically as the Limited flies by. Widely separated from each other are small frame railway stations—sometimes with no other building in sight, which indicates that somewhere behind the adjacent woods a few shanties and thin cottages are grouped about a couple of brick stores...<br />
<br />
Only one street attained to the dignity of a name—Main Street, which formed the north side of the Square... In winter, Main Street was a series of frozen gorges and hummocks; in fall and spring, a river of mud; in summer, a continuing dust heap; it was the best street in Plattville.<br />
<br />
The people lived happily; and, while the world whirled on outside, they were content with their own.</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-46159471238394444482014-07-22T07:43:00.000-04:002014-07-22T07:47:10.936-04:00Birth of Lazarus: world-wide welcome<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDLGOUMzAfyOYGH7sNs7oO48Tgtd1K482kJtTFkJltwLDWnO-UouOcZzJZefYiv7ZUYEUcIknCO5Ix4JD5F8qTq3yPbMjJcWLltjpt5nogZt7nDkU_U6C7Sa2iSg6WlmLUkKn3BIllEP4/s1600/el.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDLGOUMzAfyOYGH7sNs7oO48Tgtd1K482kJtTFkJltwLDWnO-UouOcZzJZefYiv7ZUYEUcIknCO5Ix4JD5F8qTq3yPbMjJcWLltjpt5nogZt7nDkU_U6C7Sa2iSg6WlmLUkKn3BIllEP4/s1600/el.jpg" height="200" width="126" /></a></div>
<b>Emma Lazarus</b>, <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2013/02/emma-lazarus-and-hebraic-strain.html">her sister</a> said years later, was born to sing like a poet. But, she noted, "she did not sing, like a bird, for joy of being alive." Instead, much of her work is very serious, if not somber; much of it is political. Lazarus was born on July 22, 1849, the fourth of what would soon be seven children, in New York City.<br />
<br />
Though Lazarus wrote many poems beginning as <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/lazarus-it-may-be-good-to-dream-no-more.html">a teenager</a>, as well <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/lazarus-i-felt-quite-relieved.html">as prose</a> and even drama, before her death at <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/death-of-lazarus-can-these-dead-bones.html">age 38</a>, she is best known for a single sonnet. It was written in 1883 and donated to be sold to raise money for a pedestal for the <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/stedman-let-there-be-light.html">Statue of Liberty</a>. She believed that the Statue would serve as an important greeting and a symbol for incoming immigrants, and likely had that in mind when she wrote "The New Colossus," referencing the ancient Greek <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_of_Rhodes">Colossus of Rhodes</a>. It was read at the fundraising exhibition, but was mostly forgotten until after Lazarus's death. By 1903, a plaque quoting Lazarus's poem was added to the pedestal. Her words remain a reminder of a certain idealism in emigration to the United States:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,<br />
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;<br />
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand<br />
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame<br />
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name<br />
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand<br />
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command<br />
The air-bridged harbor that <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/upon-its-heights-twin-cities-meet.html">twin cities</a> frame.<br />
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she<br />
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,<br />
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,<br />
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.<br />
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,<br />
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-68371236962480032162014-07-16T07:43:00.000-04:002018-07-16T07:43:37.442-04:00Birth of Ida B. Wells: with its joys and sorrows<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW8yvLOZIf6sRlqMJihjulIKHlqFFU9-TKlj6mX0hwZZhsp42AS6rHjv6bFYAwIlcicIlHGGPt43oWozMkMW5KQvUCz8N9_vYOM7EhJxEyaEMD-pFYFWZqzx4VAFolQX04CLIWKHd7cjg/s1600/ibw.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW8yvLOZIf6sRlqMJihjulIKHlqFFU9-TKlj6mX0hwZZhsp42AS6rHjv6bFYAwIlcicIlHGGPt43oWozMkMW5KQvUCz8N9_vYOM7EhJxEyaEMD-pFYFWZqzx4VAFolQX04CLIWKHd7cjg/s1600/ibw.jpg" width="132" /></a></div>
<b>Ida B. Wells</b> was born enslaved in Holly Springs, Mississippi on July 16, 1862. Before she was even a year old, however, she was emancipated by Abraham Lincoln. Her parents, who were also freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, encouraged education in their children (her father was a trustee of what is now <a href="http://www.rustcollege.edu/">Rust College</a>). However, her parents died when she was a teenager, and young Ida dropped out of college to became a schoolteacher in order to earn enough money to support her siblings.<br />
<br />
Wells eventually moved the family to Tennessee, and there experienced segregation and the effects of racism stronger than before. In September 1883, she refused to move from the first class cabin of the train to the smokers' cabin. Though she won a lawsuit against the company, she lost on a later appeal. She sued again after a similar incident and again won initially but, this time, it was the state's supreme court that overturned the verdict.<br />
<br />
The incidents fueled her desire to do something to attack the problem of racism and she soon switched careers from educator to journalist. She wrote for newspapers in Tennessee, New York, <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/motives-higher-than-money-making-or.html">Michigan</a>, Illinois, and others, writing directly about racial problems including poor funding for black schools and the horror of lynchings. She was soon labeled a troublemaker; others, however, called her "Princess of the Press." Eventually, she was owner and editor of her own newspaper, <i>Free Speech</i>. Once, in 1892, while away from the office, her building was ransacked by her enemies. She was undeterred, and Ida B. Wells had a lengthy career as a journalist, author, and public speaker.<br />
<br />
An entry from her diary on her 25th birthday, July 16, 1887, shows the high standards she set for herself even at that young age:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This morning I stand face to face with twenty five years of life, that ere the day is gone will have passed me by forever. The experiences of a quarter of a century of life are my own, beginning with this, for me, new year... Within the last ten [years] I have suffered more, learned more, lost more than I ever expect to, again. In the last decade, I've only begun to live — to know life as a whole with its joys and sorrows. Today I write these lines with a heart overflowing with thankfulness to My Heavenly Father for His wonderful love & kindness... When I turn to sum up my own accomplishments I am not so well pleased. I have not used the opportunities I had to my best advantage and find myself intellectually lacking... Twenty-five years old today! May another 10 years find me increased in honesty & purity of purpose & motive!</blockquote>
<br />
*Information, including the passage above, comes from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Memphis-Diary-Wells-Writers-Series/dp/product-description/0807070653"><i>The Memphis Diary of Ida B. Wells</i></a> (1994 edition), edited by Miriam Decosta-Willis.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-64127105742474039652014-07-11T07:45:00.003-04:002014-07-11T07:46:16.065-04:00Birth of Charles Heber Clark (Max Adeler)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH4Ss0dtHUDTkpbCSx6Xsfmwjv7XAjGK-69OuGupyp31EmFYKa4KC6sqcvNzHgq3KhoeUVF373FEVPLyUcqOdIvs9AOKmBvtRbIRx0eTpeNPNcpua2B2T8nWo_n5cJQ8nH91Rc9nr9OHc/s1600/chc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiH4Ss0dtHUDTkpbCSx6Xsfmwjv7XAjGK-69OuGupyp31EmFYKa4KC6sqcvNzHgq3KhoeUVF373FEVPLyUcqOdIvs9AOKmBvtRbIRx0eTpeNPNcpua2B2T8nWo_n5cJQ8nH91Rc9nr9OHc/s1600/chc.jpg" height="200" width="130" /></a></div>
<b>Charles Heber Clark</b> was born in Berlin, Maryland on July 11, 1842, though he moved to Pennsylvania as a teenager and later became known by his pseudonym "<b>Max Adeler</b>." After serving as a soldier for the Union Army during the Civil War, he began his writing career as a journalist in Philadelphia. Much of his work was focused on economics. He eventually owned and edited his own newspaper, the <i>Textile Record</i>, before retiring to the suburbs of Conshohocken, outside of Philadelphia.<br />
<br />
His first book was as a humorist, <i><a href="https://archive.org/details/outofhurlyburlyo00clar">Out of the Hurly Burly</a>; or, Life in an Odd Corner</i> (1874), using the pen name Max Adeler to disassociate with his serious journalism. It was dedicated to "the intelligent compositor," the machine that laid out the type, for being "a humorist who has had too little fame" thanks to its occasional typos. The book reportedly sold over a million copies. Several other books with humorous intent followed, though Clark also attempted more serious writing. He and<b> Mark Twain</b> had a spat or two over their literary borrowings, both intentional and unintentional. <br />
<br />
A representative selection from <i>Out of the Hurly Burly</i> offers a glimpse into Clark's/Adeler's casual humor. In this section, he is writing about umbrellas and their various uses as well as how umbrellas are perceived by certain people. He offers, for example, a story about a soldier who went into battle in the rain with an umbrella. "I do not mind being killed," he said, "but I object decidedly to getting wet." The following account is offered immediately after:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<br />
And there was the case of Colonel Coombs — Coombs of Colorado. He had heard that the most ferocious wild beast could be frightened and put to flight if an umbrella should suddenly be opened in its face, and he determined to test the matter at the earliest opportunity. One day, while walking in the woods, Coombs perceived a panther crouching, preparatory to making a spring at him. Coombs held his umbrella firmly in his hand, and presenting it at the panther, unfurled it. The result was not wholly satisfactory, for the next moment the animal leaped upon the umbrella, flattened it out and began to lunch upon Coombs. Not only did the beast eat that anxious inquirer after truth, but it swallowed the hooked handle of the umbrella, which was held tightly in Coombs's grasp, and for two or three weeks it wandered about with its nose buried among the ribs of the umbrella. It was very handy when there there was rain, but it obstructed the animal's vision, and consequently it walked into town and was killed.</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-24138233703986066112014-07-10T07:43:00.000-04:002014-07-10T07:43:00.572-04:00Birth of Humphreys: wonderful at imitation<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo3QyYXFqhHDW_d5uxqITYouaV0nyaQUlyjCQrkVJF6usX9ET5KRD5BLpYWBYRB0wtNh7RvnxOGij5AyqCi6NLsg-YGV1IMbJUipxzB4UKa_3UzKu-SfuDgS-FesnAb0UeAbC69CyXSp8/s1600/dh.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo3QyYXFqhHDW_d5uxqITYouaV0nyaQUlyjCQrkVJF6usX9ET5KRD5BLpYWBYRB0wtNh7RvnxOGij5AyqCi6NLsg-YGV1IMbJUipxzB4UKa_3UzKu-SfuDgS-FesnAb0UeAbC69CyXSp8/s1600/dh.jpg" height="200" width="165" /></a></div>
<b>David Humphreys</b> was born in Connecticut on July 10, 1752. A graduate of Yale, he served during the American Revolution, earning the rank of Colonel. Most notably, he also became an aide-de-camp of <b>George Washington</b>, who praised him for his "zeal in the cause of his country." When Washington became President of the United States, Humphreys was appointed as an overseas diplomat. He later wrote a biography of his friend Washington. In his varied career, Humphreys was also a farmer, a legislator, and an entrepreneur, as well as a poet and author. Without further ado, his poem, "The Monkey Who Shaved Himself and His Friends: A Fable" (<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=cPw0AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA227">from 1804</a>, if not earlier):<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A man who own'd a barber's shop<br />
At York, and shav'd full many a fop,<br />
A monkey kept for their amusement;<br />
He made no other kind of use on't—<br />
This monkey took great observation,<br />
Was wonderful at imitation,<br />
And all he saw the barber do,<br />
He mimic'd straight, and did it too.<br />
<br />
It chanc'd in shop, the dog and cat,<br />
While friseur din'd, demurely sat,<br />
Jacko found nought to play the knave in,<br />
So thought he'd try his hand at shaving.<br />
Around the shop in haste he rushes,<br />
And gets the razors, soap, and brushes;<br />
Now puss he fix'd (no muscle miss stirs)<br />
And lather'd well her beard and whiskers,<br />
Then gave a gash, as he began—<br />
The cat cry'd "waugh!" and off she ran.<br />
<br />
Next Towser's beard he try'd his skill in,<br />
Though Towser seem'd somewhat unwilling;<br />
As badly here again succeeding,<br />
The dog runs howling round, and bleeding.<br />
<br />
Nor yet was tir'd our roguish elf; <br />
He'd seen the barber shave himself; <br />
So by the glass, upon the table, <br />
He rubs with soap his visage sable, <br />
Then with left hand holds smooth his jaw,—<br />
The razor in his dexter paw;<br />
Around he flourishes and slashes,<br />
Till all his face is seam'd with gashes.<br />
His cheeks dispatch'd—his visage thin<br />
He cock'd, to shave beneath his chin;<br />
Drew razor swift as he could pull it,<br />
And cut, from ear to ear, his gullet.<br />
<br />
<b>MORAL.
</b><br />
Who cannot write, yet handle pens,<br />
Are apt to hurt themselves and friends.<br />
Though others use them well, yet fools<br />
Should never meddle with edge tools.</blockquote>
<br />
Humphreys's poem was obviously meant to be humorous and his comedic poems put him amidst the group called "The Hartford Wits" — a group which included other early Connecticut writers like <b>John Trumbull</b> and <b>Joel Barlow</b>. As for "The Monkey," the poem was almost certainly an inspiration to <b>Edgar Allan Poe</b>, who gave the razor-wielding idea a more homicidal turn in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-19525817746568670292014-07-03T18:16:00.000-04:002018-07-03T07:29:18.925-04:00Lathrop on Gettysburg: an angry embrace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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25 years after the Battle of Gettysburg, survivors of the bloody battle joined for a reunion at the scene where it all happened, on July 3, 1888. The guest speaker for the gathering was the Hawaii-born poet, editor, and novelist <b>George Parsons Lathrop</b>, perhaps best known as husband of Rose Hawthorne, <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/una-hawthorne-business-on-earth-now.html">daughter</a> of <b>Nathaniel Hawthorne</b>. The poem he presented that day was simply titled "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=s18-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PP7">Gettysburg: A Battle Ode</a>." Despite how his poem begins — "Victors, living, with laureled brow, / And you that sleep beneath the sward!" — Lathrop particularly addressed the Confederate veterans who had lost that day in 1863. He emphasized the peaceful reunion of these former foes, who "fiercely warred" not so long ago, but now, "Brother and brother, now, we chant a common chord."<br />
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Lathrop's poem also gives specifics about the day, including individual soldiers and officers who he praises for their bravery. He even gives a play-by-play of which groups charged who and when. Before all that, however, he said the scene was "blameless" even as it is now "known to nations far away." In fact, he describes how the day was, otherwise, a normal, peaceful one before the "living lines of foemen" appeared, full of the tragic "Madness of desire to kill."<br />
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The farms that hosted the battle become a garden for those men who will die and be harvested by Death. The poem is purposely all-inclusive of all sides, even to the point that Lathrop gives a sort of inventory of those involved:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Men of New Hampshire, Pennsylvanians,<br />
Maine men, firm as the rock’s rough ledge!<br />
Swift Mississippians, lithe Carolinians<br />
Bursting over the battle’s edge!<br />
Bold Indiana men; gallant Virginians;<br />
Jersey and Georgia legions clashing;—<br />
Pick of Connecticut; quick Vermonters;<br />
Louisianians, madly dashing;—<br />
And, swooping still to fresh encounters,<br />
New York myriads, whirlwind-led!—<br />
All your furious forces, meeting,<br />
Torn, entangled, and shifting place,<br />
Blend like wings of eagles beating<br />
Airy abysses, in angry embrace.</blockquote>
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The battle which brings these foes into an intermingled mix of weapons and bodies is juxtaposed with the re-union of the states, and the reunion of the veterans ("like a bride"). Together, these men join in mourning and in celebration, regardless of previous alliances.<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Two hostile bullets in mid-air<br />
Together shocked,<br />
And swift were locked<br />
Forever in a firm embrace.<br />
Then let us men have so much grace<br />
To take the bullets' place,<br />
And learn that we are held<br />
By laws that weld<br />
Our hearts together!<br />
As once we battled hand to hand,<br />
So hand in hand to-day we stand,<br />
Sworn to each other,<br />
Brother and brother,<br />
In storm and mist, or calm, translucent weather:<br />
And Gettysburg’s guns, with their death-giving roar,<br />
Echoed from ocean to ocean, shall pour<br />
Quickening life to the nation’s core;<br />
Filling our minds again <br />
With the spirit of those who wrought in the<br />
Field of the Flower of Men!
</blockquote>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7499582243291531753.post-43659684503232669332014-06-25T07:43:00.000-04:002016-06-25T14:48:32.759-04:00McCann on Saltus: a genius died<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After <b>Francis Saltus Saltus</b>'s <a href="http://americanliteraryblog.blogspot.com/2014/06/death-of-saltus-when-men-perish-i.html">midnight death</a>, his friend <b>John Ernest McCann</b> was immediately inspired to write a poem to the deceased poet. Simply titled "Francis S. Saltus," the poem's three stanzas pay tribute to a multi-talented genius, and is dated June 25, 1889:<br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A genius died last night, about whose brow<br />
Fame never twined the laurel and the rose.<br />
A master he of music, verse and prose,<br />
Who lived, laughed, loved, and suffered, to endow<br />
<br />
The world with buds and blossoms from the bough <br />
That sways within the garden where Thought grows <br />
When the gale of Inspiration madly blows<br />
The daisies of sweet Song before God's plow!<br />
<br />
Ah! who can wear the laurel, now he's dead?<br />
Not one among the many whom he knew!<br />
Pluck not the leaf for any—leave it there;<br />
And Time will weave it for his wondrous head,<br />
And Fame may bear it up beyond the blue—<br />
To where he sits and laughs with Baudelaire! </blockquote>
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Saltus and McCann were close enough that they collaborated on at least three poems, which McCann published the next year in his compilation <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=HRwwAAAAYAAJ"><i>Songs from an Attic</i></a>. That collection also included his memorial verses to Saltus, though it was altered to combine the first two stanzas into one longer stanza. In his poem, McCann (who was more well known as a playwright than a poem) also acknowledges Saltus's inspiration from French poet <b>Charles Baudelaire,</b> whose lifestyle was equally influential on Saltus; like Baudelaire, he had a strong affinity for alcohol, particularly absinthe.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2