us not bind it by the past to
German Romantic literature, espe-
man or woman, black or white.
cially Goethe, whom she translated.
The first professional woman
EMILY DICKINSON
journalist of note in America, Fuller
(1830-1886)
wrote influential book reviews and
Emily Dickinson is, in a sense, a
reports on social issues such as the
link between her era and the liter-
treatment of women prisoners and
ary sensitivities of the turn of the
Daguerreotype courtesy
the insane. Some of these essays
Harper & Bros.
century. A radical individualist, she
34
was born and spent her life in Amherst,
Thomas H. Johnson’s standard edition of 1955.
Massachusetts, a small Calvinist village. She
They bristle with odd capitalizations and dashes.
never married, and she led an unconventional
A nonconformist, like Thoreau she often re-
life that was outwardly uneventful but was versed meanings of words and phrases and used full of inner intensity. She loved nature and paradox to great effect. From 435: found deep inspiration in the birds, animals,
plants, and changing seasons of the New England
Much Madness is divinest sense —
countryside.
To a discerning Eye —
ickinson spent the latter part of her life as
Much Sense — the starkest Madness —
a recluse, due to an extremely sensitive
‘Tis the Majority
Dpsyche and possibly to make time for writ- In this, as All, prevail —
ing (for stretches of time she wrote about one
Assent — and you are sane —
poem a day). Her day also included homemaking
Demur — you’re straightway dangerous
for her attorney father, a prominent figure in
And handled with a chain —
Amherst who became a member of Congress.
Dickinson was not widely read, but knew the
Her wit shines in the following poem (288),
Bible, the works of William Shakespeare, and
which ridicules ambition and public life:
works of classical mythology in great depth.
These were her true teachers, for Dickinson was
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
certainly the most solitary literary figure of her Are you — Nobody — Too?
time. That this shy, withdrawn village woman,
Then there’s a pair of us?
almost unpublished and unknown, created some
Don’t tell! they’d advertise — you
of the greatest American poetry of the 19th cen-
know!
tury has fascinated the public since the 1950s,
How dreary — to be — Somebody!
when her poetry was rediscovered.
How public — like a Frog —
Dickinson’s terse, frequently imagistic style
To tell one’s name — the livelong
is even more modern and innovative than
June —
Whitman’s. She never uses two words when one
To an admiring Bog!
will do, and combines concrete things with
abstract ideas in an almost proverbial, com-
Dickinson’s 1,775 poems continue to intrigue
pressed style. Her best poems have no fat; many
critics, who often disagree about them. Some
mock current sentimentality, and some are even
stress her mystical side, some her sensitivity to
heretical. She sometimes shows a terrifying
nature; many note her odd, exotic appeal. One
existential awareness. Like Poe, she explores
modern critic, R.P. Blackmur, comments that
the dark and hidden part of the mind, dramatizing
Dickinson’s poetry sometimes feels as if “a cat
death and the grave. Yet she also celebrated sim-
came at us speaking English.” Her clean, clear,
ple objects — a flower, a bee. Her poetry ex-
chiseled poems are some of the most fascinating
hibits great intelligence and often evokes the
and challenging in American literature.
■
agonizing paradox of the limits of the human con-
sciousness trapped in time. She had an excellent
sense of humor, and her range of subjects and
treatment is amazingly wide. Her poems are gen-
erally known by the numbers assigned them in
35
George Eliot, William Thackeray — lived in a
complex, well-articulated, traditional society and CHAPTER shared with their readers attitudes that informed their realistic fiction. American novelists were faced with a history of strife and revolution, a geography of vast wilderness, and a fluid and
4 relatively classless democratic society. American THE ROMANTIC PERIOD,
novels frequently reveal a revolutionary absence
1820-1860: FICTION
of tradition. Many English novels show a poor
main character rising on the economic and social
ladder, perhaps because of a good marriage or
alt Whitman, Nathaniel Hawthorne,
the discovery of a hidden aristocratic past. But
Herman Melville, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily
this buried plot does not challenge the aristo-
WDickinson, and the Transcendentalists cratic social structure of England. On the con-represent the first great literary generation pro-
trary, it confirms it. The rise of the main charac-duced in the United States. In the case of the
ter satisfies the wish fulfillment of the mainly
novelists, the Romantic vision tended to express
middle-class readers.
itself in the form Hawthorne called the “ro-
In contrast, the American novelist had to de-
mance,” a heightened, emotional, and symbolic
pend on his or her own devices. America was, in
form of the novel. Romances were not love sto-
part, an undefined, constantly moving frontier
ries, but serious novels that used special tech-
populated by immigrants speaking foreign lan-
niques to communicate complex and subtle
guages and following strange and crude ways of
meanings.
life. Thus the main character in American litera-
Instead of carefully defining realistic charac-
ture might find himself alone among cannibal
ters through a wealth of detail, as most English
tribes, as in Melville’s Typee, or exploring a or continental novelists did, Hawthorne, Melville, wilderness like James Fenimore Cooper’s
and Poe shaped heroic figures larger than life,
Leatherstocking, or witnessing lonely visions
burning with mythic significance. The typical pro-
from the grave, like Poe’s solitary individuals, or tagonists of the American Romance are haunted,
meeting the devil walking in the forest, like
alienated individuals. Hawthorne’s Arthur
Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown. Virtually all
Dimmesdale or Hester Prynne in The Scarlet
the great American protagonists have been “lon-
Letter, Melville’s Ahab in Moby-Dick, and the ers.” The democratic American individual had, as
many isolated and obsessed characters of Poe’s
it were, to invent himself.
tales are lonely protagonists pitted against un-
The serious American novelist had to invent
knowable, dark fates that, in some mysterious
new forms as well — hence the sprawling, idio-
way, grow out of their deepest unconscious
syncratic shape of Melville’s novel Moby-Dick, selves. The symbolic plots reveal hidden actions
and Poe’s dreamlike, wandering Narrative of
of the anguished spirit.
Arthur Gordon Pym. Few American novels achieve One reason for this fictional exploration into
formal perfection, even today. Instead of borrow-
the hidden recesses of the soul is the absence
ing tested literary methods, Americans tend to
of settled, traditional community life in Amer-
invent new creative techniques. In America, it
ica. English novelists — Jane Austen, Charles
is not enough to be a traditional and definable
Dickens (the great favorite), Anthony Trollope,
social unit, for the old and traditional gets left 36
behind; the new, innovative force is
gious young man, the Reverend
the center of attention.
Arthur Dimmesdale, and the sensu-
ous, beautiful townsperson, Hester
THE ROMANCE
Prynne. Set in Boston around 1650
he Romance form is dark and
during early Puritan colonization,
forbidding, indicating how
the novel highlights the Calvinistic
Tdifficult it is to create an
obsession with morality, sexual
identity without a stable society.
repression, guilt and confession,
Most of the Romantic heroes die in
and spiritual salvation.
the end: All the sailors except
For its time, The Scarlet Letter
Ishmael are drowned in Moby-
was a daring and even subversive
Dick, and the sensitive but sinful
book. Hawthorne’s gentle style, re-
minister Arthur Dimmesdale dies
mote historical setting, and ambi-
at the end of The Scarlet Letter.
guity softened his grim themes and
The self-divided, tragic note in
contented the general public, but
American literature becomes dom-
sophisticated writers such as Ralph
inant in the novels, even before the
Waldo Emerson and Herman Mel-
Civil War of the 1860s manifested
ville recognized the book’s “hell-
the greater social tragedy of a soci-
ish” power. It treated issues that
ety at war with itself.
were usually suppressed in 19th-
century America, such as the im-
Nathaniel Hawthorne
pact of the new, liberating demo-
(1804-1864)
cratic experience on individual be-
Nathaniel Hawthorne, a fifth-
havior, especially on sexual and re-
generation American of English
ligious freedom.
descent, was born in Salem, Massa-
The book is superbly organized
chusetts, a wealthy seaport north
and beautifully written. Appropri-
of Boston that specialized in East
ately, it uses allegory, a technique
India trade. One of his ancestors
the early Puritan colonists them-
had been a judge in an earlier cen-
selves practiced.
tury, during trials in Salem of
Hawthorne’s reputation rests on
women accused of being witches.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE his other novels and tales as well.
Hawthorne used the idea of a curse
In The House of the Seven Gables
on the family of an evil judge in his
(1851), he again returns to New
novel The House of the Seven
England’s history. The crumbling of
Gables.
the “house” refers to a family in
Many of Hawthorne’s stories are
Salem as well as to the actual struc-
set in Puritan New England, and his
ture. The theme concerns an in-
greatest novel, The Scarlet Letter
herited curse and its resolution
(1850), has become the classic
through love. As one critic has
portrayal of Puritan America. It
noted, the idealistic protagonist
tells of the passionate, forbidden
Holgrave voices Hawthorne’s own
love affair linking a sensitive, reli-
Photo courtesy OWI
democratic distrust of old aristo-
37
cratic families: “The truth is, that once in every likely wilderness places, Hawthorne’s stories
half-century, at least, a family should be merged
and novels repeatedly show broken, cursed, or
into the great, obscure mass of humanity, and
artificial families and the sufferings of the isolat-forget about its ancestors.”
ed individual.
awthorne’s last two novels were less suc-
The ideology of revolution, too, may have
cessful. Both use modern settings, which
played a part in glorifying a sense of proud yet
Hhamper the magic of romance. The alienated freedom. The American Revolution, Blithedale Romance (1852) is interesting for its from a psychohistorical viewpoint, parallels an
portrait of the socialist, utopian Brook Farm
adolescent rebellion away from the parent-figure
community. In the book, Hawthorne criticizes
of England and the larger family of the British
egotistical, power-hungry social reformers
Empire. Americans won their independence and
whose deepest instincts are not genuinely demo-
were then faced with the bewildering dilemma of
cratic. The Marble Faun (1860), though set in discovering their identity apart from old authori-Rome, dwells on the Puritan themes of sin, isola-
ties. This scenario was played out countless
tion, expiation, and salvation.
times on the frontier, to the extent that, in fic-
These themes, and his characteristic settings
tion, isolation often seems the basic American
in Puritan colonial New England, are trademarks
condition of life. Puritanism and its Protestant
of many of Hawthorne’s best-known shorter offshoots may have further weakened the family stories: “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “Young
by preaching that the individual’s first responsi-
Goodman Brown,” and “My Kinsman, Major
bility was to save his or her own soul.
Molineux.” In the last of these, a naïve young man from the country comes to the city — a common
Herman Melville (1819-1891)
route in urbanizing 19th-century America — to
Herman Melville, like Nathaniel Hawthorne,
seek help from his powerful relative, whom he
was a descendant of an old, wealthy family that
has never met. Robin has great difficulty finding
fell abruptly into poverty upon the death of the
the major, and finally joins in a strange night riot father. Despite his patrician upbringing, proud
in which a man who seems to be a disgraced
family traditions, and hard work, Melville found
criminal is comically and cruelly driven out of
himself in poverty with no college education. At
town. Robin laughs loudest of all until he realizes 19 he went to sea. His interest in sailors’ lives
that this “criminal” is none other than the man
grew naturally out of his own experiences, and
he sought — a representative of the British who
most of his early novels grew out of his voyages.
has just been overthrown by a revolutionary
In these we see the young Melville’s wide, demo-
American mob. The story confirms the bond of
cratic experience and hatred of tyranny and in-
sin and suffering shared by all humanity. It also
justice. His first book, Typee, was based on his stresses the theme of the self-made man: Robin
time spent among the supposedly cannibalistic
must learn, like every democratic American, to
but hospitable tribe of the Taipis in the
prosper from his own hard work, not from spe-
Marquesas Islands of the South Pacific. The book
cial favors from wealthy relatives.
praises the islanders and their natural, harmo-
“My Kinsman, Major Molineux” casts light on
nious life, and criticizes the Christian missionar-one of the most striking elements in Haw-
ies, who Melville found less genuinely civilized
thorne’s fiction: the lack of functioning families than the people they came to convert.
in his works. Although Cooper’s Leather-Stocking Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, Melville’s master-Tales manage to introduce families into the least piece, is the epic story of the whaling ship
38
Pequod and its “ungodly, god-like
— but whether this vision is evil or
man,” Captain Ahab, whose obses-
good, human or inhuman, is never
sive quest for the white whale
explained.
Moby-Dick leads the ship and its
The novel is modern in its ten-
men to destruction. This work, a
dency to be self-referential, or re-
realistic adventure novel, contains a
flexive. In other words, the novel
series of meditations on the human
often is about itself. Melville fre-
condition. Whaling, throughout the
quently comments on mental pro-
book, is a grand metaphor for the
cesses such as writing, reading,
pursuit of knowledge. Realistic cat-
and understanding. One chapter,
alogues and descriptions of whales
for instance, is an exhaustive sur-
and the whaling industry punctuate
vey in which the narrator attempts
the book, but these carry symbolic
a classification but finally gives up,
connotations. In chapter 15, “The
saying that nothing great can ever
Right Whale’s Head,” the narrator
be finished (“God keep me from
says that the Right Whale is a Stoic
ever completing anything. This
and the Sperm Whale is a Platonian,
whole book is but a draught — nay,
referring to two classical schools of
but the draught of a draught.
philosophy.
O Time, Strength, Cash and Pa-
Although Melville’s novel is philo-
tience”). Melville’s notion of the
sophical, it is also tragic. Despite
literary text as an imperfect ver-
his heroism, Ahab is doomed and
sion or an abandoned draft is quite
perhaps damned in the end. Nature,
contemporary.
however beautiful, remains alien
Ahab insists on imaging a hero-
and potentially deadly. In Moby-
ic, timeless world of absolutes in
Dick, Melville challenges Emerson’s
which he can stand above his men.
optimistic idea that humans can
Unwisely, he demands a finished
understand nature. Moby-Dick, the
text, an answer. But the novel
great white whale, is an inscrutable,
shows that just as there are no fin-
cosmic existence that dominates
ished texts, there are no final
the novel, just as he obsesses Ahab.
answers except, perhaps, death.
Facts about the whale and whaling
HERMAN MELVILLE
Certain literary references res-
cannot explain Moby-Dick; on the
onate throughout the novel. Ahab,
contrary, the facts themselves tend
named for an Old Testament king,
to become symbols, and every fact
desires a total, Faustian, god-like
is obscurely related in a cosmic
knowledge. Like Oedipus in Soph-
web to every other fact. This idea of
ocles’ play, who pays tragically for
correspondence (as Melville calls it
wrongful knowledge, Ahab is struck
in the “Sphinx” chapter) does not,
blind before he is wounded in the
however, mean that humans can
leg and finally killed. Moby-Dick
“read” truth in nature, as it does
ends with the word “orphan.”
in Emerson. Behind Melville’s accu-
Ishmael, the narrator, is an orphan-
Portrait courtesy Harvard
mulation of facts is a mystic vision
College Library
like wanderer. The name Ishmael
39
emanates from the Book of Genesis in the Old
sinks, Ishmael is saved by the engraved coffin
Testament — he was the son of Abraham and
made by his close friend, the heroic tatooed
Hagar (servant to Abraham’s wife, Sarah). Ish-
harpooner and Polynesian prince Queequeg. The
mael and Hagar were cast into the wilderness by
coffin’s primitive, mythological designs incorpo-
Abraham.
rate the history of the cosmos. Ishmael is res-
Other examples exist. Rachel (one of the
cued from death by an object of death. From
patriarch Jacob’s wives) is the name of the boat
death life emerges, in the end.
that rescues Ishmael at book’s end. Finally,
Moby-Dick has been called a “natural epic” —
the metaphysical whale reminds Jewish and
a magnificent dramatization of the human spirit
Christian readers of the Biblical story of Jonah,
set in primitive nature — because of its hunter
who was tossed overboard by fellow sailors who
myth, its initiation theme, its Edenic island sym-
considered him an object of ill fortune.
bolism, its positive treatment of pre-technologi-
Swallowed by a “big fish,” according to the bibli-
cal peoples, and its quest for rebirth. In setting cal text, he lived for a time in its belly before
humanity alone in nature, it is eminently
being returned to dry land through God’s inter-
American. The French writer and politician Alexis
vention. Seeking to flee from punishment, he
de Tocqueville had predicted, in the 1835 work
only brought more suffering upon himself.
Democracy in America, that this theme would Historical references also enrich the novel.
arise in America as a result of its democracy:
The ship Pequod is named for an extinct New England Indian tribe; thus the name suggests
The destinies of mankind, man himself
that the boat is doomed to destruction. Whaling
taken aloof from his country and his age and
was in fact a major industry, especially in New
standing in the presence of Nature and God,
England: It supplied oil as an energy source,
with his passions, his doubts, his rare
especially for lamps. Thus the whale does literal-
propensities and inconceivable wretched-
ly “shed light” on the universe. Whaling was also
ness, will become the chief, if not the sole,
inherently expansionist and linked with the idea
theme of (American) poetry.
of manifest destiny, since it required Americans
to sail round the world in search of whales (in
Tocqueville reasons that, in a democracy, liter-
fact, the present state of Hawaii came under
ature would dwell on “the hidden depths of the
American domination because it was used as immaterial nature of man” rather than on mere the major refueling base for American whaling
appearances or superficial distinctions such as
ships). The Pequod’s crew members represent class and status. Certainly both Moby-Dick and all races and various religions, suggesting the
Typee, like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and idea of America as a universal state of mind as
Walden, fit this description. They are celebra-well as a melting pot. Finally, Ahab embodies the tions of nature and pastoral subversions of class-tragic version of democratic American individual-
oriented, urban civilization.
ism. He asserts his dignity as an individual and
dares to oppose the inexorable external forces
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
of the universe.
Edgar Allan Poe,