1850-1865 Abolition and the American Renaissance Variety of intellectual currents; tradition and innovation.

The previous chapter described a rapid rise of American literature in the first decades of the 19th century. The major difficulty in presentation of that literary epoch (1820-1850) was that most authors (obviously, look at the examples) continued to write in the 1850s and later, and conversely, most authors discussed in this section (1850-1865) wrote in the 1830s and the 1840s. The difference was, however, that the previous chapter concentrated on several pioneers, and then on representatives of established, popularly accepted literature, whereas this will concentrate on dissenters and innovators. The previous chapter was about establishing traditions; this one is about developing them, rebelling against them, and establishing new ones. The American Renaissance. Several authors have been traditionally grouped together under this heading, because of biographical links (an actual emotional, intellectual, and social community) or because of particularly innovative and imaginative way of writing. The most important works of these authors appeared, as if out of the blue, in the 1850s. The authors include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Henry David Thoreau. They were probably the most important authors of that time, especially if we assume that there is an important interaction between literature and the individual that writes (and reads) it. The Other American Renaissance. Many of these six authors (apart from Emerson and Hawthorne) were not widely read in their time: Dickinson did not intend to publish at all, Melville, Whitman, and Thoreau were commercial failures. Instead, the most popular authors were those who openly addressed the greatest national concerns (the national sins) of that time. The American nation was undergoing its most important historical moment, i.e. internal strife, the Civil War, and abolition of slavery. The nation was also exterminating its portion (or was it accepted as part of the nation at all?), i.e. the American Indians. The nation, finally, did not treat half of itself (i.e. women), as real citizens: women could not vote, be elected, and had limited rights to (their own) property (which was controlled by husbands or male relations). The most popular authors addressed these notions directly, in a variety of ways, usually in a sentimental and didactic manner. These widely read authors include three groups: women (Harriet Beecher Stove, Fanny Fern), Blacks (Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass), and representatives of established literary tradition, the socalled Boston Brahmins, or the Genteel Tradition (James Russell Lowell, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Longfellow). The authors in these three groups were probably among the most important authors of that time,

especially if we assume that there is an important interaction between literature and the nation that writes (and reads) it.

Prose. Prose authors of the 1850s can be divided into three groups, two small group and one larger one: (1) the Transcendentalists, (2) Hawthorne and Melville, and (3) nationally (generally) recognized prose authors and novelists. The groups are very different in quality: Transcendentalists were a compact and coherent intellectual circle, Hawthorne and Melville were two exceptional authors who do not fit into any group, and the third group consists of several authors, not related to one another, who wrote generally recognized national literature of the time. The first two groups were somehow marginal and rebellious (though Emerson and Hawthorne were famous nationwide), whereas the third group was the mainstream of American culture at the time. The first two groups were described as the American Renaissance, and enjoyed great critical acclaim in the 20th century. The third group was to some extent forgotten, and has been enjoying critical recognition only recently. Finally, the first two groups consist mostly of men, and the third mostly of women. Transcendentalists were an intellectual group characterized by an idealistic philosophical agenda which strived to provide a spiritual meaning to individual and national life in America. This was a reaction to vulgar materialism and mindlessness which captured and destroyed the imagination of (as it was felt) most citizens of the rapidly expanding and developing country; Transcendentalists searched for a meaning of American life. Obviously, in many communities this was (and is) done by religion, but religion, then as now, was often understood to be inadequate or hypocritical. Transcendentalists, thus, searched for an intellectual system which could perform the functions traditionally performed by religion and mythology. Today, this is (or at least was, not long ago) the function of national philosophers and intellectuals. Transcendentalists, then, were the first distinctly American school in philosophy. The philosophical agenda developed by Transcendentalists can be described as a pantheism, or an optimistic spiritual monism (look up those terms in a reference book). Today, when most people think of the world as a material thing (as opposed to peoples spiritual souls), the Transcendental philosophy is difficult to understand. It will be explained (hopefully!) in parallel with discussions of each author. The entire movement (or circle) was dominated by R a l p h W a l d o E m e r s o n (18031882), whose works include essays, longer philosophical treatises, and poems. The most important fact in Emersons intellectual (and emotional?) life was loss of (institutional) faith in 1832, when Emerson gave up his career as Unitarian minister of religion in Boston (he felt

unable to believe in the sacrament of Lords Supper, i.e. in divine transfiguration). At the same time, Emerson suffered several personal tragedies, including the death of his first wife. His intellectual development was, to an extent, a reaction to these events; Emerson was looking for ideas that would give a meaning to his life again. He decided to do so in an independent, individualistic way, a truly American decision, a sort of intellectual declaration of independence (from tradition, from history, from religion). Emersons most important works include Nature (1836), The American Scholar (1837), Divinity School Address (1838), and Essays (First Series 1841, Second Series 1844). The fame of his prose overshadowed his poetry, but several poems are well known, e.g. The Sphinx (1841), Hamatreya (1847), or Days (1857). Transcendentalism had many sources; it grew out of debates in a community of intellectuals (mentioned later) and out of foreign philosophical influences (Buddhist and Hinduist sacred texts, and European idealistic philosophy of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel). However, Emersons Nature is to a large extent the book which gave it a start, and to some extent summarizes it. Emerson, like most people, describes a mystical moment of community with nature, but draws a conclusion which most people do not: what if my inner world and the outer natural world, what if they are two sides of one and the same thing? The author provides several answers, but most importantly: it is possible to notice similarities between spiritual (subjective) world and natural (objective) world. In other words, if nature and our souls are the same thing, then it is possible to see the soul in nature, as in the mirror. This has several uses: it helps people to think and understand, it provides them with practical ideas, but most importantly it gives clues about human destiny and the larger meaning of human life. The description of these uses is the key part (several chapters) of Nature, and importantly one of the uses is language (including poetry) as a sort of mirror of nature in human thinking: this consists, to a large extent, in the use of dead metaphors (i.e. images of nature) to express abstract thoughts (i.e. images of the soul). This provides a philosophical background for American poetry. For American literature, the crucial thing about Emersons essay is that it pointed to nature as source of understanding, meaning of life, and definition of an individual. Not history, not society, not family or nation, but nature: this is supposedly the American answer to the biggest questions. In this, there is a slight resemblance between Transcendentalism and Puritan study of nature as a sign from God. The American Scholar was called the American intellectual declaration of independence (this phrase has already been used above). How to make philosophy in the American way? How to break away from European dominance in intellectual tradition? Emerson suggests Action as the solution; the American scholar is a man thinking for himself (Emerson is using the

generic he to describe both men and women), but not necessarily a student of tradition. Emerson affirms the independence of an individual mind and its realization in active life, and in contact with nature which replaces written tradition (the Bible) as the source of divine inspiration. Obviously, there are some softening reservations: books and tradition are necessary, after all, but they should be judged and used by the man thinking only in the way he thinks them fit for. Emerson also points out to the essential unity of life and scholarship; he describes intellectual pursuits as an art of good living, rather than a withdrawal from life into books. Apart from Nature, Emersons most famous statements are expressed in his Essays. The major essays include (in the First Series) Self-Reliance, The Oversoul, and (in the Second Series) Experience, and The Poet. The first of the three, Self-Reliance, describes Emersons practical philosophy, i.e. it is the application of Transcendentalism in everyday life. The essay recommends nonconformity, independent judgment, and optimistic faith in individuals ability to understand the world and frame it to his or her own needs. At the same time, Emerson believes in the unity of inner life and the outer world (life and world are the same), so he recommends seeking for happiness in our own souls; the world derives from our attitudes. The essay is notable for numerous (and famous) epigrammatic expressions, a major characteristic of Emersons style: Whoso should be a man must be a nonconformist, or Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet, etc. Such phrases are developed in a sequence of smooth, brave sentences; Emersons argument is presented in an inspiring way. This indicates a certain (American, Puritan) belief in language, almost as if enthusiasm and round phrasing were a sign that something is true. This, arguably, is like doing philosophy with a sharp knife; if you do not like it, you do not understand Emerson. This practice is slightly irrational, and it requires intuition and emphatic, enthusiastic reading. The belief in intuition and enthusiasm (and absence of skepticism, inhibition, resignation, irony, and fear) is quite un-European; it is a distinctly American trait of Emersons philosophy. Inasmuch as Self-Reliance is a practical guide (in philosophy this amounts to ethical guide), The Oversoul is a theoretical one. Again, Emerson stresses the unity of nature and soul, and the spiritual outer world is directly connected to the individual soul. The essay points to different avenues of access to the Oversoul: through real friendship and communion with other people, through language and poetry (language, like for the Puritans, reveals hidden truths about God/Oversoul/individual soul), through mystical experiences and trances, and through contemplation of nature. Nature, as a materialized and visible illustration of spiritual life, is not mentioned much in The Oversoul, but it features prominently in many other

essays, e.g. in Circles (immediately following The Oversoul in The First Series) where Emerson compares physical circles (e.g. the horizon or the eye) to spiritual ones (e.g. eternity or repetition). Divinity School Address is an application of Transcendental doctrine (individualism and spiritual monism) to Christian religion. When Emerson gave the speech (in 1838 at the Divinity School of Harvard College), and subsequently published it as a pamphlet, it provoked strong criticism, because it was felt that Emerson attacked formal religion. He first points out to the external, divine source of moral sentiment in human soul: people are good because a higher, benevolent force is at the core of their souls (in other words, the soul is but a part of something bigger). Following this utmost calling from your own soul (individualism) is the true practice of religion (paradoxically, an individualism with a source beyond an individual). Emerson points out to Jesus Christ as an example of a prophet who showed the greatness of human soul. At the same time, Emerson criticizes petrified forms and dogmas of religion, when they pay no attention to individual soul, and rely on texts, tradition, and myths instead. The same insistence on individualism and individualdivine greatness is visible in The Poet, (it belongs to the Second Series of Emersons Essays) which is a sort of manifesto of Transcendental poetry. Emerson is calling for an American poet (like he did for an American scholar) who would find greatness in his/her own soul, not in tradition and educated skill. This inner greatness would, in accordance with Transcendental philosophy, have an external source in nature (but it is Emersons nature, understood as a sort of external, all encompassing spirituality). Several years later, in 1855, Walt Whitman turned out to be just this kind of poet. Emerson, apart from these philosophical essays, wrote a series of essays on historical heroes (e.g. Shakespeare or Napoleon), collected as Representative Men (1850), and numerous speeches on ethics, collected as The Conduct of Life (1860), and Society and Solitude (1870). These collections were prepared and published when Emerson was already a nationally famous lecturer and philosopher, recognized as the maker of a distinctly American philosophy. Apart from Emerson, the Transcendentalists included Henry David Thoreau and Margaret Fuller (there were many more, but only these two are described here). It is interesting that none of them wrote a notable work of fiction; apart from poems by Emerson and Thoreau, Transcendentalism expressed itself in nonfiction. H e n r y D a v i d T h o r e a u (18171862), Emersons friend and intellectual apprentice, was the person who tried to live up to the Transcendentalist idea of good life: non-conformity,

individualistic pursuit of spiritual beauty, and communion with nature. He is best remembered for Walden: or, Life in the Woods (1854), a carefully crafted account of his attempt to live in accordance with these ideals. Walden purports to be a factual relation of Thoreaus sojourn in a small hut on Walden Pond, near Concord in Massachusetts (this was close both to Thoreaus family and his friend Emerson, on whose land the hut was built). Rather than being strictly factual, the book shows the most beautiful aspects of Transcendental life (i.e. the point of trying it). For instance, instead of relating the two years, the book compresses events into the natural (or just more regular?) pattern of four seasons. Thoreau shows how he attempted to break away from constraints of society (without breaking away from it completely), and how he attempted to be selfsufficient (which he was not), and independent its bad influence (which he perhaps was). In numerous descriptive passages (e.g. the chapters on Sounds, Spring, and Brute Neighbors), he agonizes about the absolute communion between nature and his soul: there is little difference between his inner experience and the nature that surrounds him. Apart from Walden, Thoreau wrote a famous essay on what today is called civil disobedience, The Resistance to Civil Government (1848), in which he describes his individualistic and idealistic protest against American aggressive expansionism and slavery. He declined to pay poll-tax and let the authorities arrest him, thus accomplishing (and perhaps inventing) passive resistance to governmental policies (but then his aunt paid bail for his release, and he started to pay the tax again). He also wrote several travelogues (with more of meditative descriptions of nature), e.g. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1842), and similar essays, collected after his death, e.g. in The Maine Woods (1864). Apart from nonfiction, Thoreau also wrote several poems, many of them published in The Dial, the Transcendentalist literary magazine, e.g. Orphics (1843), and The Atlantides (1849). M a r g a r e t F u l l e r (18101850), who edited The Dial, was one of the intellectual leaders of the Transcendentalist movement. Unlike Thoreau, who had an impressive knowledge of classical authors and sacred texts of Christianity and Asian religions, Fuller grafted more modern European influences into Transcendentalist philosophy (but she was by no means the only philosopher to do so). With her languages and enthusiasm for European culture, she read and translated German and French authors, e.g. Rousseau, Novalis, Richter, Goethe, Kant, and Fichte (which all may count as influential for Transcendentalism). She was also an early feminist author, and is perhaps best remembered for Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1844). In 1846 she went to Europe (England, France, Italy), where she met Thomas Carlyle and Adam Mickiewicz, and then took (a small) part in the Italian revolution (part of the Springtime of Nations). Her literary career was terminated by untimely death; she died during

her return journey to America, when her ship sank off the coast of New York. Transcendental celebration of justice and individual freedom has a parallel in the writings of W i l l i a m A p e s s (1798-1839), author of A Son of the Forest (1829), which was the first book-lenght biography written by a native American. Apesss combination of militant idealism and irony is reminiscent of Thoreaus Walden: Live in the Woods, with the same reliance on simple-minded revealing of paradoxical qualities of accepted views and convention. Apess, for instance, tried to introduce Indian history into American canon and ethos: Eulogy on King Philip (1836) presents the Pequod chief as a paragon American national virtues of independence, courage and moral integrity, comparable to Roman heroes. The author was also a political activist, who successfully fought for constitutional rights of Indian communities in Massachusetts. Recent revival of critical interest is marked by publication of The Complete Writings of William Apess,a Pequot (1992). Although there are no direct links between Apess and the Transcendentalists, his marginalized voice is an important part of the intellectual life of America in the 1830s, at the onset of Transcendentalism. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. These two authors did not share the optimism of Transcendentalists, i.e. the optimism about goodness and greatness of human soul. At the same time, however, Hawthorne and Melville shared the Transcendental habit of interpreting the world as a symbol of spiritual reality. Unlike Transcendentalists, who were great essayists, both Hawthorne and Melville are best remembered for their fiction. N a t h a n i e l H a w t h o r n e (18041864) is the author of some of the greatest American short stories and novels. He stemmed from a declining New England family, which used to be prominent in the Puritan times. His fiction was an allegorical meditation of the links between American past (especially the Puritan heritage of New England), and the present. Hawthorne was often pessimistic, or at least ironic, about those links, as he refused to view the past and the present in terms of progress; he often saw the past (the heritage) as something that haunts, and must be redeemed like a sin. His mode of representation is often allegorical and symbolic, i.e. not realistic, but rather similar to the Puritan symbolism (typology). In this way, Hawthorne creates his fictional world, as if the past was still alive in symbols and in works of art, including his own fiction. The author sometimes asks himself, as it were, how much new and free life can be included in a world like this. Hawthornes stories (often referred to as tales) were published in magazines and then book collections: Twice-Told Tales (1837), and Mosses from an Old Manse (1846). Apart from the

tales, Hawthorne wrote four novels, or symbolic romances: The Scarlet Letter (1850), The House of the Seven Gables (1851), The Blithedale Romance (1852), and The Marble Faun (1860). Apart from the tales and novels, Hawthorne also wrote for children, e.g. The Whole History of Grandfather's Chair (1840), and A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys (1852), and non-fiction, e.g. Our Old Home: A Series of English Sketches (1863). The most famous of Hawthorne's tales include Wakefield (1835), Young Goodman Brown (1835), The Maypole of Merry-Mount (1837), Dr. Heidegger's Experiment (1837), The Celestial Railroad (1846), The Birthmark (1846). Wakefield, like most tales, was first published in a magazine, and then included in a book collection, i.e. in the first volume of Twice-Told Tales (1837). It is a story of withdrawal from life, the unpardonable sin of denying oneself to the others, based on an anecdote about a man who left his wife, only to live in a house next street, on his own, and watch his wifes widowhood. Young Goodman Brown is a tale about disillusionment with people and ideals that the protagonist believes; in an allegorical and fantastic night scene, he watches prominent members of his Puritan community engaged in a pagan rite in the forest. The Maypole of Merry-Mount is an anecdote based on Puritan history; it is about a possible different, more peaceful and harmonious way of settling in America, a way which was not taken. Dr. Heideggers Experiment is one of Hawthornes numerous tales about science, this time about its incapacity to change human lives for better. The Celestial Railroad is a typical Christian allegory, which retells John Bunyans famous Pilgrim Progress (1678) in the age of steam and iron (pessimistically). The Birthmark is another scientific story, about the conflict between science (art) and life; with life threatened by human desire for knowledge, truth, and perfection. Most of Hawthornes stories are allegorical, i.e. they present the reader with a series of images (situations, characters, settings) whose most important quality is a symbolic meaning. This is done at the cost of psychological realism of characters (who are often flat and serve only a symbolic function), or even at the cost of logical development and probability of the plot. For instance, in The Birthmark the protagonist, a scientist, kills his wife by removing a spot (the birthmark) from her body; the birthmark was the only imperfection of her beauty, but also somehow the source of her life. (Or is it the combination of perfection and imperfection that is the source of life? Interpretative possibilities abound.) Quite obviously, few real husbands would do something like this to their wives; the world of allegory is different from the real world, and allegorical characters are different from real people. (Or, on second thoughts, are they? Allegory may not be realistic, but it may tell an important, deeper truth about human hearts and lives. This is how Hawthorne himself explained the difference

between realistic novel and allegorical romance.) Hawthorne's novels are also written in the symbolic, or allegorical mode. The most famous of the four, The Scarlet Letter (1850) is an allegory of sin and redemption, set in 17th century Salem (in New England); it can also be read as a great love story, even though allegorical characters may not seem psychologically plausible (perhaps any real love may not seem psychologically plausible either). All the central characters, Hester Prynne, Arthur Dimmesdale, and Roger Chillingworth, try to live under a destructive burden of guilt, but only Hester manages to free herself from it. The theme is presented in a progression of allegorical scenes, with an important element of Hester Prynne's illegitimate daughter, Pearl, as a symbol of vitality and innocence (but also a fruit of sin). Numerous secondary characters and elements of the setting are also symbolic; sometimes the narrator openly points out to their symbolic meaning. The Scarlet Letter has another theme, that is the link between America's present and its past (the heritage of New England); Hawthorne addresses this issue in the opening chapter, which is a frame device (a 19thcentury narrator finds a Puritan manuscript). The past (and history) is also the central theme of The House of the Seven Gables (1851), a novel set in Salem in mid19th century. The four inhabitants of the house, Hepzibah, Clifford, Phoebe, and Holgrave, are haunted by a hereditary curse from the Puritan times. The curse was uttered by Mathew Maule, a man unjustly trialed and sentenced to death by Hepzibahs ancestor, Judge Pyncheon (the Judge wanted to seize Maules land). The Judge is still present, symbolically, as the portrait hanging in the house; consider the possible allegorical meanings of this presence (the painting, a work of art, is like a ghost). Hepzibah and Clifford try to break with the past, and adjust to their times, but they are not successful (there is a wonderful scene of their first and probably last journey by train). However, the young Phoebe (a country cousin, i.e. a poor relation from the country) and Holgrave (a young reformer and scientific daguerreotypist) manage to bring new life into the house and family. In a variety of allegorical devices (images, settings, scenes) Hawthorne shows the contrast between the curse of the past and hope brought by future. The contrast is even more pronounced by The Blithedale Romance (1852), which is about a small utopian community in 19thcentury New England. Many such communities were set up in Hawthornes time (more or less like todays anarchist squats or new-age farms) in an attempts to reform the society, and rebuild it on more humanitarian and egalitarian principles. Hawthorne even took part in one of those attempts, a Transcendentalist community called Brook Farm, but was not impressed, and The Blithedale Romance recalls his experience and disillusionment. (Most of those utopian communities did not succeed, which confirmed

Hawthornes pessimistic and skeptical attitude. It was not so easy to break with the past.) Some of the characters clearly resemble members of the Transcendental movement: Zenobia is modeled on Margaret Fuller, and Hollingsworth may be similar to Henry David Thoreau (or to Theodore Parker, a less known Transcendentalist), and Coverdale, the narrator, is obviously similar to Hawthorne at the time of his stay in Brook Farm. Instead of being haunted by the Puritan past, the characters of The Blithedale Romance are haunted by mysteries of their personal past; they cannot escape the inherent imperfection of all human beings. The novel is another of Hawthornes allegorical meditations about sin and guilt. The theme of guilt is central in Hawthornes last novel, The Marble Faun (1860). Set in 19thcentury Rome, the novel is built on a contrast between American attitudes (Hildas innocence) and European tradition (Donatello and Miriam). The three central characters are ravaged by guilt after the murder committed by Donatello in defense of Miriam (and with Hildas knowledge). Donatello, who combines natural impulses with ancient tradition, is symbolically linked to a statue of a faun (both the man and the statue have pointed ears). Although The Marble Faun is an allegory of sin, it is also similar to realistic novels, written in subsequent decades, about Americans in Europe (e.g. Mark Twains Innocents Abroad, written in 1869, or numerous novels by Henry James). H e r m a n M e l v i l l e (18191891) was closely attached to Hawthorne, both emotionally and artistically, at the time when he wrote his most famous works of fiction. Melville had little formal education, which he amended by avid reading, but the most important part of his biography were his voyages and adventures at sea; he sailed to the Pacific as common seaman. He is best remembered for Moby Dick (1851), one of the most important American novels. Melville started his career with two novels based on his experiences in the Pacific, Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846), and Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas (1847); those were the only novels which were (moderately) popular in Melvilles lifetime. The next novel, Mardi: And a Voyage Thither (1849), was an unsuccessful (i.e. with contemporary readers) allegory of America (and the rest of the world) in the 19th century, more or less like Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift. Redburn: His First Voyage (1849) and White-Jacket: or, The World in a Man-of-War (1850) are again based on Melvilles biographical experience. White-Jacket is notable for graphic (realistic) descriptions of squalor and violence on ships, and bitter criticism of commanders. Moby Dick. Although these novels, especially Mardi, are not forgotten today, Melvilles fame still rests almost entirely on Moby Dick. The novel is a complex allegory, with symbolic images developed in each of its 135 chapters, but it may also be read (at times) as a realistic novel about whale hunting; it includes extensive and detailed descriptions of mariners at work

and it is written in a peculiar style which combines simple, colloquial English with poetic intensity and beauty of language. These qualities distinguish Melville as a precursor of American realism and naturalism. Apart from its realism, however, Moby Dick is an allegory of the same type as Hawthornes novels, which it exceeds in complexity of symbolic images and meanings. Like in Hawthornes novels, allegorical images in Moby Dick are often ambiguous, i.e. they admit numerous (and contradictory) interpretations. For instance, in one of the initial chapters, the narrator Ishmael attends a church service in Nantucket (a whaling port in Massachusetts). The most important moment of the service is a sermon about Jonah, the Biblical character who tried to sail away from God, and was swallowed and brought back by a gigantic fish. The church scene immediately acquires a symbolic significance: it stands for (symbolically anticipates) the subsequent chapters, and suggests an interpretation of the entire novel. At the same time, the church building is clearly compared to a ship, and the congregation to a crew; allegorically this is an image of a human community as a ship at sea, sailing between an unknown past and equally unknown future. (There is a very similar image in Witold Gombrowiczs Pornography). Later, The Pequod, a whaling ship and the central element of the setting, can be interpreted allegorically in similar terms: its crew represents different civilizations and nationalities, as well as different human attitudes to life. Apart from being a world-as-ship images, The Pequod is also a microcosm, as it consists of all parts of human life (different kinds of ship-work symbolize birth, growth, biological and spiritual life, death, emotions and thoughts). Yet another interpretation can be that Pequod is America, because she encounters ships that clearly symbolize other nations (notably England and France). These examples, limited to one element of the setting, are just a small sample of allegorical images in Moby Dick, and they are marginal when compared with the central image, i.e. captain Ahabs chase for Moby Dick, the white whale. The whale stands for everything that is powerful and inhuman: natures cruelty and mystery, Gods silence, inescapable fate, inexorable passage of time, tragic limitations imposed on human life, or the unknown power of evil that nobody wants, and yet it happens. All these powers, malevolent and inhuman, are unknown to people, and seem to be actively conspiring against us. But then again, remember how many times you behaved in an inhuman way; somehow those powers are part of our very being. Melville writes about it in a series of allegorical images: the simple, linear plot of the novel is only an excuse to put these images together. (The plot is this: captain Ahab takes The Pequod and its crew for a chase against Moby Dick. In the final chase people lose the fight, the ship is sunk by the whale, and all crewmen die, except the narrator.) Captain Ahabs fateful decision to chase Moby Dick (his

monomania), is a symbol of human efforts to understand and rebel against inhuman forces that govern (but should not govern) our lives. Moby Dick was a commercial failure, neither was it understood by most contemporary critics. Melville wrote only three more novels afterwards, Pierre: or, The Ambiguities (1852), and Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile (1855). Pierre is a major novel about rebellion against the conventions of a corrupt society, including rebellion against ones own family, and the tragic outcome of such rebellion. The novel includes bitter, realistic descriptions of the background (poverty and violence in New York). Melvilles last novel, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade (1857) is a pessimistic allegorical satire on American society in Melvilles time. It is a roman--clef, with numerous famous American writers and public figures recognizable in characters. Apart from the novels, Melville wrote poetry and short stories, collected in The Piazza Tales (1856), and one short novel, Billy Budd (published only in 1924, written in the 1880s). Billy Budd counts among Melvilles best works; it recounts the great mutiny in the British Navy at the beginning of the 19th century. The eponymous main character is an innocent seaman, sentenced to death for the sake of example. Budds final acceptance of his fate marks Melvilles tacit reconciliation with the inhuman forces that govern (but should not govern) human life. Melvilles several books of poetry include Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War (1866), a collection of poems about the Civil War, and Clarel (1876) which is a long epic poem about a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; the central theme of Clarel is crisis of religion: different characters experience and express doubts, loss of faith, or ironic disbelief. Mainstream prose. Unlike Melville, and Hawthorne, most American prose writers did not write allegories. Unlike the Transcendentalists, most authors did not develop any philosophical point of view, but directly (without much intellectual reflection) addressed contemporary social and ideological issues: human rights and slavery (women and Blacks), the Civil War, religion and morality, poverty, injustice, and aesthetic and intellectual weakness of the vibrantly developing country. Today, such issues are the theme of realistic social novels, but realist fiction in America emerged only late in the 1860s. (In Europe, authors such as Stendhal and Balzac, or Dickens and Thackeray, wrote realistic novels already in the first half of the 19th century.) Instead of writing realistic novels, mainstream American prose writers employed other conventions: the sentimental domestic novel, the syncretistic type of romance such as Uncle Toms Cabin (1851), the slave narrative (or, generally, semifictional biography and autobiography), or non-fiction writing such as essays, tracts, travelogues, and columns.

Most mainstream fiction writers were women; they were discussed in the previous chapter, in the section about domestic novel (Catherine Maria Sedgwick, Lydia Maria Child, E.D.E.N. Southworth, Susan Warner, Anna Warner, and Maria Susanna Cummins). Probably the most important of these authors was H a r r i e t B e e c h e r S t o w e (18111896), whose first and most famous work was Uncle Toms Cabin: or, Life among the Lowly (1851). The novel was immensely popular (it was probably the most popular American novel in the 19th century), and it exerted great influence on the nations attitude to slavery, which indirectly led to the Civil War (1861-1865). The novel combines adventure romance, domestic novel, novel of manners, satire, social commentary, and moralizing sentimentality (in the American context, this is not a derogatory term). Slavery, the theme of the novel, is presented as an ultimately degrading and sinful institution, which corrupts both slaves and owners. The corrupting influence of slavery is countered by the redemptive power of religion, innocence, and radical self-denial, epitomized by Eva, daughter of a plantation owner. The death of the child is shown in the famous, highly emotional (sentimental) scene, with strong religious symbolism of sacrifice and redemption. Stowes subsequent novels, although not as popular as Uncle Toms Cabin, were all quite successful. Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856) is an adventure romance with an anti-slavery message, whereas The Ministers Wooing (1859) and Oldtown Folks (1869) are novels of manners set in New England. Other mainstream authors also combined a variety of modes of prose writing; important examples were mentioned in the previous chapter, and more recent (in the 1850s) writers include F a n n y F e r n ( S a r a h W i l l i s P a r t o n ) (18111872), E.D.E.N. Southworth, and L o u i s a M a y A l c o t t (18321888). Fanny Fern wrote very influential and popular columns in which she addressed the issue of inequality between men and women in 19 thcentury America. The columns, first published in (New York based) magazines, were subsequently collected in several volumes, beginning with Fern Leaves from Fannys PortFolio (1853). The columnist combines witty and ironic style with strong ideological content, usually beginning with a pretextual, anecdotic story. Fanny Fern also wrote two novels, the immensely successful Ruth Hall: A Domestic Tale of Our Time (1854), and Rose Clark (1856), which are hybrids of domestic sentimentality, realistic social satire, and critical commentary about subjection of women, poverty and vice, and decline of moral standards in America. Thus, Fanny Ferns prose, like Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin, is an example of syncretistic use of different genres in a socially engaged literature, aimed at influencing contemporary national attitudes (pragmatic function of literature). A different kind of mainstream was initiated by Louisa May Alcott and E.D.E.N. Southworth, who both combined sensational plots, domestic sentimentality, and powerful characters to

create highly successful fiction in the second half of the 19th century, beginning in the 1850s. The combination led to emergence of todays popular fiction addressed to specific readership (woman fiction, man fiction, young-adult fiction, juvenile fiction), who could identify with the powerful characters, and use them as role-models. Alcott is today best remembered for Little Women (1868), but her work also includes Little Men (1871), and Jos Boys, and How They Turned Out (1886), and biographical Hospital Sketches (1863) about the Civil War. However, in the 1970s it was discovered that Alcott anonymously wrote numerous successful thrillers published in national magazines. These works, usually the size of a short novel, include Marion Earle: or, Only an Actress (1858), or Paulines Passion and Punishment (1863). They mark the emergence of American literature written purposefully for the satisfaction of reader demand for lush settings, sensational plots, strong passions, and fantastic role models; as such, they show continuity of the tradition of American romance. E.D.E.N. Southworths fiction is constructed in the same way: her most popular novel, The Hidden Hand (1859) features a strong woman protagonist, Capitola, who asserts her rights and aspirations in a series of sensational episodes. Unlike the writers of domestic sentimental romance, Southworth does not construct role-models based on self-denial, obedience, and religious sentiment. Southworths series of highly successful novels, usually set in the American South, there are Ishmael: or, In the Depths (1863) and its sequel Self-Raised: or, Out of the Depths (1864). An important type of mainstream non-fictional prose was autobiography, especially written by Black slaves. Slave narrative was a distinct type of prose which, like Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin, was instrumental in changing national attitudes to slavery in the decades before the Civil War. Although the texts were based on real experiences and accounts, many of them were edited by white anti-slavery campaigners. The two most famous slave narratives were written by H a r r i e t J a c o b s (18131897) and F r e d e r i c k D o u g l a s s (18181895). Narrative of the Live of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself (1845) epitomizes the genre: much of the personal life of the protagonist is omitted to make him a typical representative of Black slaves, the text includes detailed descriptions of life (and slave labor) in a Southern plantation, including drastic scenes of cruelty, as well as different terrible parts of the system of slavery (including slave auctions and hunts for runaway slaves). The plot of the narrative is constructed as a progression from the initial plantations, through various owners and terrors of slavery, through the perils of escape, to freedom in the North. Harriet Jacobss Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (published pseudonymously as Linda Brent in 1861) is written in a similar manner, but addressed specifically to women readers and their concerns.

The third type of mainstream prose in the 1850s, apart from fiction and autobiography, was non-fiction written by literary men, especially written by the so called Boston Brahmins, or representatives of the Genteel Tradition of American literature. This group included Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and James Russell Lowell, who were all poets and never wrote a longer work of narrative fiction. However, they addressed current social and national issues in their essays and columns. Most of this prose is now forgotten: Longfellows essays (18371838), Whittiers romance (in the form of fictional biography), Leaves from Margaret Smiths Journal (1848), Olivier Wendell Holmess popular collection of essays, The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table (18311832), and Lowells antislavery essays published in various magazines before the Civil War. However, the fame and memory of these writers rests on their poetry. Poetry. The poetry of the American Renaissance is dominated by two great individual talents, who unquestionably dominate and define the entire tradition of American poetry: W a l t W h i t m a n (18191892), and E m i l y D i c k i n s o n (18301896). Lesser poets of the time, almost forgotten today, include Whittier, Lowell, Phoebe Carry, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, as well as the continuing poetic work by Longfellow. Walt Whitman is best remembered for his lifelong work on a single volume of poetry, Leaves of Grass (1855), in which he created a new American poetical idiom, a combination of lofty, democratic ideas with everyday experience, expressed in free verse. (The title may be interpreted as a symbol of ordinary people in the rapidly growing nation.) Whitmans free verse is characterized by long lines, powerful effusions of inspired first-person voice, poetic catalogues, epic epithets, and frequent use of colloquial phrases and words. The verse imitated the speech of ordinary Americans, while at the same time its long lines and rhetorical devices gave a new, higher meaning to common speech. The general theme of Whitmans poetry is the life, power, and potential of the mass of ordinary people, i.e. a vitalistic praise of American society and its ideals of democracy and freedom. Whitman did not hesitate to praise all aspects of ordinary life, including sex or violence, which made his poetry scandalous for some contemporary readers. Reception in Whitmans time was hostile or indifferent, with the exception of Emerson and other Transcendentalists, who saw Whitman as a new type of poet, an American bard who gave a poetic voice to ordinary people and contemporary American society. To achieve these ordinary-lofty artistic aims, Whitman employed a poetic persona who spoke in first-person; the poetic Walt Whitman is an average representative of the entire nation, and his poems were supposed to be textual equivalents of entire American life. Importantly,

Whitman revised and expanded Leaves of Grass throughout his life, so that each new edition imitated Whitmans personal growth and the growth of American nation. Each edition included numerous new poems, and enlarged versions of old ones: Second Edition (1856) included expanded versions of thirty two poems, Third Edition (1860) had more than fifty new poems grouped in new sections, like separate new books of poetry (e.g. Calamus), and numerous new poems and revisions were included in the Fourth (1867) and Seventh (1881) edition. Thus, Leaves of Grass grew, as it were, together with Whitman and together with America; it consequently was both his first and last volume. Today, the most widely read text is the so called deathbed edition from 1891. The most famous poem in Leaves of Grass is Song of Myself (1855, but subsequently much expanded and revised). The beginning of the poem explains its theme and purpose: Whitman (or the lyrical I) is celebrating himself, because he is a representative of the entire nation, a common man. In praising himself, his experience of life, he praises America in general. Obviously, the lyrical I is constructed so that it includes all aspects of American life, more than any real person could know: the I knows all walks of life, works in all sorts of professions, sees peace and war, city and country life, travels through the continent, experiences great joy and suffering, and even shares both the experience of being a man and a woman; the I is America. In this, Whitman combines powerful individual voice with national greatness. He explained this purpose in the preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass. Other poems in the volume include Crossing the Brooklyn Ferry (1856), Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking (1859), Pioneers, O Pioneers! (1865), poems about love and sex in the Calamus section (1860), war poems included in the Drum-Taps section (most from 1865), When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd (1865-6), and Passage to India (1868). Crossing Brooklyn Ferry is a triumphant description of vibrant city life in New York, with crowds and activity never before seen in American (or any) poetry. Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking is a meditation of the inexorable progression from life to death (of a bird), and the redemptive, creative power of poetry. Pioneers, O Pioneers! is one of the many poems which gave title to another work of literature (Willa Cathers realistic epic novel about Western life, written in 1913). Calamus includes Of Paths Untrodden and Not Heaving from My Ribbd Breast Only with frank and high-spirited treatment of the body and sexuality. The poems in Drum-Taps are about the Civil War; many of them include visual imagery, created in an economic and graphic way (Cavalry Crossing the Ford), not unlike the experiments of modernist poetry in the 20th century. When Lilacs in the Dooryard Bloomd is an elegy about President Abraham Lincolns death, but it is also a more universal meditation on death and rebirth. Passage to India, used as title by the British novelist

Edward Forster, is written in praise of American expansion. On the whole, the last edition of Leaves of Grass includes more than 200 poems. Apart from poetry, Whitman wrote essays, including Democratic Vistas (1871), with prophetic concerns about devaluation of American democratic ideals, and a collection of autobiographical sketches called Specimen Days (1882). The other great poet of the American Renaissance was Emily Dickinson, whose life, practice of writing, style and content, were radically different from Whitmans. Dickinson did not write with an intention to publish, and her most important poems were not published in her lifetime; she also destroyed many of them before her death. Her poetry is characterized by inwardness, restrained style, and universal themes, such as nature, death, passions, tragic vision of existence, futility, and religious belief and doubt. Because Dickinson was an exceptionally important poet, but did not publish, her posthumous publication history is complicated. There are 1,775 extant poems (the poet probably destroyed many more), and only seven of them were published in her lifetime. The first volume of selected poetry, Poems by Emily Dickinson, was published only in 1890 by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd; it won immediate critical acclaim and was popular with readers. Higginson and Todd published two more selections in 1891 and 1896. After 1914 new selections, with more previously unpublished poems, were published by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. These early editions are criticized now because they standardized Dickinsons punctuation (most importantly by ignoring her frequent use of dashes) and ignored unconventional layout of many poems. The editors also gave titles to the poems, and arranged them in thematic chapters (Love, Experience, Nature etc.) which may be considered as too radical editorial modification. However, these editions contributed to the general recognition of Emily Dickinson as a major American poet. The first complete scholarly edition was published in 1955 by Thomas H. Johnson, who, working with manuscripts, preserved Dickinsons unconventional (or surprisingly modern) layout, punctuation and spelling (capitalization). Johnson did not invent titles, but arranged the poems according to the (estimated) time of writing, and simply numbered them. This became the standard edition used by subsequent Dickinson scholars and readers. More recently, different scholars criticized Johnsons edition as not faithful enough to the manuscripts. R.W. Franklins variorum edition from 1998, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, may be seen as the definite text to be used for interpretations. Franklins edition adjusted the chronological arrangement of the poems (so the numbers are different in Johnson and Franklin). The variety of editions reflect the enigmatic and experimental quality of Dickinsons style; it

is often difficult to interpret and render her manuscripts on a printed page. The poet often used very short lines, dashes of varying length instead of commas and periods, and capital letters for emphasis rather than beginning of sentences. The diction and syntax are also unusual, especially marked for the frequent use of subjunctive mode and elliptical phrases. Generally, these devices mean that much meaning in Dickinsons poetry is not explicit in the text. Instead, the meaning can be found in punctuation, in the arrangement of words on the page, and in the unspoken content of elliptical syntax. In this, the poet anticipates the poetic experiments of the 20th century, especially modernist free verse. (Modernist poets, e.g. Amy Lowell, acknowledged Dickinson as a major influence.) However, many of Dickinsons poems are written in more conventional verse, e.g. in a regular ballad stanza. Confronted with the ambiguous and unconventional manuscripts, the editors made choices which reflected their attitudes: Higginson and Todd interpreted Dickinson as a great lyrical poet, whereas Johnson turned her poetry into a pre-modernist experiment. The fact that there is no neutral reading indicates the great potential of the poems: they are charged with numerous and various interpretative possibilities. Since 1890, changing editions and interpretations are evidence of the enduring importance of Dickinsons poetry for American literature. Thematically, Emily Dickinson concentrated on universal aspects of life, such as love, family and social relations, individualism and conformity, joy and humor, curiosity, death and pain. Death (of oneself and of others) is the theme of almost a third of the poems. These universal themes are usually (but not always) shown in an intimate/universal setting of family life, home and garden. Dickinson, like the Puritan poets (and English metaphysical poets), or Hawthorne and Melville, shows universal themes in mundane images: changes of seasons in the garden (Johnson 130 / Franklin 122), an eye of a dying person (241/339), sunlight on late afternoon (258/320), bird eating a worm (328/359), cupboards and porcelain (640), a loaded gun (754/764), a snake in the grass (986/1096), or a flower killed by frost (1624/1668). These images, presented in unusual similes and metaphors, are juxtaposed in incongruous or surprising ways, like in English metaphysical poetry: a spell of early spring (130) is compared to the holy communion, beads of sweat on the forehead of a dying person (241) become beads of anguish on a string, afternoon sunlight is compared to a cathedral (258), the birds wings row like oars of a ship sailing across the ocean (328), the porcelain in a cupboard is a (conventional) life (640), the loaded gun (754) is something life stands against, the frost is metaphorically compared to a human being, the blonde assassin (1624). These images are similar to those discussed in the first chapter, e.g. in Edward Taylors poetry. There is no easy answer to the question why, but there is some sort of continuity in the use of such images in American poetry.

Apart from poetry, Dickinson wrote numerous letters, collected and edited by Thomas H. Johnson and Theodora Ward in The Letters of Emily Dickinson (1958). A number of important letters were written to Thomas Wentworth Higginson (answers did not survive; Dickinson destroyed the letters she received). The correspondence began in 1862, when the poet asked Higginson, an important critic and editor, for an assessment of several poems. Higginson was impressed by Dickinsons poetry, although he found it puzzling, unconventional, and dark. They exchanged letters throughout the reminder of her life. The letters include several statements which might be interpreted as the poets artistic manifesto, although they are again difficult to understand (e.g. she famously stated that her business is circumference, which might mean an all-encompassing sphere of imagination). Among the minor poets of the American Renaissance there were J o h n G r e e n l e a f W h i t t i e r (18071892), J a m e s R u s s e l l L o w e l l (18191891), P h o e b e C a r r y (18241871), and F r a n c e s E l l e n W a t k i n s H a r p e r (18251911). Whittier and Lowell are representatives of the so called genteel tradition of New England: they combined commitment to contemporary social issues with refined, conservative taste and a degree of aesthetic detachment (which is perhaps not so true for Whittier and Lowell, but certainly for Longfellow and Holmes). Importantly, as poets, they adhered to conventional verse and wrote in an accessible style, producing mostly narrative and occasional poems. Carry was a New York poet, who enjoyed immense popularity as author of parodies and humorous verse, but also as an author who addressed issues which were important for women. Harper is an important Black poet, one of the few representatives of another pioneering generation after George Moses Horton. John Greenleaf Whittier is best remembered for his longer narrative poem, Snow-Bound (1865), which is a description of a New England familys winter evening. The poem, like a genre painting, shows different New England characters and characteristic genre scenes (cooking, housework, fireplace). The poem also includes interesting stories told by different relations and friends. It is a lyrical idyll, a nostalgic description of local customs, characters and attitudes. Apart from Snow-Bound, Whittier wrote narrative poems about New England history, personal and religious poetry, and numerous occasional poems about slavery, e.g. Ichabod (1850). Whittier was an important Abolitionist (anti-slavery) journalist and activist, and Ichabod condemns Daniel Webster, an important contemporary spokesman and politician who betrayed his convictions and supported a political compromise with Southern states (the Fugitive Slave Law).1
1

Fugitive slaves escaped to Northern states to be free. Fugitive Slave Law made it legal to chase them in every state, even in states where slavery was illegal; slaves had to go Canada to be safe.

James Russell Lowell, who was an Abolitionist journalist like Whittier, is the author of Biglow Papers (first series 1848, second series 1867), satirical poems written in a colloquial New England (Yankee) dialect. The poems criticized the war with Mexico and annexation of Texas, attacked slavery and the Confederacy, and satirized contemporary politics. Next to Mark Twains The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, it is one of the first longer narrative texts in American literature, written purposefully in a local dialect. Apart from Biglow Papers, Lowells poetry includes A Fable for Critics (1848), an anonymous satire about American literature, and The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848), which is a parable of human character, symbolically represented through Arthurian legends. Lowell also wrote numerous shorter poems with religious, Abolitionist, occasional and personal themes. Phoebe Carry, who collaborated with her sister Alice, wrote conventional short poems with religious and social themes, e.g. The Christian Woman (1849) and Death Scene (1849). However, she won great acclaim for her Poems and Parodies (1854), which included Samuel Brown (1854, parody of Poes Annabel Lee), or Jacob (1854, parody of Wordsworths Lucy). The Christian Woman and A Womans Conclusion (1868) may be interpreted in terms of womans search for independence and identity. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, apart from being a poet, was a Black educationalist and Abolitionist. Her poetry addressed the central concerns of Blacks in mid 19th-century America, i.e. slavery, its abolition after the Civil War, and the great expectations afterwards. Her poetry was one of the many attempts to give a voice and language to those Americans whore were excluded from the dominant type of literature, which is definitely true about the thematic aspect of Harpers poetry. Most of her poems were narrative and used conventional stylistic forms (ballad stanza and blank verse). The Slave Mother, a Tale of the Ohio (1854) is an attack on slavery and on the Fugitive Slave Law. Bury Me in a Free Land (1864) expresses the hope for immediate abolition of slavery during the Civil War, and Learning to Read (1872) reflects the hopes and aspirations of newly freed Blacks.

SOME MISSING NAMES AND WORKS Garrison Bayard Taylor Humorists Southern reaction Thomas Wentworth Higginson