The sun., 1891-06-28
The Future Of American Literature

The International Copyright act, passed
during the last session of Congress. is ,
disappointment to English authors because
1t protects somebody besides themselves
They are indignant at measure which
while it provides reasonable safeguards fol
literary ownership, shields American pub
fishers. printers paper makers. and binders
from the competition Of English manufac
turers and workmen. Mr.. THEODORE
WATTS, in particular, has been moved tc
ferocious wrath by the infusion Of the hate
full protective principle In copyright leg!sla.
tion. This is, 1t seems, the last drop in the
brimming cup o! protec.ionist wrongdoing,
and in the current number OF the Fortniohtiy,
Mr.. WATTS rcviles us with great spirit on eth.
biological, sociological, aesthetic, and moral
grounds, ending with the information that
we have thrown away the last chance OF
evolving a national literature. The long
predicted literary variant from the English
type has, he tells US, been blighted in the
germ and the hope of developing it may
as we'll be abandoned.
The time has gone by when English will.
fcation could excite indignation or resent
ment In the United States. With every year
that has elapsed since from the throes Of a
stupendous civil war We sprang into the
front rank among the nations, we have come
to care less and less about English opinion.
That has happened to US which happened to
the Roman republic when the war between
the factions Of SULLA and MARIus was over.
The national consciousness has awakened
with start to the magnitude Of our resources
and the splendor OF our destiny. We know
that the New World is our heritage and that
the boundless future Is our own. It has,
therefore, become impossible for US to regard
the ebullitions Of English i'll temper with
any other feeling than amused unconcern.
We writhed under the tongue lashings of
Mrs. TRoLLoPR and CHARLES DICKENS; we
smile at the diatribes Of Sir LEPEL GRIFFIN
Of the Saturday Rerer and of Mr.. THEODORE
WATTS. The last-named censors really can
not, to borrow British vulRarism. get rise
out OF US. Our only answer to their buzzings
and their futile attempts to sting, is to wave
at them a languid finger with "Shoo fly,
don't bother me.'
Yet while Mr.. WATTs's view Of American
society. OF American education. standards
OF taste and literary capabilities, Is to us
matter OF entire indifference, the question
whether the evolution OF national litera-
ture on this side OF the Atlantic be possible.
Is worthy Of some consideration. It will be
just as well, perhaps, to begin by detin.
Ing our terms. Is it possible to have a
national literature without a national lam
guage So long as English is the common
tongue OF the United States and OF Great
Britain, it seems plain that tie respective
literatures OF the two countries cannot
sharply and organicaliy differ like for in
stance. those Of Spain and Portugal, or those
of Italy and France. In the last analysis it
IS the mould, the organic structure, and the
impulses Of a given tongue to
which are due the form and character OF its
literary outgrowth. So long as one and
he same language is spoken on both sides
>f the Atlantic; so long as the American
oeople go through their photographers to
he West End Of London for their standards
IF photography, pronunciation. and defini-
ion, just so long our native writers in all
lrtistic essentials will be. and will even
or consciously aim to be,
English rather than distinctively American.
They cannot be otherwise; they are but
'beying the fundamental law OF literary
'reation. namely. intuitive. or deliberate
conformity to the genius of the linguistic
Medium. We admit, then, that we never
hall have national literature in the exact
meaning OF the word until the American
anguagc shall have come to differ from that
poken in the British Islands almost Us de-
idedly MS Portuguese differs from Spanish. |
It rs Provencal differed in the thirteenth
entury from the French spoken north OF |
he Loire. OF course, 1t does not follow |
hat because We may have no national lit |
rature, properly SO called. we may not |
make contributions Of superlatlve impor-
ance to the common literary storehouse OF |
he Eng nslish-speaking world. 1t is here rel. |
want to recall the fact that the masters OF
lttic prose and poetry were not all natives
fthe Attic soil, or children of Athenian par
nts. The time may come when an Ameri.
an will be called to the chair of poetry In
he University OF Oxford. even as GoRGIAs
anne from Sicily to teach rhetoric to the
Ithenians.
What right have We. however. to assume
70 that have behind us but century OF
existence-that a distinctly
.merlcan language will not DO ultimately
eveloped on this side OF the Atlantic? We
lean language that will differ from the
.nglish more profoundly than did the Doric
rom the Ionic Greek. and at least as un-
as does the Portuguese from the
panish. Already our coNoquial tongue,
he language actually spoken by the masses
the American people. varies materially as
, vocabulary, and is tending more and
,ore visibly to vary as to structure, from
he idiom OF England's toiling millions and
'wer middle class. 1t is in the lower strata
society that new languages are gener-
ted it was there that the daughters OF the
attn, the Romance tongues, were begotten
nd reared up; it was in like manner among
le serfs and minor vassals OF the Castilian
obies who followed Prince Henry to the
inquest Of Portugal that there grew up q
'rm OF speech divergent from that used
lst across the border In Galicia, In Leon,
nd IN Estremadura- In the case OF Portu-
al. tho impulses toward the evolution
N Ian -. A