The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-07-31
LETTERS TO EDITOR
What Is American Literature?

To the editor of The Age Herald:
 Over the signature of Frank Willis | Barnett in two issues of The Age | Herald, July A and 27 the writer dis |cusses American literature. some of its authors, and the low estimate put upon it by English writers.
 What is American literature? When | did it begin? Tn what section of our country was it born, developed. en- couraged and made famous? Hard ques- | tions to answer, don't you think? In | my view it would be absurd to apply | these questions to the transient and l occasional literary effusions that ap- !, peared on this side of the Atlantic for a century after the settlement of the | country. It was natural for us to look | to Great Britain during that time for our intellectual food as we looked to l her for our material comforts. And we did so. At one time the Edinburg i Review thus wrote:
 "LiteratureAThe Americans have none-no native literature we mean. But why should the Americans write 1 books when a six-week passage brings them, in their own tongue our sense, | science and genius in bales and hogs | heads"
 There is a great deal of truth in this. | But we had a nation to form. conti | nent to suddue. the means whereby to live" to provide, schools to build; in short, instead of writing any good work, we were acting a still greater one. We were making the subjects on which for the future historian. trav- e1er, essayist and poet to employ his pen. And here we have the answer to the question, 'sWhat is American liter ature?" It is the product of those minds. nur- tured trained, developed on our own soil by the manners, habits, scenery and institutions peculiar to ourselves. And this determines about the date of American literature. The thoughts of our first writers, of course. were di- rected to principles of political govern
 nent, public economy civil liberty Then as Minerva sprang full armed and equipped from the head of love, there appeared a literature, political in char acter, which for strength, clearness and sound reasoning the world has never l seen the parallel. This literature, dur able and lasting, is found in the speeches and letters of Otis. John Adams, Hamilton, Jay, Jefferson, all but one northern men, By degrees, as l our strength increased, we entered the various fields of literature and reaped rich and still richer harvests from them all. Especially was this the case the greater part of the nineteenth century | in the New England states. In his l tory, Irving, Prescott, Bancroft. Hild- reth and Motley have no equals in any other part of America. In the
 ology and Biblical literature Dwight,
 Barnes and Jonathan Edwards have as many readers in England as they have 1 in this country. The illustrous name of the latter can we'll be selected as the ! foundation on which to erect the struc- ture of American literature. For piety deep and pure, and an intellect com l bining clearness. acuteness and lstrength he has never been surpassed, if ever equaled and attained re-
 nown in both hemispheres which can
 never die but with our languauge. | But further, the rocky hills of New England can summon a galaxy of lit-
 erary theologians of later day that in the republic of letters have few equals; l Henry Ward Beecher is the greatest pulpit genius of modern times. and ITal- | mage charmed thousands from the pull pit and through the press.
 As to fiction. English critics being judges, place Harriet Beecher Stowe
 
 I lantic, James Fenimore Cooper. N. P. | Willis, Hawthorne, Mrs. Sigourney Mrs. Sedgwlck, with scores of others
 whose fame is not ephemeral. but last ing as the language in which they have | written.
 In the domain of poetry America both | North and South. presents a roll of
 which the Mother Country can well be
 proud, going back one hundred years
 Longfellow. the poet laureate of Amer
 ica, and William Cullen Bryant. As many copies of Longfellow and Bryant
 have been sold in England as Coleridge
 Wordsworth and Tennyson: Fitz Green
 Halleck, John G. Whittier James R.
 Lowell and Edgar Allan Poe, a world
 genius unapproached and unrivaled in
 the original pathway he marked out in
 the field of literature.
 American writers for the last century
 have entered every avenue of scientific research, opened up new mines of
 knowledge, and instructed and gratified
 the world with their pens in every de- partment of learning. Their fame has
 never been obscured They have writ ten for all time and the world. John Quincy Adams. Curtis, Emerson, Everett,
 Franklin, Holmes, Irving. Story, Sum- ner. Wayland Webster, Woodwork.
 Their writings have caused the Edn- bursh Review to reverse it's opinion, and ii; now asks, "Who does not read an , American book?'
 J. c. RENSHAW.
 Birmingham. July 2S, 1920.