Evening star., 1948-12-05

new literary history OF tne Onlteo
States take such full cognizance OF
the social and political forces which
attended the first initiative pipings
Of the American voice, its adolescent
ouaverings and the sure song which
burst forth with the era of Emerson
Melville and Whitman and which
has been renewed in our own day
It is the insistence Of this unique
and inseparable union OF life and
literature on q new, busy and rest
less continent that gives this re-
examination of our culture its force
and vigor. The writing was not done
In q vacuum and should not be
appraised in o void. Before the
expression of any given period Il
examined, q background OF the con-
temporary stresses and cross-cur-
rents, the politics and attitudes OF
the times Is given in terses, vivid
summation. Such contributing FAC
tors as the lack Of an international
copyright law until 1891, the rise OF
universities and public education
the founding of libraries, the native
passion for lectures, newspapers and
magazines, the formation Of our own
distinctive speech, even the effect Of
the WPA writer's project and the
book clubs are thoroughly explored
giving the two volumes diversity
added to comprehensiveness. In the
words of the editor, 1t Is "a history
of literature within the margins OF
art, but crossing them into the
actualities Of American life"
The Pageant of American Ideas.
The climate of the country never
was ideal for the creation OF re-
mote or highly refined kind OF
literary art, with a few purely crea-
tive souls such as Hawthorne and
Edwin Arlington Robinson provid-
ing the exceptions. From the pro-
motional or evangelical output OF
the earliest settlers, writing passed
In the days of the infant Republic
into the arena of everymans con-
cern, The debate on the Constitu-
ton was fought in the market-place
while the rest of the world watched
I'm envy and wonder the building o1
a dream. The philosopher-states-
men Jefferson and Franklin, the
inspired pamphleteer, Thomas Paine
sre fully represented as intellectural
forces.
The liberating influence OF Emer-
son's transcendentalism Is ex-
planned. The power OF fiction al
propaganda was irrefutably proven
bv "Uncle Toms Cabin" Abraham
Lincoln takes his place In the
pageant of American ideas. With
the dominance of the genteel traoi'
ton, when Longfellow, Whittier ane
Holmes poetry became polite, but
authorship resumed the questlng
challenging air which, 1t still wears
in the '90s, when the novel OF socia
debate reflected a fierce tnvestiga-
ton of the shortcomings OF the
competitive system.
Authors I'm Dispute
The intellectual quarrels wnlcn
have been fought ever since we had
enough authors to dispute with one
another have been reproduced In
considerable and lively detail. They
began with the furious quarrels over
our enslavement to European IDEAS
and forms and have continued un-
sbated to the battle of the critics
which ragged in the '30s. They have
never reached the intensity OF con-
tinental controversies, but they are
important and worthy OF review.
Although S. writer's have contrib
uted to the symposium OF almost
1.4OO pages, their efforts have been
blended together through notably
mellifiuous transitions and the book
has a unified quality of balance and
eloouence. At their best in esti-
mates of our authors, the contrib
uting writer's have shown a depth
of insight matched in felicity ane
flrmness of prose, although 1t might
be said of all of them that they
could have been more generous with
quotations from the works under
consideration.
Here and there, some academic
acolyte has tunneled happily in
catacomb of his own scholarship
where the light is dim and the des'
tination a trifle doubtful. Richard
T. Blackmur's essay on Henr!
James, seems to have been writer
for a charmed circle and. contain!
some rapt convolutions of thought
that make parts Of it as formidable
as passages in the Master.