A History of American Literature

Midday and Afternoon

Swirl of crowded streets. Shock and recoil of traffic. The stock-still brick façade of an old church, against which the waves of people lurch and withdraw. Flare of sunshine down side-streets. Eddies of light in the windows of chemists’ shops, with their blue, gold, purple jars, darting colors far into the crowd. Loud bangs and tremors, murmurings out of high windows, whirring of machine belts, blurring of horses and motors. A quick spin and shudder of brakes on an electric car, and the jar of a church-bell knocking against the metal blue of the sky. I am a piece of the town, a bit of blown dust, thrust along with the crowd. Proud to feel the pavement under me, reeling with feet. Feet tripping, skipping, lagging, dragging, plodding doggedly or springing up and advancing on firm, elastic insteps. A boy is selling papers, I smell them clean and new from the press. They are fresh like the air, and pungent as tulips and narcissus.

The blue sky pales to lemon, and great tongues of gold blind the shop-windows, putting out their contents in a flood of flame.

In her essay on John Gould Fletcher, in “Tendencies in Modern American Poetry,” Miss Lowell has defined the æsthetic intent of this poetic form: “‘Polyphonic’ means – many-voiced – and the form is so-called because it makes use of all the ‘voices’ of poetry, namely: metre, vers libre, assonance, alliteration, rhyme and return. It employs every form of rhythm, even prose rhythm at times, but usually holds no particular one for long… The rhymes may come at the ends of the cadences, or may appear in close juxtaposition to each other, or may be only distantly related.” These two forms, with the aid of the two formulas, may be tested at leisure from an abundance of passages; they correspond with their recipes, are distinct from each other, and have certain distinctive beauties. But a further experiment – the attempt to make the cadences of free verse harmonize with the movements of natural objects – is by no means so successful. “If the reader will turn,” says Miss Lowell, in the preface to “Men, Women and Ghosts,” “to the poem ‘A Roxbury Garden,’ he will find in the first two sections an attempt to give the circular movement of a hoop bowling along the ground, and the up-and-down, elliptical curve of a flying shuttlecock.” The following, presumably, is a segment of the circular movement:

“I will beat you Minna,” cries Stella,Hitting her hoop smartly with her stick.“Stella, Stella, we are winning,” calls Minna,As her hoop curves round a bed of clove-pinks.

It is an example, in fact, of the fruitlessness of dwelling on a matter of artistic form till it becomes more important than the artistic content. Miss Lowell admits in this connection that there flashed into her mind “the idea of using the movement of poetry.” The student, therefore, should not regard the resultant verses as anything more than experiments in technique, and at the same time he should speculate as to whether a vital artistic form can ever be imposed upon a subject instead of springing spontaneously from it.

Yet, although Miss Lowell’s reputation rests mainly on her experiments in novel and striking poetic forms, most of her work has been written in conformity with classic traditions. The opening volume is all in common rhythms, and so is most of the second, and quite half of the third. The last alone is devoted to a new form; “Can Grande’s Castle” contains four long poems in polyphonic prose. The tendency is clearly in the direction of the innovations, but thus far the balance is about even between the new and the old.

As to subject matter, Miss Lowell’s thesis is Poe’s: that poetry should not teach either facts or morals, but should be dedicated to beauty; it is a stained-glass window, a colored transparency. And the poet is a nonsocial being who

spurns life’s human friendships to profess Life’s loneliness of dreaming ecstacy.

Like Poe she limits herself to the production of lyrics and tales and resorts not infrequently to grotesques and arabesques. Unlike Poe her resort to horror leads her to the composition of sex infidelities which are sometimes boring, sometimes foul, and rarely interesting. On this point (rule three for the Imagists) Miss Lowell falters awkwardly. “‘How can the choice of subject be absolutely unrestricted?’ – horrified critics have asked. The only reply to such a question is that one had supposed one were speaking to people of common sense and intelligence.” The bounds of taste are assumed; yet these, she hastens to state, differ for different judges, and she illustrates her contention by the extreme extensiveness of her own. Finally, and again like Poe, Miss Lowell is to a high degree bookishly literary in her choice and treatment of subjects.

After all, for the attentive reader of contemporary poetry Miss Lowell’s most distinguished service has been in her two books of criticism. In the concourse of present-day poets she is a kind of drum major. One cannot see the procession without seeing her or admiring the skill with which she swings and tosses the baton. But when the parade is past, one can easily forget her until the trumpets blare again. She leads the way effectively, and one is glad to have her do it, – glad that there are those who enjoy being excellent drum majors. Then one pays farewell to her in the words with which she salutes Ezra Pound in her verses headed “Astigmatism”: "Peace be with you, [Sister]. You have chosen your part."

Witter Bynner (1881-) was born in Brooklyn and is a graduate of Harvard in the class of 1902. He took the impress of his university and recorded it not only in an “Ode to Harvard” (1907) – reprinted in “Young Harvard and Other Poems” – but also in the two plays that followed, “Tiger” (1913) and “The Little King” (1914), neither of which have anything to do with Harvard, but both of which reflect the intelligent interest in drama encouraged at that seat of learning. Aside from “Iphigenia in Tauris” (1915), his remaining work, in which his real distinction lies, is the single poem “The New World” (1915) and the collection “Grenstone Poems” (1917). Into both of these are woven threads of the same story, – the poet’s love and marriage to Celia, the inspiration which comes to him from her finer nature, the birth and loss of their child, the death of Celia, his dull bereavement, the dedication of his life to the democracy which Celia had taught him to understand.

“Grenstone Poems” is a series of little idyls comparable in some respects to Frost’s “A Boy’s Will.” They are wholly individual in tone, presenting in brief lyrics, nearly two hundred in number, the quaint and lovely elements in the humor and the tragedy of life. “The New World,” in contrast, contains by implication much of this, but is constructed in nine sections which trace the progressive steps in the poet’s idealization of America. Always Celia’s imagination leads far in advance of his own. Again and again as he strives to follow, his triumphant ascent reaches as its climax what to her is a lower round in the ladder. Two passages suggest the theme in the abstract, though the beauty of the poem lies chiefly in the far implications of definite scenes and episodes. The first is a speech of Celia’s:

It is my faith that God is our own dreamOf perfect understanding of the soul.It is my passion that, alike through meAnd every member of eternity,The source of God is sending the same stream.It is my peace that when my life is whole,God’s life shall be completed and supreme.

The second, with which this volume may well conclude, is in the poet’s own words:

In temporary painThe age is bearing a new breedOf men and women, patriots of the worldAnd one another. Boundaries in vain,Birthrights and countries, would constrainThe old diversity of seedTo be diversity of soul.O mighty patriots, maintainYour loyalty! – till flags unfurledFor battle shall arraignThe traitors who unfurled them, shall remainAnd shine over an army with no slain,And men from every nation shall enrollAnd women – in the hardihood of peace!What can my anger do but cease?Whom shall I fight and who shall be my enemyWhen he is I and I am he?Let me have done with that old God outsideWho watched with preference and answered prayer,The Godhead that repliedNow here, now there,Where heavy cannon wereOr coins of gold!Let me receive communion with all men,Acknowledging our one and only soul!For not till thenCan God be God, till we ourselves are whole.

BOOK LIST

General References

The Younger American Poets. Jessie B. Rittenhouse, 1904.

Tendencies in Modern American Poetry. Amy Lowell, 1917.

The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century. W. L. Phelps, 1918. (Latter half, American Poetry.)

Convention and Revolt in Poetry. G. L. Lowes, 1919.

The New Era in American Poetry. L. Untermeyer, 1919.

Collections

A Little Book of Modern Verse. Edited by Jessie B. Rittenhouse.

Some Imagist Poets (three annual volumes in a completed series) 1915, 1916, 1917.

An Anthology of Magazine Verse (annual volumes in a continuing series). Edited by W. S. Braithwaite, since 1915.

The Poetry of the Future. Edited by W. T. Schnittkin.

A Book of Princeton Verse. Edited by Alfred Noyes and Others.

Works of Individual Men

Witter Bynner. Ode to Harvard, 1907; Tiger, 1913; The Little King, 1914; Iphigenia in Tauris, 1915; The New World, 1915; Grenstone Poems, 1917; Any Girl, 1917.

Robert Frost. A Boy’s Will, 1913; North of Boston, 1914; Mountain Interval, 1916.

Richard Hovey. Plays (uniform edition), 1907–1908.

Nicholas Vachel Lindsay. General William Booth Enters into Heaven, 1913; Adventures while Preaching the Gospel of Beauty, 1914; The Congo, 1914; The Art of the Moving Picture, 1915; A Handy Guide for Beggars, 1916; The Chinese Nightingale, 1917.

Amy Lowell. A Dome of Many-Colored Glass, 1912; Sword Blades and Poppy Seed, 1914; Six French Poets, 1915; Men, Women and Ghosts, 1916; Tendencies in Modern American Poetry, 1917; Can Grande’s Castle, 1919.

Edgar Lee Masters. Poems, 1898; Maximilian, 1900; The Spoon River Anthology, 1915; Songs and Satires, 1916; The Great Valley, 1916; Toward the Gulf, 1918.

William Vaughn Moody. Poems and Plays. 1912. 2 vols.

Edwin Arlington Robinson. The Children of the Night, 1897; Captain Craig, 1902 and 1915; The Town down the River, 1910; The Man against the Sky, 1916; Prose plays: Van Zorn, 1914; The Porcupine, 1915; Merlin, 1917.

Magazine Articles

The magazine articles on poetry are extremely numerous. From among those since 1900 the following are of special interest:

1900–1904. Poetry and the Stage. H. W. Boynton. Atlantic, Vol. XCII pp. 120–126. July, 1903.

Poetry of a Machine Age. G. S. Lee. Atlantic, Vol. LXXXV, pp. 756–763. June, 1900.

1905–1909. Certain Vagaries of the Poets. Atlantic, Vol. C, pp. 431–432. September, 1907.

On the Slopes of Parnassus. A. Repplier. Atlantic, Vol. CII, pp. 397–403. September, 1908.

Our Strepitous Poets. Nation, Vol. LXXXV, pp. 277–278. Sept. 26, 1907.

Poetry and Elocution. F. B. Gummere. Nation, Vol. LXXXIX, pp. 453–454. Nov. 11, 1909.

State of Pseudo-Poetry at the Present Time. J. A. Macy. Bookman, Vol. XXVII, pp. 513–517. July, 1908.

1910–1914. Democracy and Poetry. Nation, XCIII, pp. 413–414. Nov. 2, 1911.

New Poetry. R. M. Alden. Nation, Vol. XCVI, pp. 386–387. April 17, 1913.

1910–1914. New Poets and Old Poetry. B. Hooker. Bookman, Vol. XXXI, pp. 480–486. July, 1910.

Taking Poetry too Seriously. Nation, Vol. XCVI, pp. 173–174. Feb. 20, 1913.

1915. Imagism, Another View. W. S. Braithwaite. New Republic, Vol. III, pp. 154–155. June 12, 1915.

Limits to Imagism. C. Aiken. New Republic, Vol. III, pp. 204–205. June 26, 1915.

New Movement in Poetry. O. W. Firkins. Nation, Vol. CI, pp. 458–461. Oct. 14, 1915.

Place of Imagism. C. Aiken. New Republic, Vol. III, pp. 75–76. May 22, 1915.

1916. New Manner in Modern Poetry. A. Lowell. New Republic, Vol. VI, pp. 124–125. March 4, 1916.

New Naïveté. L. W. Smith. Atlantic, Vol. CXVII, pp. 487–492. April, 1916.

Poetry To-day. C. A. P. Comer. Atlantic, Vol. CXVII, pp. 493–498. April, 1916.

Poetry under the Fire Test. J. N. Hall. New Republic, Vol. IX, pp. 93–96. Nov. 25, 1916.

1917. From Florence Coates to Amy Lowell: a Glance at Modernity. O. W. Firkins. Nation, Vol. CIV, pp. 522–524. May 3, 1917.

Poetry, Education, and Slang. M. Eastman. New Republic, Vol. IX, pp. 151–152, 182–184. Dec. 9, 16, 1916.

Singers and Satirists. O. W. Firkins. Nation, Vol. CIV, pp. 157–158. Feb. 8, 1917.

Critical Notes on American Poets. E. Garnett. Atlantic, Vol. CXX, pp. 366–373. Sept., 1917.

See also the periodicals Poetry, a Magazine of Verse (see p. 497), as well as The Poetry Journal, The Poetry Review of America, and Poet Lore, entire.

INDEX TO LEADING NINETEENTH-CENTURY PERIODICALS

The following list of periodicals represents a small fraction of those which were established and throve for longer or shorter periods in the United States between 1800 and the present time. The basis of selection has been to include only those which published a generous amount of literature which is still remembered or those of which leading men of letters were editors.

It was intended at first to make the list identical with the periodicals mentioned in the text, but this proved not to be practical. On some of the earlier ones it was not possible to secure exact data concerning length of life, editors, and contributors. Some others mentioned in the text were not of importance enough to justify inclusion. Still others, though not mentioned in the text, were too important to be omitted. The list as it stands, therefore, represents the judgment of the author and would not coincide with that of any other compiler of a list of equal length. It will serve, however, as a fairly representative list and will, perhaps, move some other student of American literature to what is greatly needed – a relatively complete and compact “Who’s Who” of American periodicals.

As yet such material is very meager and unsatisfactory. The great number of magazines and the bewildering consolidations, changes of editorship, title, form, period of publication, and place of publication have apparently discouraged anyone’s attempting a definitive piece of work. On this account and with this explanation the following brief appendix has been prepared.

American Magazine, The, 1875 – . A New York monthly.

Founded in 1875. From 1884 to 1888 the Brooklyn Magazine, then resumed its own name, continuing without important developments till it entered on its present régime in 1905. This came with the absorption of Leslie’s and the assumption of control by Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and Ida Tarbell, all former staff writers for McClure’s. In this latter period it has been specially successful in recognizing younger authors. It has printed much by Bynner, O. Henry, Lindsay, Whitlock, and Poole; by Eaton and Hamilton on the drama; by F. P. Dunne (“Mr. Dooley”), George Ade, and Irvin Cobb; and, among foreign authors, by Wells, Bennett, Kipling, and Locke. It is popular in policy and content.

Atlantic Monthly, The, 1857 – . A Boston monthly.

Founded in 1857, Francis H. Underwood the prime mover, with the intention of setting new standards for a literary magazine of American authorship. Lowell was first editor; the first notable essay series Holmes’s “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table”; the first popular serial story, Mrs. Stowe’s “Dred.” The field has been consistently divided among fiction, essay, and poetry, and the book reviewing has always been scrupulous. The editors have been Lowell, James T. Fields, W. D. Howells, T. B. Aldrich, Horace Scudder, W. H. Page, Bliss Perry, and the present editor and chief owner, Ellery Sedgwick. Early important contributors were Emerson, Holmes, Longfellow, Lowell, Thoreau, Whittier, Hawthorne, Wendell Phillips. Later issues have included Lafcadio Hearn, Edith Wharton, Frank Norris, Agnes Repplier, Gerald Stanley Lee, S. M. Crothers, William Vaughn Moody, Richard Hovey, and most of the contributors to the best traditions in American literature. (See “The Atlantic Monthly and its Makers,” by M. A. De Wolfe Howe.)

Baltimore Saturday Visiter, 1833 – (?). A Baltimore weekly.

Started by Lambert A. Wilmer, who continued with it for only six months. In October of this year Poe’s “MS. Found in a Bottle” was published as the winner of a prize competition. This was Poe’s one contribution and the Visiter’s sole apparent title to fame.

Broadway Journal, 1845. A New York weekly.

Founded by C. F. Briggs (“Harry Franco”) in January, 1845. So named according to the first editorial from “the first street in the first city of the New World… We shall attempt to make it entirely original, and instead of the effete vapors of English magazines … give such thoughts as may be generated among us.” Poe and Briggs were associate editors in the spring, until in July, 1845, it went under the sole charge of Poe, who bought it from Briggs for $50. During this year it was Poe’s chief vehicle, printing or reprinting some fifteen of his prose tales and two poems. Its business failure took place at the end of the first year. (See “Life of Poe,” by George E. Woodberry.)

Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 1841. A Brooklyn daily.

Isaac Van Anden, first editor and publisher. A democratic newspaper with independent judgment. From 1844 (?) to 1848 Walt Whitman was its editor. From 1885, until his recent death, it was under charge of St. Clair McKelway, a brilliant writer and speaker and a constructive educator.

Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine (see Gentleman’s Magazine).

Casket, The (Graham’s Magazine), 1826–1840. A Philadelphia monthly.

Called Atkinson’s Casket, 1831–1840. Was combined with Gentleman’s Magazine and became Graham’s Magazine.

Century Magazine, The, 1881 – . A New York monthly.

A continuation of the older Scribner’s Monthly (1870–1881) on the assumption of control by Roswell Smith. R. W. Gilder was editor from the second number, till his death in 1907. Its policy was to publish articles, singly and in series, related to broad aspects of American life, exposition and poetry playing a larger part in the earlier years than of late. In travel it published Lowell’s “Impressions of Spain” and van Dyke’s “Sicily”; in biography later portions of Hay and Nicolay’s “Lincoln,” Jefferson’s autobiography, and a Napoleon series. Riis, Bryce, Darwin, Tolstoy, and Burroughs have contributed from their own fields. Notable fiction series have been contributed by Howells, Mark Twain, Crawford, Weir Mitchell, Garland, London, and Mrs. Wharton; and verse by Emerson, Whitman, Gilder, Moody, Markham, and Cawein. (See also Scribner’s Monthly, p. 499.)

Congregationalist and Christian World, The, 1849 – . A Boston weekly.

Founded in 1816 as the Boston Recorder by Nathaniel Willis, father of the more famous Nathaniel Parker Willis, and conducted by him until 1844. From then till about 1890 it was the sectarian organ of the Congregationalists, playing a rôle similar to that of the Independent and the Christian Union. In the latter part of the nineteenth century it was under the editorship of W. A. Dunning, who was succeeded by the present editor, Horace Bridgman. It has had a consistent career as a religious weekly, changing with the times, but not modifying itself for the sake of a secular circulation so frankly as the other two have done.

Conservator, The, 1890. A Philadelphia monthly.

Founded in 1890 by Horace Traubel, an independent exponent of the world movement in ethics. In 1892 W. H. Ketler, Joseph Gilbert, W. Thornton Innes, and James A. Brown added to the editorial staff and enlarged to contain articles of timely interest, a book-review section, and a “Budget” for the reports of the ethical societies. The chief contributors: Stanton Coit, William Salter, Robert Ingersoll, and M. M. Mangasarian. The magazine gradually dropped its study of ethical questions and became an exponent of “the Whitman argument,” treated by Bucke, Harned, Kennedy, Platt, and Helena Born. In 1890 Traubel added extensive dramatic criticism and enlarged the book-review department. Since 1898 the magazine has been an expression of Traubel’s radical theories. It contains a long editorial “Collect,” which is an uncompromising criticism of the times, a long poem by Traubel, and reviews of current books of socialistic tendencies. During the Great War it was frankly pacific, before the entrance of the United States.

Critic, The, 1881–1906. A New York bi-weekly (1881–1882), weekly (1883–1898), and monthly.

Founded as a “fortnightly review of literature, the fine arts, music, and the drama.” The best known of its editors were the latest – J. L. and J. B. Gilder. After the first four years art and music notes were dropped and book reviews were made the leading feature, original essays giving place to extracts from other magazines. In 1900 the design was stated to be “an illustrated monthly review of literature, art, and life.” From 1905 politics and technical science were dropped. In 1906 it was absorbed by Putnam’s. Best-known contributors: E. C. Stedman, Edith M. Thomas, R. W. Gilder, John Burroughs, E. E. Hale, F. B. Sanborn, J. C. Harris, Brander Matthews.

Democratic Review, The United States, 1837–1859 (?). A Washington and New York quarterly.

A note in Vol. XXXVIII stated that with Vol. XXXIX it would be issued as a newspaper. At the outset it was the most successful political magazine in the country. It was characterized by Carlyle as “The Dial with a beard.” It was at first partisan, until, with payment for its articles, it became broader. Early contributors and best known were Orestes Augustus Brownson, Bancroft, Whittier, Bryant, and Hawthorne.

Dial, The, 1840–1844. A Boston quarterly.

Founded as a quarterly organ for the group of Transcendentalists centering about Emerson. Editors: 1840–1842, Margaret Fuller; 1842–1844, Emerson. The issues of 128 pages contained philosophical essays, discussions of German and oriental thought, comments on contemporary art and literature, book reviews, and poetry. The circulation never reached 300 copies, and at the end of the fourth year it was discontinued, the final debts being paid by Emerson. Leading contributors were the editors: Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, Theodore Parker, George Ripley, C. P. Cranch, J. F. Clarke, and Ellery Channing. There was a reprint by the Rowfant Club, Cleveland, in 1901–1902, with the addition of a historical and biographical introduction. (See introduction to the reprint of The Dial, Vol. II, George Willis Cooke, 1902.)

Dial, The, 1881 – . A Chicago (1881–1918) and New York fortnightly.

Founded and edited for a third of a century by Francis F. Browne as a literary review, and able to refer to itself on its thirtieth birthday as “the only journal in America given up to the criticism of current literature” and “the only literary periodical in the country not owned or controlled by a book publishing house or a newspaper.” After one or two changes of control, following the death of its founder, The Dial was transferred to New York in July, 1918, extending its editorial policy to include, besides the literary features, discussions of internationalism and of industrial and educational reconstruction.

Everybody’s Magazine, 1899 – . A New York monthly.

Founded by John Wanamaker and for the first four years a miscellany best characterized by the purchasers in 1903. The Ridgway-Thayer Company on taking control announced their purpose to do away with the “mawkish, morbid, and unreal,” to repress questionable advertising, and in general to transform the magazine. Since then Everybody’s has attempted in content to satisfy all sorts of intellectual tastes and at the same time to have a hand in the social and economic investigation of the period. The most celebrated series, which multiplied the circulation, was Thomas W. Lawson’s “Frenzied Finance.” Literary contributors in recent years have included Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, O. Henry, Frank Norris, Booth Tarkington, Ernest Poole, Dorothy Canfield, and in poetry Margaret Widdemer, Witter Bynner, and others.