The Active Throes of English & American Writing

[MANICHAEAN]

Is American writing today at the same crossroads as its English counterpart in the 16th Century?

The poetry of the first half of Elizabeth's reign was as mediocre as the poetry of the last half of her reign was magnificent.The literary interests and tentative character of the time, together with its absence of original genius were constant symptoms of not having "found its way". Hence it was undoubtedly the weakness of the contemporary English verse which reinforced at the time,the general Renaissance admiration for the classics.

But, perhaps like today, the men of this time were at a hopelessly wrong point of view. It never occurred to them that English left to itself could equal Greek or Latin. They simply endeavoured with the utmost pains and skills to drag English up to the same level as these unapproachable languages by forcing it into the same moulds which Greek and Latin had endured. They were carrying out in literature the "Rule of False"-- that is to say, they were trying what the English tongue could not bear.

The American style is a fluid language and has evolved like Shakespearean English. It easily takes in new words, new meanings for old words, and borrows at will and at ease from the usages of other languages. Its impact is sensational rather than intellectual. It expresses more things experienced rather than ideas. It is a mass language in the sense that it is being molded by its writers to do delicate things & yet be within the grasp of literate people.

Where does it go from here?

[Jozanny]

Not to be critical, but I think your method of comparison is off Manichaean. Elizabethans probably did not know they were living in a great age then and Americans really cannot know their epoch either--EuroAmerica has only been around about 400 years, and it only really muscled in as a country with its own staying power by 1840 or so. The revolution really wasn't so grand and the US made it by the skin of its teeth. Our really great writers and poets are quite few. Melville is probably a kind of American Shakespeare, and maybe Faulkner is a secondary Marlowe, but we really are not old enough to truly have authors who rival those of any European classical era. There is no American Dante, or Cervantes, or Moliere, or Shakespeare.

That will come later, when the North American era has run its course. I imagine Melville will still be acclaimed, but I am not a betting woman on which American authors will have a global staying power, not even Henry James, or modernists like Fitzgerald, or even my favorite post-modernist, Gardner.

One more thing: European national identity formation and American national identity formation are historically very different, so these literary comparisons almost by necessity are going to be off. The Normans and the Saxons may have killed each other but they integrated and became British--the US had no such cultural merge between the natives, who were nearly wiped out, and other imported peoples, until very recently--and that is why its literary identity cannot be judged yet on the basis of historical Western classics. Euro-America is becoming a minority demographic, and I certainly cannot say what it will look like by the time my sister's grandchildren are of age.

[MANICHAEAN]

Jazanny
On the first point you are right. My method of comparison is off. I think it arises from my habit of reading 3 - 5 books at the same time. Disparate linkages are the result!

Your second point is a bit more complex. Excuse the oversimplification, but when the Ice Age went into decline & the glaciers retreated from what is now the UK, the original inhabitants (native Brits!) filled the void by crossing by the then existing land bridge from what is now Europe. Later we became an island race when the English Channel was formed & over a very extended period wave after wave of conquerer, settler, pirate (call it what you will) invaded those shores & in most cases stayed. But the British are a strange race. In times of war they are British, in the Olympics they are British, when they play football for their country they are British. But take this away and scratch the surface and they can be tribal to an extent you would never imagine. Not just English, Welsh, Scots & Irish. There are distinct sub clans: Geordie, Brummie, Yorkshire, Cockney etc.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the US one gets the impression that they are Americans first & foremost all the time. After that they are: Irish American, Italian American, Jewish American etc.

[Jozanny]

Oh, I don't really know anything Mani, (if you don't mind me shortening your id) so don't pay me any mind :) But even though I think I see what you're driving at, I think the United States is still too young to claim any real sort of... classic permeance, even though you have your finger on the cultural dynamic. I used to, but I am rather out of it these days.

[stlukesguild]

JoZ... I'm not certain I buy into your notion that the US is too young to have produced anything of lasting worth... or any "classics". How old was Italy when Dante virtually established the Italian tradition? And don't bring Rome into the equation because we both know that the Romans spoke a different language and that the population that made up Italy of Dante's time was quite different from that of the Roman Empire thanks to successive generations of Barbarian invasions, etc... Dante, if I recall, was working with a language that was young enough to have been denigrated by any among the educated as unsuitable to the purpose of literature. As an artist he was working in a tradition that was at once far older than our own (if he were to trace his antecedents back to Romae... as he does with Virgil) and far less illustrious, if we consider the fact that he lacked any real national tradition. Dante, after all, was a Florentine... a citizen of the Florentine state and not a citizen of anything approaching the notion of a unified nation.

Goethe and German Romanticism rise out of a similar situation: a Germany that was in reality little more than a collection of city-states lacking a clear tradition and long under the sway of French literary traditions.

Art certainly follows the flow of money and trade so that many of the greatest burst of artistic creativity and innovation are to be found in the major cities where there is a great influx of outside sources through trade, military conquest, immigration, etc... Art, however, is the product of individuals, not of some social or political constructs. It is absurd to suggest that Americans cannot have created a body of literature worthy of the claim to "classic" status because the nation lacks the history of the older European nations. Are we to assume that had Hawthorne, Emerson, or Whitman (or their ancestors) stayed in Europe they might have really achieved something? Perhaps there is no American Dante, or Cervantes, or Moliere, or Shakespeare... but then again how many artists of this level has any nation produced? Where is the Dutch Dante or Shakespeare? Where is the Polish Cervantes? Where is anything by the British in the last 400 years to compete with Shakespeare? Where is anything by the Greeks in the last 2000 years to rival Aeschylus or Homer? Do you really believe that the French and British and Italians still churning out art and literature on a level that humbles the poor US... to say nothing of Canada, Australia, and Latin America?

[JCamilo]

I have no doubt that big white whale and that mimicing raven are going to remain as much as aesop pets.

Anyways, it is very different really, Dante, Camoes, Goethe, etc are not building together an idiom, but a national identidy. In USA, this already exists. Plus, Dante predates even Italy, he is more a fact, than a man. And in all fairness, a tradition is not made of Dantes only. He is rare. It is made of a body of authors, some not as brilliant, who give consistency to motifs and themes and USA have it already.

Yeah, Dante said he wanted to abandon Latim, which was superior in his opinion as language, because he wanted to write something that would be accessible to the masses. The goddamn guy was not snob enough, rather democratic and would be writting in english today, maybe raps...

[MANICHAEAN]

Jozanny
I stand suitably rebuked with a lowered head & a humble countenance.
Best wishes
M.