american lit

[JBI]

The concept of the wilderness in America isn't the sense of wilderness, I would argue, but the sense of destroying the wilderness. You get the theme of conquering the barrier, planting the flag, but you don't normally get the "destructive wilderness" you may get in other literature:

"It's an immense night out there, wheeling and windy. The lights on the street and in the houses are helpless against the black wetness, little unilluminating glints that might be painted on it. The town seems huddled together, cowering on a high, tiny perch, afraid to move lest it topple into the wind."

From Sinclair Ross's As For Me and My House (Canadian).

That sort of phrase just wouldn't work towards the American vision, unless propelled by something like being in a war-torn town, whereas this is simply describing an average night on the prairies. The wildness in America acts as a frontier, something to be worked against, and destroyed, not a malevolent force.

[Jozanny]

I'd love to know what you think make American authors American, and I read a few tentative answers to this question on the page you referred me too, but they remain just that, tentative. I can think of a few themes, but they come from a Francocentrist perspective, so please correct me if I'm wrong, especially as my knowledge of American literature is limited:
_ puritanism (and the almost schizophrenic outlook it gives sometimes, when a puritan streak is in conflict with a desire for freedom)
_the wilderness
_The conquest of nature/corresponding hubris/final mastery or failure
_ the failure of the American dream, and I suppose of ideals in general
_ ?

I would say this is a good thematic platform to start with, Bitter, even from a Francocentrist perspective, as we have the French to thank for the hybrid culture of Louisiana and New Orleans, and I suppose JBI would give you a pat on the back for the endless source of amusement that is Quebec.

I would add to this
-newness, as the American hemisphere is, was, the last frontier, even if one makes allowances for its indigenous populations. The American Indian, too, was a *newness*, with its tribal practices unique, and certainly thousands of years younger than its counterparts in tribal Asia, Europe, and Africa.

And beyond typically American themes, is there an archetypically American voice and is it definable?

Yes, we had this discussion some months ago over a term paper, and I think one general archetype is American innocence, and this is what especially preoccupies Henry James, for readers like Pablo who do not see why James is ultimately the American native son. His Americans are, yes, Victorian upper caste, but they resent, and always have a case against Europeans and European worldliness. With a few noted exceptions, this was the life's work of Henry James, trying to bridge the gap between the American and European culture clash.

The discussion about universality, by the way, seems to be a natural outcome of this attempt at definition, rather than a mere digression - maybe because it is impossible to really define an artist by his/her nationality?

I had originally returned to suggest the same thing, but you nicely beat me to it. But again, I don't really see the controversy. It seems an ingrained part of human nature to be driven toward narrative, whether it is a tribal elder on Nova doing the *science* of fire ants in his own unique African terms, or the American preacher doing a sermon, which is so much a part of our literary mythos. If JBI is trying to parse universality as patently false in terms of what makes great literature, I remain unconvinced. Yes, stick me down in Haiti on a tour bus and I may come to a lightning reassessment of my own poverty in American terms, but that Haitian child's pestering of a tour bus and my bitter dreams of wealth, these both are driven by the same impetus, oui?

[JBI]

I didn't say there weren't universal things in the world, I simply said good literature a) isn't established as good because it contains a "universal", and that no literature is ever "universal" though it may discuss universal things.

The simple proof is the language, as I have argued. I don't even need to go to a Joyce work for the proof, I simply used that as the best example. Let's go to the oldest works, perhaps?:

The Iliad. I know you've read it (can you read Greek?). But the point is, there is a huge difference between the Fitzgerald translation, and the Fagles translation, and the Lattimore Translation, which has essentially nothing in common with the classic Alexander Pope translation. Are we supposed to believe any of these texts can be read the same way?

I don't doubt Shakespeare may have things, or Henry James may have things, or Li Bai may have things that are of interest to many people. I read translations like everyone else. I simply think that these works aren't universal. Which they aren't, since their languages aren't. Their translations allow wider range, but someone who reads something out of the original, isn't really reading the text, they are reading an interpretation.

Take Chinese literature for instance. The classical Tang poetry essentially cannot be translated and maintain its meanings or facets. The language, based on the character, allows for certain things within the text which cannot, and I mean cannot, be replicated in another language. Does that mean these poets are worse than other national poets? no. Is their scope limited because of language? yes. Is their discussion of theme limited no? but are their works universal? I would say no, like I say no about every other author.

On topic now, I would think that there are universal themes. But the opinions expressed on them by authors aren't universal. The American vision is different than the Mexican vision, which is different from the Canadian vision.

Hell, the Texas vision is different than the New York vision.

[Jozanny]

It seems to me your argument is a caution more against multi-culturalism than universality, I dunno. John Gardener once said there are only two types of stories:

1. Man goes on a journey
2. Man returns

The fact that Asian calligraphy cannot have its meanings understood in traditional English means what then? I cannot speak for Japan, but the story of China seems to be all about the tension between merging the individual will to conformity of social norm, and the success or failure of that through both its Imperial and Communist history, which lends itself in particular to hieroglyphic art forms.

It is a great civilization. So are many others, and I am not so sold on human ignorance that we cannot marvel at each other. Just as I've read in the paper that the Chinese are flabbergasted at Barack Obama's elevation to the Presidency. Each can teach JBI.

[Drkshadow03]

The concept of the wilderness in America isn't the sense of wilderness, I would argue, but the sense of destroying the wilderness. You get the theme of conquering the barrier, planting the flag, but you don't normally get the "destructive wilderness" you may get in other literature:

"It's an immense night out there, wheeling and windy. The lights on the street and in the houses are helpless against the black wetness, little unilluminating glints that might be painted on it. The town seems huddled together, cowering on a high, tiny perch, afraid to move lest it topple into the wind."

From Sinclair Ross's As For Me and My House (Canadian).

That sort of phrase just wouldn't work towards the American vision, unless propelled by something like being in a war-torn town, whereas this is simply describing an average night on the prairies. The wildness in America acts as a frontier, something to be worked against, and destroyed, not a malevolent force.

Eh, in Hawthorne's "Young Goodman Brown", the wilderness definitely equals the place where evil resides, ditto The Scarlet Letter to a lesser degree (but it's there as well). In Cooper's novels the wilderness is a placed to be conquered, but it's also the place where those "savage" Indians reside.

In other words, I would agree that a major part of the wilderness theme in American Lit is the American desire to conquer it and bring civilization, but there is also I think a fear of it and it does obtain a certain degree of malevolence. I suppose it's a bit trickier than that. Cooper, for example, seems to bemoan the spread of civilization to the wilderness (civilization will ruin the pristine beauty of the wilderness and exacerbate issues with the natives, while the chaotic nature of the wilderness will infect society and turn law and order into chaos); this of course finds its ultimate expression in Cooper's fear in the mixing of "races," even though his main character in the leatherstocking novels practices a kind of hybrid culture (you can learn from the Natives, but you should always remember that you're white, and vice-versa). I think in the works of Cormac McCarthy, which I've only read a few it could be argued that the wilderness has a malovolent character, something that people want to conquer, to find a newfound freedom for themselves from society, but which more often than does the conquer and spews out it victims.

A typical American theme is one of individual freedom. The wilderness, especially when it takes the form of the Western Frontier, is ultimately a different way of expressing this typically American concern. The main problem that appears in scores of American literature is how does one find freedom where there is no law or developed civilization. Likewise, how does one find freedom in a society with too many laws and rules and regulations (usually the very reason characters in these novels flee for the wilderness).

The wilderness can also represent the American Dream in general. The founding of America as a way to restart oneself, restart one's life, economic fortunes, and reform one's identity. The wilderness is a repetition of this dream; instead of refounding America, it is the spreading of American culture where those dissatisfied with their station, economic fortunes, or identity in the established America can restart within the unexplored territories of the wilderness and restart their identities.

So I would say it's not that the wilderness drastically comes to represent something different. I do think often the wilderness is seen as a malovolent force, if not initially, then eventually in many American narratives. What's really going on, in my view, is there are typically American concerns being thrust upon and explored through the wilderness, which still also represents its other symbolic connotations, though slightly demphasized so it doesn't overpower those other concerns. Though, of course, it all depends on the writer.


Yes, we had this discussion some months ago over a term paper, and I think one general archetype is American innocence, and this is what especially preoccupies Henry James, for readers like Pablo who do not see why James is ultimately the American native son. His Americans are, yes, Victorian upper caste, but they resent, and always have a case against Europeans and European worldliness. With a few noted exceptions, this was the life's work of Henry James, trying to bridge the gap between the American and European culture clash.

Ditto everything Jozanny said. I think writers like Eliot, James, Pound and other transatlantic voices in all fairness can be placed in both European literature and American.

As Jozanny pointed out James's fiction is often about the "innocent" American traveling abroad in Europe who is either corrupted or destroyed by "decadent" European culture. That seems like a very American theme to me, one that Edith Wharton picks up on to a certain degree, but in a very different way. Not to mention it builds off my comments about the wilderness. It stems to a certain degree from American anxiety over its "newness" as a political entity and as a culture. Europe again offers many of James's characters their "freedom," a space for Americans to roam and find agency much like the wilderness where the social rules are slightly different from American society, and also like the "malovelent" it swallows the characters and spits them out.

Also, not all the characters read like Victorian upper-class Americans either. Henrietta Stackpole from The Portrait of a Lady I think reads as typically American and in certain ways does a nice job of capturing American personality (at least the stereotype of it) as it exists today in the minds of many! The muckracking, consistently pushy and materialistic, insulting Europe and its culture, thinking it a backwards land of tyrants, while proping up her own culture and society as the best.

[promtbr]

I agree with the general tenor of the article but, as is often the case with over-erudite dissertations of this nature, the message tends to get lost in the semantics.

As opposed to the other posts on this thread? That was easly to follow and a linear argument that made sense (at least to me, and I am 30 yrs removed from Lit classes in college) Not sure if I can say that about some other posts .

[Dr. Hill]

I think I can honestly say I have a great appreciation for earlier American Lit, like Melville and Hawthorne. The wilderness is quite often used as a symbol in their works, such as the forest in the Scarlet Letter and the whale in Moby Dick, and what it represents to me is a sort of reminder of the nature of the world. Human nature: the whale's representation of greed, lust, and ambition, all the so-called vices of humanity. The forest's representation of freedom from society, where the love between Hester and Dimmsdale can be expressed without restraint. The fact is that the "great naturalism of America" can prove positively invigorating. It's when the 20th century arrives that I lose interest.

The 20th century standard for American Literature revolves around that world vs. man instead of man vs. world. I much prefer the latter and find the former a bit tedious on occasions. When the MAIN theme of the story is the victimization of Gatsby and his weakness, his flaw, it drags. I find it so. The problem here is that I enjoy a psychological novel, like Crime and Punishment, but even then, I suppose, it is more man vs. world than the contrary. I'm babbling and I don't really know, but something about the canon of "great 20th century American Literature" has never appealed to me, I just find it mediocre.

[JBI]

From Burnt Norton by T. S. Eliot:

What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.


I think the loss of innocence too can be read as an echo on James's build up, except the society itself's loss of innocence as a whole seems to be quite the modernist preoccupation. Eliot's rose garden, where he heard the little girls at play when he was a kid seems his ultimate nostalgic vision that haunts almost all of his poems.

Still though, we can take it further. Cather's Nostalgia is there, it is evident, especially in perhaps Antonia, and her other Prairie novels. Frost in some ways echoes this sense of nostalgia as well, if we think "Birches".

I think growing up seems a preoccupation of the late-realists and early modernists. It seems like Wordsworth's concept of aging, but made a thousand times darker by the concept of the youth disappearing completely, rather than just being outgrown.

[Virgil]

I want to respond, but perhaps can a moderator move the offtopic posts to another thread, so we don't sidetrack this thread even more?

Why don't you just start the topic in a new thread and post a link back here?

[JBI]

Alright then.

[stlukesguild]

JBI wants literature to be words and symbols without meaning because it allows him to dismiss content out of hand. He's probably reading a lot of Saussure, Chomsky, Derrida and guys like that right now for a modern criticism class, and in contemporary criticism there's a large movement to make meaning plastic or reinterpretable. If he wants to get good grades then his opinions naturally have to be aligned with those of the people he's reading. He has to minimize the universal, downplay all previous theories, and make a big deal about signifiers and signified. Ceci n'est pas un critique.

I'll make no comments about where JBI is or is not coming from. That is for him to say. I will note that I have very little use for the sort of criticism that you mention... and had even less respect for it when I was confronted with it during my undergrad studies (and yes, some art majors did take classes on literature).

By focusing our primary value upon the particular rather than the general attributes we are actually privileging an interpretation or point of view. In this case, the position is very clearly an elitist view of art as it seeks to minimize the importance of less finely executed works of art which happen to share the same themes as great works or art.

My own position is admittedly "elitist" if by "elitist" we denote a position which places the aesthetic pleasure of a work primary. I suppose that such does lead to a position of placing form over content... but I would argue that the two are intrinsically intertwined. What I would suggest is that content or theme alone without the form to match is nothing. There are endless works of art... paintings, novels, poems (shall I again select Maya Angelou as an example... or perhaps To Kill a Mockingbird?) that convey themes that are certainly of great merit... that I certainly empathize with... and yet as a work of art they fall short due to aesthetic short-comings.

It may not be intentional, but the emphasis of language to the exclusion of content has that effect. It discredits less polished, more popular forms of art. It delegitimizes the masses experience, monopolizes the power (who gets to interpret, or create), brands less crafted works as different, other, alien, pretends various people are not enjoying the same thing. This bastardization of the popular experience is disenfranchisement, a negation of the pleasures regular people experience from reading, framing aesthetics as either right or wrong. The populace says, “Look here, we like the same things. What we read is more or less the same.” But the elitist says, “No, it is our differences which matter. There is no common bond. We do not enjoy the same things. Our enjoyment is different. Our books are different. We are different.”

I don't think that a preference for works of the highest aesthetic merit need be seen as elitist in this way whatsoever. In a way I would say that such accusations made by MortalTerror are but a marvelous use of rhetoric to suggest his own camaraderie with the masses... his own "being down with the folk" as opposed to snobby over-intellectualized "elitists"... but such is belied by his own aesthetic preferences and his own education (I doubt too many of the folk have ever even heard of Saussure, Chomsky, and Derrida). I might suggest this is not far from the sort of rhetoric spouted by certain politicians in attempting to suggest that their opponents have less in common with the common voter than they do.

If we admit that content is primary and language secondary, or if they were equal, or if perhaps there were such a thing as a universal then that would mean that the popular would share a common ground with the elite and would have to be judged on a gradient rather than a good/bad mutually exlusive dichotomy.

I personally do not imagine form (language) as primary... but neither would I suggest content is first. I have stated before that I feel that form and content are intertwined. Content without a strong form is nothing. Simply writing about important subjects (racism, class struggle, ethical choices, etc...) is not enough to assure a work a place among the great works of literature. On the other hand... the form married to a shallow or empty subject matter can certainly lead to rather trite... albeit beautiful... works of art. One thinks immediately of the candy-cane paintings of the French Rococo. The greatest works of art have always exhibited a marvelous merger of form and content... perhaps to the point that the two cannot be separated. Neither do I feel that the suggestion that some works of art are towering achievements immediately disqualifies everything else. Shakespeare, the Bible, Homer, Dante... and I suspect the Shanameh may be achievements that far surpass most works of art... but that does not mean that works not of this level are to be immediately excluded. I quite like Augusto Monterroso, Edgar Allen Poe, H.G. Wells, J.S. LeFanu, Lord Dunsany... and many others I am more than certain are not on the same aesthetic level. I find much to enjoy in Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir John Davies' Orchestra, and Michael Drayton's Nymphidia... in spite of the fact that they most certainly are not the equal of A Mid-Summers' Night Dream, let alone Hamlet.

Back in March we had this discussion on the Byron, Shelley, or Keats? Thread, and there also I made the case for theme, subject, and content. StLukesGuild and Petrarch's Love illustrated their position with the example of Arthur Brooke's Romeus and Juliet. They claimed that what made Shakespeare's version better was his skillful handling of language. What they failed to address, and what I was too tired to point out, was that although Brooke's Romeus and Juliet was inferior to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, the content probably raised it above the main of Brooke's own oeuvre.

Mortal... you mistake me. I most certainly would not have ever made such a comparison... having never read anything by Brooke. On the other hand... I would certainly be willing to point out endless works of art that have a theme of real merit and fail to achieve the greatest level of success due to the failings of the form. Again... I don't think such comparisons are always a dichotomy of good/bad... but rather a scale of mediocre, good, better, even better, etc... Of course we all know that Mallarme's famous exclamation of ennui ("Life is long... and I have read all the books"... or words to that effect) was but empty rhetoric. None of us has the time to read... let alone fully devour and digest everything that has been written. Thus we make aesthetic decisions... and we need to make aesthetic decisions.

JBI's stand has a second effect in that it allows him to raise works of art with unworthy themes, minimal content, obscure application, and oblique language, which wallow in narcisistic eccentricity to the level of greatness by virtue of their individual diction. Case in point, his mention of Finnegans Wake. There is no subject more frivolous than that of sophistry, the splitting of hairs, and disection of language. Authors who make words their subject are prone to the worst abuses of language and self-conscious navel gazing.

Here I would raise the question as to what subjects, themes, or contents are more worthy than others... and who decides? Do we assume that erotic love or the adoration of beauty and nature are but trivialities in contrast to confronting issues such as mortality, honor, and injustice? Do we then assume that the works of art which focus upon such "trivialities" can never achieve a rank equal to the best works of art... or even equal to any work which deals with a theme of great import? Such was not far from the theory put forth in the filed of painting known as the "heirarchy of painting" in which it was suggested that any painting of a great historical painting was inherently better than even the best landscape or still-life. Undoubtedly it was against similar prejudice that the Art pour l'art movement was begun. By declaring the importance of the form or the aesthetic merit of a work of art, such artist were not so much negating the content as they were suggesting that external standards or considerations (religious, political, moral, social, etc...) should not be the measure of a work of art. Certainly the abuse of such a concept has led to self-indulgent and narcissistic schlock... but it has also meant that I can appreciate the Shahnameh, Dante's Inferno, Plato's Republic, etc... in spite of my not sharing the same religious or political values. I won't speak upon Finnegan's Wake. I was deeply impressed with Ulysses... although I far prefer Proust... but have yet given Joyce's final book the effort due.

The authors he would raise from oblivion to the heights of Mount Parnassus are the ignoble pygmies who would gild a lily, polish a turd, and pen beautiful words in a cause for which it would be waste of breath to speak. “These same people also think themselves clever if one has to be clever to understand them, as Diomedes wittily remarked, and prefer to write something that will result in amazement rather than comprehension(Erasmus, De Copia).”

Again... such seems rather false rhetoric. I have yet to hear JBI suggest we offer undying allegiance to any writer... nor have I ever suggested that even the greatest do not have their flaws and the mediocre their moments of brilliance.

Finally, JBI and StLukesGuild are fond of saying that literature is not translatable. They quote Frost and say that “Poetry is what get's lost in translation.” This is one more view that can be extrapolated from their position. If the phonemes are more important to you than the enthymemes, then of course you are going to say that nothing is translatable.

Again you wrongly accuse me. I have repeatedly defended translation:
http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=38922

I would also like to second JBI's request that a moderator move these digressions to a separate thread where we may more fully discuss the issue without further disrupting the original dialog on American Lit.

[JBI]

St Lukes, I started a new thread; feel free to cut and paste that out of here.

[vega0508]

hey i'm stumped on a question for my hw on chapters 8-16"....Critic Kristin Boudreaux states that "Dimmsdale...becomes a victim precisly because he is unable to enter into the feelings and motives of others." Draw from the text at least 2 examples how each example supports the quote. thank you !!!

[kelby_lake]

The 20th century standard for American Literature revolves around that world vs. man instead of man vs. world. I much prefer the latter and find the former a bit tedious on occasions. When the MAIN theme of the story is the victimization of Gatsby and his weakness, his flaw, it drags. I find it so. The problem here is that I enjoy a psychological novel, like Crime and Punishment, but even then, I suppose, it is more man vs. world than the contrary. I'm babbling and I don't really know, but something about the canon of "great 20th century American Literature" has never appealed to me, I just find it mediocre.

Isn't world vs. man basically the same as man vs. world? Gatsby can be a hard ride but Moby Dick?! Reading the thing is an epic. It has long chapters on THE DIFFERENT SPECIES OF WHALE. The best bit was when Queequeg and Ishmael were in bed together.

A man cannot fight a world if it's not against him.

[Emil Miller]

Ah, thank you - I missed quite a lot of this interesting thread, being sick.

I'd love to know what you think make American authors American, and I read a few tentative answers to this question on the page you referred me too, but they remain just that, tentative. I can think of a few themes, but they come from a Francocentrist perspective, so please correct me if I'm wrong, especially as my knowledge of American literature is limited:
_ puritanism (and the almost schizophrenic outlook it gives sometimes, when a puritan streak is in conflict with a desire for freedom)
_the wilderness
_The conquest of nature/corresponding hubris/final mastery or failure
_ the failure of the American dream, and I suppose of ideals in general
_ ?

And beyond typically American themes, is there an archetypically American voice and is it definable? I'm sorry if that's already been answered as well, I'm still a little woozy.

The discussion about universality, by the way, seems to be a natural outcome of this attempt at definition, rather than a mere digression - maybe because it is impossible to really define an artist by his/her nationality?

The idea of a puritan streak being in conflict with a desire for freedom is true but ironic when one considers that the Pilgrim Fathers left England in order to obtain freedom for their religious beliefs.
I suppose that Henry James, with his equivocal attitude to sex, might be an example of puritanism in American writing but I'm sure others will correct me if I'm wrong.
The theme of the wilderness in the US appears quite early on with James Fennimore Cooper whose novels the Deerslayer and The Last of the Mohicans
portray a dangerous and savage struggle to survive amongst the indigenous peoples.Other writers who fit into the "wilderness" theme are Henry David Thoreau and Mark Twain. There is also Frank Norris whose main work dealt with the the problems of Californian wheat farmers and who is heavily influenced by Emil Zola.
The conquest of nature is probably best captured in Frank Norris's novel The Pit, which deals with the trading of wheat in Chicago and shows the attempt by one man to corner the American wheat crop. I won't comment on the "hubris, final mastery or failure" of the story because I know of at least one other contributor to this site who has the book on his pending list.
The American Dream was doomed to failure from the start because it runs contrary to human nature. There are a number American authors who have shown that, despite the overwhelming natural resources that might have allowed the dream to be realised, there were always some who tried to own more than their fair share; three good examples are Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Frank Norris's The Octopus and the aforementioned The Pit.
The American Dream, as a phrase, became common currency throughout the 1950s following the defeat of the Axis powers and the rise of American mass consumerism, but following defeat in the Vietnam war, American writing began to discount the idea and a series of downbeat novels seems to have been the result. U.S involvment in Iraq would appear to have further dented the American dream although I don't know if it has affected American writing.