American Literature

a brief history

PRISCILLA WALDDUKE UNIVERSITY

The Founding

1929 Jay B. Hubbell (Duke, first editor): In the century or more that has elapsed since Sydney Smith asked in 1820, ‘Who reads an American book?’ our authors have produced a body of writing which, although it does not rival the great literatures of the Old World in artistic value, has an increasing importance.

Idea of “American literature”: representing a national culture

Noah Webster: an “America…as independent in literature as she is in politics, as famous for arts as for arms” John L. O’Sullivan: “it is only by its literature that one nation can utter itself and make itself known to the rest of the world” (Democratic Review)

“American Literature” as Field of Study

late 19th century: first classes *part of Americanization effort1920 Professors bid for professional recognition 1921 American Literature Group of the MLA

A Home for American Literature

Norman Foerster (UNC)“If the journal went to Duke, Hubbell would have on his hands a Rasputin as assistant next door at North Carolina”

AMERICAN LITERATURE

Robert Spiller (Swarthmore), “The Verdict of Sydney Smith”

Smith “was impressed by the value of the principles underlying the American state, and he was prompted to sympathize with his authors in the praise of the dignified simplicity of their ‘Ex-Kings,’ Adams and Jefferson,” but he found that “the Americans,” though “‘a brave, industrious and acute people,’” have “‘given no indications of genius, and made no approaches to the heroic, either in their morality or character.’”

American Literature as Method

Foerster as guiding spiritLead review (also in Saturday Review of Literature) : The Reinterpretation of American Literature (1928), ed. Foerster *challenge to the discipline *literary history and literary criticism *critical lens on nation thru lit through lit

Review of Foerster

Henry Seidel Canby (Yale U): a “sense of the need of self-knowledge” prompted by “our increasing awareness of our world supremacy in material force….The feeling is growing that the power of America renders it perilous to remain in the dark about what she really is.”