Table Of ContentBRITISH INFLUENCE ON THE BIRTH OF
AMERICAN LITERATURE
BRITISH INFLUENCE ON
THE BRITH OF
AMERICAN LITERATURE
Linden Peach
M
MACMILLAN PRESS
LONOON
~ Linden Peach 1982
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1982 978-0-333-31510-1
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means
without permission
First edition 1982
Reprinted 1983
Published by
THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
London and Basingstoke
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-1-349-16800-2 ISBN 978-1-349-16798-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-16798-2
Typeset by Computacomp (UK) Ltd,
Fort William, Scotland
To my wife, Pamela
Contents
Preface
lX
Acknowledgements
Xll
I British Authors at an American Birth I
2 Man, Nature and Wordsworth: American
Versions 29
3 Emerson, Imagination and a New American
Poetry 58
4 Imaginative Sympathy: Hawthorne's British
Soul-mate 91
5 Man-out-of-clothes: Melville's Debt to Carlyle 138
6 The True Face of Democracy? Carlyle's
Challenge to Whitman's Idealism 162
Conclusion 194
Notes 201
Selected Bibliography 208
Index 213
This whole business of influence is mysterious. Sometimes it's
just a few words that open up a whole prospect.
Ted Hughes
Preface
The firSt half of the nineteenth century was a unique period in
American literary history- indeed, in any country's literary
history. It is difficult to fmd another period when the
regeneration of literature in one country was inspired not
only by that country's developing sense of nationhood, but,
paradoxically, by the revival of literature in a country from
which it had a generation earlier broken away. There are few
comparable periods when so many of a country's major
authors were so significantly indebted to their contemporaries
in another country.
The major authors who constituted this American literary
renaissance were among the first to recognise that America
was a movement outside Europe and the Old World, to
embrace the mythical and spiritual significances of their
country. This involved not only the formation of a new
consciousness, but, as D. H. Lawrence has pointed out, 'a
disintegrating and sloughing of the old consciousness'.
Consequently, this book has a special slant. It is concerned not
only to show that British influence was an important factor in
the rebirth of American literature, but also tries to solve the
paradox of that situation: why authors working at a
distinctive non-British literature should turn to British
contemporaries for inspiration and submit to influences from
a literature from which their own was intended to be a radical
departure.
The reader must not be put off by the book's concern with
influence. It is not interested in tracing influences as an
x British Influence on the Birth ofA merican Literature
academic exercise. It is an attempt to show how an
understanding of each American author's debt to a British
writer contributes much to our appreciation of that American
writer's work, his major preoccupations as a writer, and what
he was trying to achieve in his work. It also gives his
originality perspective while helping us to define more clearly
the distinctive nature of American, as opposed to British,
writing.
A fundamental weakness in many of the attempts at a
definition of American literature is that they have not
involved a comparative approach. Thus, while Leslie Fiedler
finds that American writing is characterised by homosexuality
and Charles Fiedelson has argued that the distinguishing
characteristic of American literature is its symbolism, neither
has explored homosexuality or symbolism in British literature.
A study of the use which American writers made of British
literature is an especially useful comparative approach in this
respect for it draws attention to some specific areas of
agreement and disagreement between the two literatures.
With the notable exception of Harold Bloom, most scholars
who have chosen not to ignore interrelationships within
literature have tended to simplify the subject of influence. This
book has sought to counter such simplification. An
understanding of how many major American authors of the
nineteenth century used the work of their British
contemporaries without compromising their own originality,
of how many of them were actually helped towards their own
creativity through this indebtedness, involves a fuller
appreciation of the creative and assimilative processes
underlying the whole subject of influence than scholarship has
to date achieved.
Although American writers of the period were influenced
by earlier authors from Britain, this book concentrates on
contemporary British influences. Apart from the fact that
Preface
Xl
most of these other influences are well-documented, only a
few proved crucial shaping forces on the American writer
concerned. More important, the collective influence of
Romantic and Victorian authors on the American writers of
the period is an unrivalled phenomenon in its own right
which has never been fully appreciated.
August 1980 L.P.
