Part 2
and _American poetry_ edited by Percy H. Boynton[2]. Both of these books have good notes and I am recommending the Bronson because I happen to be better acquainted with it, and because I think its notes fit very well into this reading scheme. This collection does not include any of our recent poetry, which is really in a class by itself and can best be had in such anthologies as Untermeyer’s _Modern American poetry_[3]. I hate to leave this subject of poetry, for I have left unmentioned the three most original, most daring, most gifted of them all, Whitman, Emerson and Poe. I will take just space enough to mention two poems of each of these that everyone should know: “The problem” and “Days” by Emerson; “The haunted palace” and “The conqueror worm” by Poe; “Out of the cradle endlessly rocking” and “Come up from the fields, Father” by Whitman.
But I must now suggest a volume of short stories. Which volume? The short story as a literary form, in theory and conscious art, anyway, was invented by Edgar Allen Poe. He set a model for all time, and few, if any, of those who have followed him have equaled him in his own peculiar field. For there are many varieties of short stories that have been developed since Poe staked out the short-story claim. And as for short-story writers, they are as thick as fleas.
As part of the object of this course is to scrape a small acquaintance with American literature, as well as to have a good time reading, I am going to suggest that you take your choice of Poe’s _Tales_, Hawthorne’s _Twice told tales_, a volume of Bret Harte’s short stories, Sarah Orne Jewett’s _Deephaven_, or Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s _A humble romance_. A still better scheme would be to read one or two of the best from each of these authors, as well as others among our story writers. Suppose we take “The fall of the house of Usher” by Poe; “The ambitious guest” by Hawthorne; “The outcasts of Poker Flat” by Harte; “A New England nun” by Mrs. Freeman; “A man without a country” by Edward Everett Hale, and “Posson Jone” by George W. Cable. They will be equal in bulk to a fair volume, and equal in thrill and fun to all winter at the movies.
No two of these are the least alike. If I had named one of O. Henry’s, like “The gift of the Magi,” that would still be different. O. Henry is the shortest of short-story writers. From the slow discursive sketch of Irving to the crisp brief incident, with the unexpected turn at the end, as invented by “O. Henry” (William Sydney Porter was his human name), runs the short story, and represents the most highly developed, most artistic of literary prose forms. These that I have named and many more can be had in the single volume
REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN SHORT STORIES
_Edited by Alexander Jessup_
May I put in here a strong word for the essay and suggest that one of our dozen books be a volume of
EMERSON’S ESSAYS
Here are ten good reasons for my selection: (1) Their sheer beauty of style; (2) their high moral quality; (3) their eloquent majesty of thought; (4) their pithy rememberable sayings; (5) their richness of suggestion; (6) their stimulus to higher thought and purer feelings; (7) their doctrine of individualism; (8) their appeal for simple living; (9) their universality; (10) their elemental themes.
You will not find them dry or hard or lacking in direct appeal. They will challenge you. They will blow through your thinking as a pure cold current of mountain air blows through the fevered atmosphere of a sick room. The essay, among all our literary forms, with the exception of the letter, is the most direct, most personal, best adapted for information and persuasion. Nor is it, when handled by a master, less satisfying artistically than story or poetry.
We have had the novel of adventure in Cooper, purely romantic as against the realistic. In this same realm, but dealing with utterly different material, is
THE SCARLET LETTER
_By Hawthorne_
a tragedy of sin, an epic of the soul. To Hawthorne the supernatural was as real as nature itself; good and evil, inner and outer, are in constant conflict throughout his pages. The scarlet letter Hester wears is a symbol, and symbolism is the key to Hawthorne’s method and meaning.
As a preparation for this novel one ought to recall the spirit of the old colonial times in New England, the deep religiousness, the belief in witches, and the vivid sense of the supernatural. In order to enjoy any story one must understand its background, must be able to get out of his own day, away from his own customs, back to the life of the story, as if he were a very part of it.
This will have to be done for the next story, William Dean Howells’
THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM
a realistic novel of the manners and ambitions of Boston society some forty years ago. For a good study of realism and romanticism in fiction, in fact for a good study of this whole art of the novel, get Professor Bliss Perry’s _A study of prose fiction_.[4] And for a text covering in a brief illuminating way the whole of American literature, take Bronson’s _Short history of American literature_[5] mentioned above.[6]
The next book I will name is Mark Twain’s
TOM SAWYER
though many critics would say _Huckleberry Finn_, while others declare his _Life on the Mississippi_ the greatest of the three, and one of the permanent things in American literature. They are really three in a great trilogy—the story of his own life in the Mississippi Valley, of a time now gone but which still has mightily to do with the times that now are, and that are to be.
Before closing this short list, may I be allowed to hold open the door to the library a moment longer, just to glance at a few more titles? There I see
THE PIT _By Frank Norris_
a Chicago story of wheat and the Board of Trade—a terrible tale which thrills of present-day American life. I see too
THE GENTLE READER _By Samuel McChord Crothers_
a volume of gentle, whimsical essays, which will be a good test of your literary taste and appreciation. Along with these stands
ETHAN FROME _By Edith Wharton_
a grim tale of inner torture against a bare New England background—two lovers who tried to die together but who only succeeded in making themselves cripples, compelled to live the rest of their lives under the same roof with the wife from whom Ethan tried to escape.
And here, finally, is a book published only a few years ago,
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE _By Burton J. Hendrick_
a biography but more than a biography, for it gives not only a rich and illuminating life-story of our ambassador to England during the World War but an account, at the same time graphic and intimate, of the world-important events in which he played a vital part. Many of the letters are no less than a revelation of Anglo-American relations leading up to the entry of the United States into the war and of the influence of certain men—President Wilson, Colonel House, Lord Grey, Balfour and others—upon those relations. The work of Mr. Hendrick in the biography proper and in the connecting links between the letters (a small proportion of the whole book) is ably done but it is the letters themselves, with their vigor, their humor, their charm of style, that win for this book a place among biographies which are also literature—and thus a place in this course.
So I might go on until I had named a hundred, and more than a hundred great American books, all of them marked by both durable matter and manner, books that not only get hold of the mind and heart, but which also reveal to us glimpses of the past and dreams of what the future of America shall be.
But these, together with Bronson’s _Short history of American literature_, are the twelve which I have chosen for this program: (1) _The sketch book_ by Irving; (2) _The last of the Mohicans_, a romantic adventure by Cooper; (3) _American poems (1625-1892)_ edited by W. C. Bronson; (4) _Representative American short stories_ edited by Alexander Jessup; (5) the _Essays_ of Emerson (first series will be good); (6) _The scarlet letter_ by Hawthorne; (7) _The rise of Silas Lapham_ by Howells; (8) _Tom Sawyer_ by Mark Twain; (9) _The pit_ by Frank Norris; (10) _The gentle reader_ by Samuel McChord Crothers; (11) _Ethan Frome_ by Edith Wharton; (12) _The life and letters of Walter H. Page_ by Burton J. Hendrick.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] This story is found in the volume of _Representative American short stories_ edited by Alexander Jessup and published by Allyn and Bacon. See page 25.
[2] Scribner.
[3] Harcourt.
[4] Houghton Mifflin.
[5] Heath.
[6] See page 13.
BOOKS RECOMMENDED IN THIS COURSE
THE SKETCH BOOK _Washington Irving_
THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS _James Fenimore Cooper_
AMERICAN POEMS (1625-1892) _W. C. Bronson_, Ed. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1912. $2.75
REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN SHORT STORIES _Alexander Jessup_, Ed. Allyn and Bacon, 1923. $4.00
ESSAYS, FIRST SERIES _Ralph Waldo Emerson_
THE SCARLET LETTER _Nathaniel Hawthorne_
THE RISE OF SILAS LAPHAM _William Dean Howells_ Houghton, 1885. $2.00
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER _Mark Twain_ Harper, 1876. $2.25
THE PIT _Frank Norris_ Doubleday, 1903. $0.95
THE GENTLE READER _Samuel McChord Crothers_ Houghton, 1903. $1.75
ETHAN FROME _Edith Wharton_ Scribner, 1911. $1.75
THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF WALTER H. PAGE _Burton J. Hendrick_ Doubleday 1922. 2v. $10.00
A SHORT HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE _W. C. Bronson_ Heath, rev. 1919. $1.72