In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

93 6 I?D=B;#J7NH;7B?IJ"'... In September 1877 Garland returned to Boston and to his teaching , determined to introduce into his lectures his new vision of local color inspired by his western visit. At this point in his career he had not settled on a genre: he filled his notebooks with sketches, aborted stories, poems, fragments of plays, and autobiographical writing, exploring form as he sought a means to express his imagination . During the fall of 1887 a number of events occurred that would further his education and point him toward his calling. In October Garland stopped by the Transcript offices, where Charles Hurd handed him a copy of James Whitcomb Riley’s The Old Swimmin’-Hole and ’Leven More Poems, published in 1883. He was struck by Riley’s unconventional subjects and dialect verse and “rejoiced in such phrases as ‘the husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,’ and ‘the moon a-hangin’ o’er us like a yaller-colored slice,’” for he saw in Riley a kindred spirit attempting to render the truth of rural experience.1 He promptly wrote to Riley to praise the poems and ask about more recent work. “The old feller is jes’ plum’ tickled to have his work appreciated for the reason of its fidelity and homely truthfulness to Nature,” the Hoosier poet replied, and then promised to send him a copy of his forthcoming book, Afterwhiles, due out in December.2 When Garland received Afterwhiles, he promptly informed Riley that he was writing a “special article” for the Transcript and went on to praise the book as being “so genuine, so faithful to the lives and loves of the humble folk,” for “it tells aloud what many humble folk think but can not put into words.”3 Riley’s poems served an important function for Garland’s own writing: they reminded him that 94 single-tax realist readers, especially people of his own background, respond best to writing that addresses their lives in language they themselves use. As he remarked in his review of the book, after praising “When the Frost Is on the Punkin” in particular for being “plain, concrete and tangible”: “I have read this poem and other of Mr. Riley’s selections to men who never read any poetry and couldn’t, for most poets had no connection with their lives and meant nothing to them, yet they felt as though their most silent emotions had been expressed by this little book of dialect poems.”4 With this exchange, Garland began a friendship with the Hoosier poet that would last until Riley’s death in 1916. That fall Garland began to write to other local-color writers with questions about their goals and practices. Part of his reason for doing so was to develop his lecture on “Local Novelists,” but he was also seeking confirmation of his own judgment about the direction of the local-color movement, for at the time the movement had scarcely begun, and Garland would soon emerge as one of its leading theorists . He asked Mary Wilkins (who would add “Freeman” upon her marriage in 1902) about her purpose in depicting New England life. “You ask me whether I am trying to depict characters and incidents of the present time or of any particular region,” she replied, “or whether I wish to deal with the past New England life.” She explained that she hadn’t thought about her broad goal before, “but I suppose I should as soon write about one time and one class of people as another, provided they appealed to my artistic sense, and I knew enough about them.” About whether “the idea of being true” guided her writing, Wilkins noted that “making my characters true and having them say and do just the things they would say and do . . . is the only aim in literature of which I have been really conscious.”5 To Kirkland he wrote to describe the poems he had written based on his Dakota trip, forthcoming reviews in the Transcript, and other work in progress. “I observe your literary industry,” Kirkland replied on November 13. “While I am toiling over a chapter you rattle off a volume. You write—I rewrite.” But he also thought his protégé wrote too quickly, for he had already observed that Garland’s rush to get into print allowed little time for reflection and revision. “I envy you [18.190.156.212...

Share