Coming to Terms with Democracy: Federalist Intellectuals and the Shaping of an American Culture, 1800–1828

5. Literature: The Problems

chapter 5 literature: the problems 0During the first years of the North American Review’s existence, the journal advanced a vision for American literature that was indeed promising. Weaving together the old and the new, neoclassical principles and romantic theories, the journal’s young Federalist intellectuals constructed a theory of literature that offered a great deal to the American character and polity, an understanding of literature that emphasized its powers to strengthen individual morality, shape the public conscience, and form the bonds of nationhood. It was a vision that was both promising and timely. British letters were on the decline, but America’s republican society was generating those conditions best suited to the production of a new literature, an authentically American literature that would complement the county’s political contributions to the march of progress. The prospects for American literature were great indeed, not only for the nation and the public but also for the young Federalist editors and contributors to the Review, for this literary vision offered to its architects promises of continued status and influence that were especially compelling . For some of the intellectuals contributing to the North American Review , their role as editors and critics took on a significance greater than even the literature they were called to promote. For Prescott this exaggerated importance lay in the peculiar vitality and immaturity of American letters. Within a society so ‘‘buoyant’’ and ‘‘young,’’ the need for the literary institutions that could ‘‘regulate it’’ was all the greater. American letters would be fueled by this youthful energy, but it was imperative that scholars like himself and his friends ‘‘set an example of pure, perspicuous, classical composition.’’ For Jared Sparks the need for, and even superiority of, the critic lay in the formulaic nature of the modern novel. The example set by Scott could be reduced to a handful of ingredients—a historical plot, rich scenery, rapid plot transitions, diverse characters, and provincial quirks like accents and peculiar customs. As these were easy to reproduce, the critic was all the more needed to ‘‘exercise a strict surveillance over this department of literature.’’1 John Gray reached a similar conclusion. He approached the problem from within a more broadly focused aesthetic theory, but his conclusions regarding the importance of the critic and editor were equally sublime. For Gray, beyond the endless opportunities for artistic treatment offered by nature, there were equally endless opportunities in ‘‘transposing, in expanding, in illustrating, in adorning the leading thoughts.’’ Knowledge and culture were progressive and cumulative. ‘‘The march of genius’’ was consequently as dependent upon the refining pen of the editor as the creative spark of the poet. ‘‘He who improves and perfects, is often preferred , and justly, to him who first produces.’’ In fact, American literature suffered less from the absence of creative talent than from a dearth of good criticism. ‘‘Nothing would tend more to accelerate our progress in letters,’’ he concluded, ‘‘than the encouragement among ourselves, of a spirit of enlightened and liberal yet exact and fearless criticism.’’2 For the North American Review the sense of direction provided by its literary mission thus carried an equally profound sense of the importance of its contributors. In not only identifying and promoting but also screening and selecting, they would shape, not just trumpet, American literature ; they would form and not just preserve American culture. Their sense of purpose was thus in place. But inhibiting their efforts was the actual state of American literature; inhibiting their crusade was their sense of the literature and the writers they sought to promote. The problem began with their sense of the women writers who became such frequent contributors to the nation’s literary efforts during the first half of the nineteenth century. By 1850 fully one-half of the popular works produced were written by women, and even before 1830 roughly one-third of all those publishing fiction were women. The publishing industry was far from gender-blind in its practices and attitudes. The acerbic responses of Houghton’s female writers to the publishing company ’s male-only anniversary celebration in 1870 speaks to the persistence of traditional gender attitudes throughout the century. But there was nevertheless a great deal of opportunity for women as writers, perhaps largely 102 0 coming to terms with democracy because writing offered a vocation which did not seem to challenge existing perceptions of womanhood. The sense that writing...