Language and Literature in an Integrated Culture

Language andLiterature inan Integrated Culture James C.Gaston. London Poets and the American Rel'Olution. Troy,N.Y.:Whitston, 1979.285+ x pp. Michael T.Gilmore. EarlyAmerican Literature: ACollection of CriticalEssays. Englewood Cliffs,NJ.: Prentice-Hall, 1980. 184 +viipp. Mason I.Lowance,Jr. The Language of Canaan: Metaphor andSymbol inNew Englandfrom the Puritans to the Transcendentalists. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UniversityPress, 1980.335 + xivpp. Richard C. Vitzthum. Land and Sea: Thefrric Poetry of PhilipFreneau. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1978.197+ vipp. Donald Yanellaand John H. Roch. American Prose to 1820: A Guideto Information Sources. Detroit: Gale, 1979.653 + xxii pp. Richard Morton Nationalcultures in the early years of their perceived independence tend togenerate what might be called classical periods; classical not in terms of the culture's overt imitation of Greek and Roman models, but classical in termsof the unified sensibility and purpose of verbal and artistic expression. This unity is perhaps what distinguishes the great ages of Pericles and Augustus.Yeats's definition of the ideal culture of Byzantium is the paradigmthatin such a classical age, the artisans of all sorts work out of a common, singleimpulse. History, political theory, verse, architecture and theology all interrelate, and each forms a necessary commentary on the other. Naturally, then,the student of classical literature reads philosophy, scientists and the generalrubric of "civilization," while, on the contrary, the student of, say, nineteenth-century British literature confines himself to belles-lettres, with onlythe occasional footnote-directed smattering of Thomas Huxley, Mayhew, Benthamand the Chartists. The period from the mid-seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, especially in New England, most obviously provides the classical stageof American literature and culture. The sense of destiny and discovery, powerfulin the Massachusetts Bay settlers and fulfilled in the Revolution, wasmade only more vital by the experience of America's size and dangers. Bythe end of the eighteenth century, Joel Barlow could shrewdly remark: ''This territory presents and will present such a variety of productions CanadianReview of American Studies, Volume 16,Number 2, Summer 1985, 197-20J 198 Ric hard Morton natural and artificial, such a diversity of connections abroad, and of manners habits and propensities at home, as will create a strong tendency to diverg~ and separate the views of those who shall inhabit the different regions within our limits." His recognition that the "happiness of the people" depended on a "harmony of sentiment," "not only by the operations of the government in its several departments, but by those of literature, sciences and arts," is equally well conceived. Not surprisingly, modern studies of early American literature tend to be at one and the same time intellectual history and esthetic criticism. It would be a mistake to define these as interdisciplinary studies; the interrelationship is in the primary material, not in the scholarly technique applied to it. In a small society, pressed first by a savage climate and later by a demanding colonial power, the few talented and energetic men and women who understood and ran things did not choose Cincinnatus or Virgil's Georgics as merely faddish role models. The multiplicity of their talents and the intricacy of their creations are constant reminders that their needs were general. Ofthe fivebooks here considered, Yannella and Roch's checklist, American Proseto 1820,provides the clearest statistical demonstration of the intellectual integrity and breadth of the period. Granted, the volume concerns itself specifically with expository prose-a form perhaps best defined by its not being fiction, poetry or drama, genres covered in other volumes of this Information Guide Series-; itnevertheless showsa remarkable preponderance of non-belles-lettrist entries. Listed among the primary texts are only about thirty items of esthetics or literary criticism - a figure easily surpassed by items on Indian captivity. Over 170 items are explicitly religious; indeed, well over half the writers listed are preachers or theologians. Most of the rest are part-time political historians or theorists, with an impressive number of activists; there are entries for five Presidents (Jefferson of course has overa hundred secondary entries). Franklin is the easy winner in statistics, with 300-odd secondary studies itemized. Jonathan Edwards leads the theologians, with about 140. Only Washington Irving, among imaginative writers...