American literary nationalism
American literary nationalism was a
Aftermath of the War of 1812
The predominant rhetoric of early post-War of 1812 literary nationalists advocated more expansive treatment of American characters, settings, and events, but expressed with a morality and style that matched British conventions. Critic and author John Neal was unique in this early period for demanding and experimenting with natural diction and "ungenteel and sometimes bluntly profane"[11] American colloquialism.[12] The predominant early rhetoric is exemplified by James Fenimore Cooper, who in 1828 claimed that "the literature of England and that of America must be fashioned after the same models."[13] A forerunner of later American voices, Neal expressed the same year in the "Unpublished Preface" to Rachel Dyer that "to succeed...[the American writer] must resemble nobody...[he] must be unlike all that have gone before [him]" and issue "another Declaration of Independence, in the great Republic of Letters."[14]
Literary nationalist criticism
The Portico magazine under Stephen Simpson and Tobias Watkins played an important early role in promoting literary nationalist criticism by Neal and others during its two-year run 1816–1818.[15] In January 1820, English critic Sydney Smith quipped in the Edinburgh Review "In the four-quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?". James Kirke Paulding issued a scathing reply later that year in the Salmagundi, calling for the US to develop its own rival literature that abandons "servile imitation" of British precedent.[16] Such advocacy in newspapers and magazines became more fashionable after 1830.[17]
Literary magazines and impact of the movement
The United States Magazine and Democratic Review under John L. O'Sullivan was a highly successful journal in the 1830s that published many American authors. O'Sullivan wrote in the magazine's first issue that "we have no national literature ... the vital principal of an American national literature must be democracy." He continued to say that "the voice of America might be made to produce a powerful and beneficial effect on the development of truth." In 1847, The Literary World was founded. Devoted to reviewing American works, it soon became one of America's most influential literary magazines. By 1850, the movement had generally succeeded. The authors involved in developing an American literature would continue to shape it for "the next 100 years".[1][9]
See also
- American Indian literary nationalism
- American literary regionalism
- American literature
- American Renaissance (literature)
References
- ^ S2CID 144408994.
- S2CID 161208635.
- ISSN 1950-5701.
- ISBN 978-3-11-101365-7.
- ^ Martin, Dennis Michael (1973). Modern American Literary Nationalism.
- ^ "American literature: a vanishing subject?". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2020-11-28.
- ^ Campbell, Charles Alexander (1951). "The Great American Novel": A Study in Literary Nationalism, 1870-1900. University of Minnesota.
- ISBN 978-0-8122-1995-1.
- ^ a b The United States Magazine and Democratic Review. Langtree and O'Sullivan. 1838. p. 14.
- ISBN 9781611484205.
- ISBN 9781611484205.
- ISBN 9780226469690.
- ^ Cooper, James Fenimore (1828). Notions of the Americans: Picked up by a Traveling Bachelor. Vol. 2. London, England: Henry Coburn, New Burlington Street. pp. 131–132.
- OCLC 1167705583.
- JSTOR 1916907.
- ^ Letter, Joseph J. (2010). "Past Presentisms: Suffering Soldiers, Benjaminian Ruins, and the Discursive Foundations of Early U.S. Historical Novels". American Literature. 82 (1): 29.
- ^ Pollard, John A. (1943). "John Neal, Doctor of American Literature". Bulletin of Friends Historical Association. 32 (1): 5–6.
Further reading
- Levine, Robert S. (2008). Dislocating race & nation : episodes in nineteenth-century American literary nationalism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. OCLC 405080003.