The Rise of New Histories of the American Literary West

The American Literary West and Its Interpreters: The Rise of a New Historiography Author(s): Richard W.
Etulain Source: Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 45, No. 3 (Aug., 1976), pp. 311-348 Published by: University of California Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3637264 . Accessed: 12/01/2014 08:35
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The American LiteraryWest and Its Interpreters:The Rise of a New Historiography

Richard W. Etulain
The authoris a member in Idaho of thehistory department State University.
TWO SIGNIFICANT books published in 1950 illustrate the of the American literary major trends in the historiography West. Franklin Walker'sA Literary History ofSouthern California exemplifies the most popular approach to westernliterature before 1950, and Henry Nash Smith'sVirgin Land: TheAmerican Westas Symbol and Mythbecame the major paradigm for studies of western writingundertaken after 1950. Taken together these two books and the methodsof research theyutilize provide importantkeysto understandinginterpretations of the literaryWest during the present century.' In the first two decades of the twentieth century, analysisof western American literaturelagged behind the studyof westResearch for thisessay was made possible by grantsfromthe Idaho State University Faculty Research Committeeand the American PhilosophicalSociety. 'The intentof this essay is to give a briefglimpse of the historical developmentof studies West.Emphasis is placed on book-length commentaryon the American literary 311
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ern history.Though FrederickJacksonTurner announced his frontierhypothesisin 1893 and published several important essays before 1920, American literaryhistorians paid little attentionto the literary Westbeforethe late 1920s. This pattern continued throughout the firsthalf of the present century: historians were several steps ahead of literary scholars in the of the American West. study The earliest studies by literaryscholars could hardly have been less promising.In 1900, BarrettWendell, a professorof English literatureat Harvard University, published his subsequently much-cited book, A Literary History of America(New York, 1900), in which he sought to discoverwhat Americahad of our ancestrallanguage" "so far contributedto the literature The of contents the thick volume and the author's (p. 10). his strongties to New England. Indeed, point of view illustrate a literary historian, Fred Lewis Pattee, has suggested that Wendell's volume should have been entitled A Literary History of Harvard University, with Incidental MinorWriters Glimpses ofthe of America.2 Wendell dismissed Herman Melville as a writer who a career of which never came to "began literarypromise, fruition"(p. 229), and he criticized WaltWhitmanforhis"decadent eccentricity" (p. 477). Because Wendell chose to discuss only deceased writers, his brief chapter entitled "The West" omitted mention of Bret Harte, Joaquin Miller, Mark Twain, Hamlin Garland, and
that illustratemajor trendsof interpretation and thathave exerted the most influence on scholars. Discussions are primarily descriptivein nature,althoughsome evaluative commentsare included. Most footnotes listfurther examples of thetrendsdiscussedin the text. To give sharper focus to a subject that threatensto overflowits frontiers, discussion is limitedto workspublished in the United Statesin the presentcentury and to research dealing with the trans-MississippiWest, although also included is and that have influenced commentaryon some books that focus on eastern frontiers scholars of westernliterature.I have not dealt withmaterialsthattreatwestern humor, folklore,or westernfilmsas literature. For additional bibliographical listings,see Richard W. Etulain, Western American A Bibliography Literature: Booksand Articles S. D., 1972); and (Vermillion, ofInterpretive InterEtulain, "Western American Literature: A Selective Annotated Bibliography," to Western American Literature (Pocatello, Idaho, 1972), 67-78. Also, pretive Approaches consult the annual listingsin the winterissues of Western American Literature. Literature 2Pattee,"A Call for a LiteraryHistorian,"in TheReinterpretation ofAmerican (New York, 1928), 5. For an importantdiscussion of the developmentof American see Richard Ruland, The Rediscovery Literature: literary interpretations, of American Premises of CriticalTaste,1900-1940 (Cambridge, Mass., 1967).
The Rise ofa New Historiography 313 Frank Norris. The attitudeof the Harvard professortoward the West was an ambivalentone thatmixedmuchcondescension witha small amount of mild praise. "Amid the relaxed inexperience of Western life,"he wrote,"the lower sortof Americans had tended to reverttowards a social state ancestrally extinct centuries before America was discovered" (p. 504). Moreover, observed Wendell, an obnoxious materialisticbent accompanied the atavistic tendency in the "great confused West" Yet after condemning the region for its social and cultural backwardness and its materialistic spirit,Wendell argued that the West held promise of important literary development.The rich variety of experience in the West-its vitality, its good humor, and its"eagerness to delightin excellence"-could lead to lively formsof literaryexpression. The most significant of these literary were color local stories, types popularjournalism, and newspaper humor. These genres appealed to the large, "untutored public" in the West. The stories,while factualand The newspapers accurate, were innocent of "lastingvitality." in tasteand were often "thoroughlyvicious" in style, offensive to "civil morals as well" (p. 507), yettheirdirectnessand readability saved them. And the most importantwesternhumorists-George Horatio Derby ("JohnPhoenix"), Charles Farrar Browne ("ArtemusWard"), and David Ross Locke ("Petroleum V. Nasby")-represented the future possibilitiesof western literature. But Wendell contended that the West had not yet scene; its"varied,swiftly proven itselfon the Americanliterary changing lifehas not yetripened into an experience whichcan possibly find lastingexpression" (p. 513). Though Wendell indicated that he would stressAmerica's contributionsto English literature,he did not emphasize the western part of those contributions.He obviouslyknew little about the region and seemed unaware of Turner's then recent emphasis on the significanceof the frontier.And though Wendell saw promise in the literature of the region,he did not seem to care much for "the great confused West." If the views of Barrett Wendell were taken as representativeof the first interpretersof the American literaryWest, the futureof the genre looked bleak.
(p. 505).
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Wendell was not alone in his negative appraisal of western literature.Five years afterthe appearance of his book, he was joined by Alphonso Newcomer,3 a professorat StanfordUniLiterature that western versity,who argued in his American of were the unlettered men of the soil and product writings be somewhat altered standards" "must gauged by (p. 272). His short chapter, "Prose and Poetryin the West,"included a few pages on Mark Twain and Bret Harte and briefglimpses of Joaquin Miller, E. R. Sill, Eugene Field, and Helen Hunt Jackson. Newcomer was convinced that no book published before or after the work of Harte and Twain "is worth recording to-day" (p. 276), though he feltit was too early to evaluate the work of Mary Hallock Foote, Hamlin Garland, and H. B. Fuller. historiansof his time,Newcomerwas conLike most literary vinced that the West was too immatureto produce first-rate literature.He praised the humor and the charactersof Twain and the "strongrealism"and "piquant dialect"of Harte, but he culturalrootsto nourish implied thatthe West lacked sufficient an impressive literatureor even a distinctive regional literature. Newcomer was not yet willingto identify the San Francisco school of authors of the 1860s and 70s or such other novelists as Garland, Norris, and London as westernwriters. Holding a differentview was Bliss Perry,the noted editor In a book published in 1912 he agreed and literary interpreter. with Turner that the settlingof the West had been a major theme in American history.4 Many Americans, he observed, were stillenthralledwiththe winningof the West and wanted to "play Indian" (p. 148). Perry implied that the speculative, boastful, and unreflective qualities of westernlife had shaped the American character. Americans were addicted to advenWest. ture, to the excitementof the frontier For Perry, Twain epitomized American humor. His background and experiences in the Westwere the raw materialsfor his Americanness. The West had added new ingredients to the illustrated these and the of Twain addimix, European writing
Literature (Chicago, 1905). A similarview is apparent in George Edward 3American in Literature (New York, 1903). Woodberry,America Mind (Boston, 1912). 4TheAmerican
The Rise ofa New Historiography 315 tions. Perryconcurred with Lord Bryce that the West was the most typical part of America and the region most unlike Europe. Westernershad perceived the need forboth "individand the lessons theyhad learned ought ualism and fellowship," to be taught to others. Americans must realize thatwhilethey were custodians of tradition,theywere also embracersof the new. PerrycitedJack London and Frank Norrisas examples of westernerswho were not tied to the past and who continually sought to frontthe freshexperiences and ideas of theirtime. with the West, he showed Though Perry dealt only briefly more awareness of itsimpacton Americanculturethan mostof his contemporaryinterpreters. He recognized thattherewas a "western" literature, and in this foreshadowed the larger West apparent in the 1920s. He understanding of the literary was one of the few students of American civilizationwho realized as early as 1912 that a full understandingof national culture required comprehension of westernculture. Other commentators devoted more attention to western literature.In his History Literature ofAmerican (Chicago, 1919), Leonidas W. Payne, a professorof English at the University of the democratic of the the West and Texas, emphasized spirit In words reminiscent impact of that spiriton westernwriting. of those of Twain, he concluded that the "expression of pure Americanism, of the democratic spiritin its broadest significance, is the characteristicnote of our Western literature" (p. 316). Payne pushed his thesis furtherby suggestingthat westernwriterswere literary trailblazers;theyhad abandoned the well-marked paths of eastern authors and had set out to find new paths of theirown. Twain, he believed, was the best example of this innovativetendencyin westernwriting. Payne, like most of his contemporaries,was not a close reader of the literaturethat he discussed. His commentswere in nature. Sometimeshe used usually biographical or historical brief quotes to illustratea generalization,but there were no probing comments about the form or specific content of Harte's short stories or Twain's sketches and longer works. And had he paid closer attentionto the structure and content of Miller's work, he could not have said that Miller was "no imitatorof the European bards, but an original poet who was
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willing to put down in his own way what his eyes saw and his heart felt" (p. 338). These comments miss how much Miller owed to Byron,Browning,and other European writers. And if had been more with western widelyacquainted Payne writing of the nineteenthcentury,especially the significant group of in the 1870s writersthatgathered around the Overland Monthly and 80s, he would not have wrongly concluded thattherewere no literary coteriesin the West. Though Payne argued thatthe culture of the West was distinct from that of the rest of America, he did not demonstratethe uniqueness of western literature. He discussed Twain, Harte, and several western poets, but the discussions were primarilyplot summaries or biographical sketches,which did not explain why these men were western writers,how they reflectedthe experiences he found common to the West,or how the sectionhad branded its regional qualities into the consciousnessof its writers.5 The most significant of the paucityof comment illustration about the literaryWest in the 1900-1920 era is seen in The whichwas published in Literature, ofAmerican History Cambridge four thick volumes (1917-1921).6 Intended as the first multivolume study of American literature,the Cambridge history was broadly conceived as a "surveyof the American people as of belles-lettres ratherthan a history expressed in theirwritings alone" (p. iii).These volumes,puttogether bytheleadingliterary scholars of America, were designed to avoid what the editors viewed as the narrowerapproach of most literary scholarship. Several chapters in the Cambridge volumes dealt with two books of the set frontierand western subjects. The first contained a long chapter on James Fenimore Cooper, briefer and such writersas James discussions of the eastern frontier Hall and Timothy Flint,and sectionson westerndialect and a chapter on the short story, which included treatmentsof Harte, Garland, and London. The third volume had a full chapter on Twain, a short section on Miller, and a chapter entitled "Travellers and Explorers, 1846-1900," which dealt
5For an example of the same problem,see StuartP. Sherman,Americans (New York, 1922). 'William P. Trent,John Erskine,StuartP. Sherman,Carl Van Doren, eds. TheCamLiterature (4 vols., New York, 1917-1921). ofAmerican bridge History
The Rise ofa New Historiography 317 primarily with the West. The final volume contained an analysis of cowboy songs and an interestingchapter on American Indian literature westernauthor, by the well-known Austin. Mary In spite of the commendable intentions of the editors,their volumes offered no chapter devoted to the impact of the frontieron American literature.Nor did the editorsinclude a chapter on western regional literature, though they did provide sections on the regional literatureof the North and South. Writers like Twain, Harte, and Garland were not treated as western writers,but as recent American authors whose major interests were viewed as nonregional. The inattentionto the frontierand to westernliteraturein these prestigious volumes may have been the major reason why several scholars in the 1920s complained of the lack of scholWest. arship on the literary If literaryhistoriansbefore 1920 slighted the literatureof the American West, a rising interestin that subject began to in view was not surprising emerge after 1925. The new interest of the intellectualcurrentssweeping throughAmerica during the twenties.Too often interpreters of the era afterthe First World War overstressthe Lost Generation writers.It is now evident that the Lost Generation was a small group whose life styles garnered such inordinate attentionthat commentators tended to overlook others who were at work in that same period. of Woodrow Wilson, Reacting against the internationalism in Americans the after Versailles turnedinwardto years many find meaning in national or regional ideas. Some, like H. L. Mencken, stressed the importance of American ideas and customs. Others, like the southernerswho contributedto the significantcollection, I'll Take My Stand (New York, 1930), emphasized regional themes. These writers were reacting much as Americans had after the War of 1812 and the Civil War. After both of these conflicts, Americans relished literature that was national or regional and avoided givingequal attentionto English or Continentalsubjects.Especiallywas this true afterthe Civil War, when America experienced itslargest
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outburst of local color writing.In the twenties,there was a of the war,and, in turn, similarreactionto the internationalism there was an attemptto findnew meaning in regionalwriting. The twenties were also torn between acceptance of an urban-industrial present and nostalgia for an agrarian past As Roderick that was frequentlyseen as a vanishingfrontier. Nash has pointed out, many Americansin the twenties longed as a bulwark against a risingtide of citiesand for the frontier industrialization. Charles A. Lindbergh and Henry Ford became symbolsfor theirage because theyaccepted and used the machine, but they were also strong individuals who had roots in the rural past. While these men utilized products of industrialism, theyretained theirties to the past; theyheld on to symbolsof the agrarian frontier.7 Historians in the twenties accepted and emphasized the of his thesis; major criticism significanceof Turner's frontier The ideas of Turner views did not appear until the thirties.8 were a major intellectual influence upon interpretersof American literature,and thus it is not surprisingthat literary historiansturned to the frontier and itsinfluencein an attempt to understand the major forces shaping American writing. No work better illustratesthis new interestthan the essays collected in The Reinterpretation Literature (New of American Norman editor of this York, 1928).9 Foerster, path-breaking volume, called for less referenceto American literatureas "a mere reflectionof English literature"and more emphasis on the native influenceson American writing. While comparisons
American 1917-1930 (Chicago, Thought, 7See Roderick Nash, TheNervousGeneration: 1970), esp. 78-90, for a discussion of the desire to hold on to the frontierand wildernessin the twentiesand, pp. 153-163, forthe role of Henry Ford. See also John William Ward, "The Meaning of Lindbergh's Flight,"American X (1958), Quarterly, 3-16; and Lawrence W. Levine, "Progress and Nostalgia: The Self Image of the Noveland the1920's (London, 1971). 1920's," in Malcolm Bradbury,ed., The American Frontier 8Ray A. Billington,America's Heritage(New York, 1966), 4-16; Gene M. Gressley, "The Turner Thesis-A Problem in Historiography," Agricultural History, XXXII (1958), 227-249. 9SubtitledSomeContributions toward theUnderstanding the ofIts Historical Development, volume included nine essays,eightby literary scholarsand one by historianArthurM. Schlesinger, Sr. An appendix contained an extensivebibliographywhich included a section on the frontier of dissertations (pp. 225-226) and a useful checklist completed or in progress through 1927. The listing is a valuable commentaryon subjects considered worthyof a dissertationin the 1920s.
The Rise ofa New Historiography 319 between American and European literatureshould be continued, he argued, there mustbe more studyof the "distinctly American" qualities of American literature,and interpreters ought to scrutinizethe "local conditionsof life and thoughtin America" that molded American literature.Foersterwas convinced that literaryhistoriansmust reject the views of Barrett as Wendell and explore the leads suggestedby such historians Turner, Arthur M. Schlesinger,Sr., and Charles Beard. The essayists in Foerster's volume agreed that more attention should be given to American literature,but they arrived at no consensus on how the ideal study should be undertaken. ProfessorsSchlesinger and Harry Hayden Clark reflected the chasm of opinion that still separated many students of literature. While Schlesinger called for a full understanding of the cultural and historicalmilieu of a writer and his work, Clark insistedthatclose scrutiny of the workof art was the startingplace. Schlesinger'sapproach, explained Clark, too often led to overemphasis on backgroundsand too littleanalysis of the work itself. Taken together,the articlesin Foerster'svolume emphasized the need for additional study of the contributionsof PuriIn regardto the tanism,romanticism, realism,and the frontier. has last, Foersterpointed out thatthe "influenceof the frontier been strangelyneglected" (p. 28),"?and he expressed the belief that the frontier had a large impacton Emerson,Whittier, and Twain, even though no one had discussed this influence. Admittedly,he added, the frontier spirittended to turn sour and to become too materialistic.While the frontierwas too imitative of Europe, it also became too boastful and antiEuropean. In a writerlike Twain, both of these qualitiesof the frontierspiritwere evident. One of the contributors to the volume,Jay B. Hubbell, was more emphatic in stressingthe scholarlyneglect of the frontier's influenceon American literature.While the literature of
'"At thispoint Foersteradds a footnote:"It would now (1928) be truerto saythatthe influence of the frontierhas been strangelyexaggerated." This change of opinion reflects,no doubt, the appearance between 1925, when no major works on frontier literature were available, and 1928 of the volumes by Ralph Leslie Rusk, Dorothy Dondore, and Lucy Lockwood Hazard.
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he the United States had been less American than its history, the of evidence of the was still there asserted, impact strong The frontier on writing. frontier provided authorslike Cooper and Whitman with new materials and other writerswith a native point of view. Discussions of the literary frontier, Hubbell insisted,ought to emphasize three topics: the frontier as the site the frontier as historicalbackground for literature, as but one of several and the frontier of new literaryactivity, influences that had shaped the American character. While had overlooked the role of the frontier previous commentators in American literature, futureinterpreters, he warned, should not redress the oversightby placing too much emphasis on the frontier. underscored the insufThough the essays in Reinterpretation in Amerificientamount of research concerningthe frontier can literature,there were, in fact,threemajor worksabout the subject being prepared for publication. The three projects were completed first as doctoral dissertations and then emerged quickly as books. Their publication in 1925-1927 studiesdevoted to appearance of book-length signaled the first the interrelationshipof the American frontierand western literature. of the Ralph Leslie Rusk's two-volumestudy,The Literature the first of the Western Frontier was Middle (New York, 1925), triumvirateto appear. Rusk was not so much interestedin arguing the artisticmeritsof the literatureof the early nineteenth century middle western frontieras he was in demonwas "invaluableforthe record activity stratinghow thisliterary it contains of the growthof civilization during a unique epoch" His with ended 1840, when, he argued, the coverage (p. vii). middle western frontier came to a close. Rusk discussed the impact of Europe, England, and eastern sections of the United States upon the Midwest and showed how authors from those areas were received on the frontier. He devoted chapters to travelers' accounts, magazines and newspapers, and drama, poetry,and fiction.The major emphasis was on breadth, and thus Rusk gave littleattentionto individual worksand saved more space forextensivelistings of
significant books, newspapers, and literaryevents. At times his
The Rise ofa New Historiography 321 work seemed encyclopedic, more like an annotated bibliogThe documentationoftenthreathistory. raphy than a literary ened to engulf the text. The second volume, for example, contained but fifty of nearly pages of textand a bibliography 400 pages. But Rusk seemed reluctant to comment on the literaryquality of the many itemshe cited, and sometimeshis treatmentsof major authors were brief and fragmented.His discussions ofJames Hall, forexample, were scatteredthrough several chapters because Hall was an editor, novelist,and a newspaperman. Finally, Rusk did not seem much acquainted with the writingsof Turner and was not interestedin speculating about the impact of the frontier upon middle western literature. Dorothy Dondore's The Prairie and the Making of Middle America: Four Centuriesof Description (Cedar Rapids, 1926) followed an organization similar to that of Rusk, but her volume contained more of the necessaryingredients of literary history. Like Rusk, she dealt with the writingsof foreign travelers,the impact of the Spanish, French, and English on the Midwest. In addition,she devoted chaptersto earlyromantic and realisticfictionof the prairies and completed her long volume withsectionson literature after1870. Unlike Rusk,she omitteddiscussion of newspapers and otherephemeral literary works,and she was more willingto makejudgments about the meritsof the writings that she did discuss. Dondore was intriguedwithwhat early foreignand American writerssaid about the land and the Indians. She demonstrated how these early writingswere products of cultural biases, and she was aware of the significant relationshipbetween changing economic and social conditionsand a maturing literaryculture. Dondore also showed how the developmentof transportationsystemsand townsand the arrivalof explorers and immigrantgroups helped to invoke the varied voices of the midwestern frontier.Throughout her long volume, she stressed the literarytreatmentof Indians. In fact, she dealt more extensively withthistopic than did any of her contemporaries. More analytical than previous writersin her approach to western writing,Dondore pointed out weaknesses in syntax,
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diction, and style.She noted stilteddescriptionsand snobbish to prose, and she mentioned the failureof the region'swriters of theirworks.Because she pay much attentionto the structure her book was a significant and valuable was willingto criticize, account of the rise of midwesternliterature. In the last section of her book, Dondore argued thatby the middle 1920s the emergence of such authorsas SinclairLewis, Sherwood Anderson, Carl Sandburg, and especially Willa Cather proved that midwesternliteraturehad matured. The writers were no longer tied to region was no longer a frontier, idealized and some authors demonstrated overly descriptions, an abilityto produce first-rate literature. Like manyliterary historians, Dondore seemed convinced thatthe best proof of the civilizingof the Midwest was the maturationof its literature. studiesto appear The most analyticalof the threeimportant in the twentieswas Lucy Lockwood Hazard's The Frontier in American Literature (New York, 1927). Hazard was well aware of Turner's contentionthat the frontier was the major influence in the shaping of American history-and she agreed withhim. The frontierexperience, she argued, had molded American had stimulated a new literature,and the closing of the frontier burst of writing.She believed that three topics dominated the new frontier literature: "regional pioneering," "industrial pioneering," and "spiritual pioneering." The New England and southern frontiersspawned the firsttype of pioneering, the Gilded Age encouraged the second, and the closing frontier was ushering in the last. Throughout her brief volume, Hazard drew parallels bethatAmericanshad experienced tween the historicalfrontiers and the kinds of literaturethatthose frontier experienceshad inspired. Industrial pioneering of the Gilded Age, for example, allowed-if not encouraged-the excesses of Andrew Carnegie and the Robber Barons. Like Vernon Louis Parrington," whose influence upon her work she acknowledged,
did not live to complete his Main Currents in American "Parrington, unfortunately, but the outline of the thirdvolume, coveringthe period from 1860 to 1920, Thought, indicates that he would have increased his emphasis on the frontierWest had he finished the book. The published version of the third volume includes sectionson Twain, Garland, and notes for several chapterson westernwriters.
The Rise ofa New Historiography 323 Hazard viewed the mastersof capital as logical productsof the individualism of the frontier.Neither Rusk nor Dondore saw the frontieras a negative influenceon American life,though Hazard was less certainon thispoint. She agreed withParrington and Mark Twain that the frontier spiritof the Gilded Age allowed too much individualism-a rampant individualism that, she implied, needed to be controlled.The pioneer spirit turned sour in the post-CivilWar period; it became selfish, arrogant,and inhumane. Americanswere so drivento conquer virgin land, to capture available capital, and to rush up the ladder of success that they paid scant attentionto theirinner needs. It was this blindness, this boosterismthat Twain and later Sinclair Lewis criticized. By the 1920s the frontieras place had vanished, although many Americans refused to admit thatitwas gone. Hazard felt that writers of the twenties,especially Vachel Lindsay and Sherwood Anderson, realized that the old frontier had closed and that the frontier of the presentand futurewas the "inner thejungle of man's inward skyand the wildernessof frontier," his relationshipswithother men. For Hazard, Vachel Lindsay, Sherwood Anderson, Henry James, and Henry Adams were the major explorers of this new literary frontier. Thus, of the major studies appearing in the twenties,The in American Frontier Literature was the boldest in its interpretations. Hazard was explicitabout the impactof the frontier on the literary of America. with she shared development Though Parrington a tendency to emphasize economic and social influenceson writing, she was harsherthan Rusk and Dondore in her judgments about frontierliterature.At the same time, she was more aware than other critics that contemporary writerswere changing their minds about the frontier and its on literature.12 impact
on westernwriting, students authority '2Accordingto John T. Flanagan, a long-time interested in western regional literatureduring the twentieswere indebted to the studies mentioned here and to historiansTurner and FredericL. Paxson (Flanagan to Etulain, Sept. 17, 1974). Russel B. Nye found Hazard's book helpfulin his earlycareer (Nye to Etulain, Sept. 20, 1974). I should like to acknowledge here the help I have received frommanyspecialistsin western literature.In the fall and winterof 1974-1975, I wrote to nearlya hundred
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In the two decades afterthe Great Crash, a shiftin opinion about the characterof the frontier experience and the riseof a new approach to literary interpretationbecame apparent. began to takeissue Following Turner's death in 1932 historians in American with his evaluation of the importanceof frontier Some that he had history. overemphasized the role of argued the frontierin shaping the American character; others contended that he overlooked the impact of cities, immigrants, and European backgroundsin moldingAmericanhistory. One would thinkthat these historicaldissenterswould have altered the focus of scholars studyingthe literaryfrontier, but such was not the case. This was the more surprisingbecause literary scholars like Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, Cleanth Brooks, Allen Tate, and Richard Blackmur-the New Critics-were of literary worksand less emphasis calling for a closer scrutiny on historical and biographical backgrounds. Too often, they historiansoverstressedthe milieu of a poem, asserted, literary or drama and tended to underplay the significance of novel, the work itself.The New Criticismdominated many English departments in the 1940s, the 50s, and into the early 60s. But these criticshad littleimpacton the studyof westernliterature.
persons and raised the followingqueries: (1) Please summarize your own work in progress--orthe projectsthatyou soon plan to undertake. West have mostinfluencedyour (2) What scholars dealing withthe American literary work? For example, Franklin Walker, Henry Nash Smith,John R. Milton,Max Westbrook, Don D. Walker, John Cawelti, Leslie Fiedler, Wallace Stegner, or others? (3) In what directionsdo you thinksubsequent work on westernAmerican literature fromwhat you see to be the major ought to move? Are these directionsdifferent thrustsof previous scholarshipin the field? (4) Please indicatethe projectsthatyou believeare mostneeded in subsequentstudyof western literature. I have gained a great deal from the more than fifty responses to my request for information. Especially helpful were letters from Richard Astro, Louie Attebery, Edwin R. Bingham, Benjamin Capps, John Cawelti, Brian Dippie, Fred Erisman, John T. Flanagan, James K. Folsom, Thomas W. Ford, Warren French, Edwin W. Gaston, Ir., W. H. Hutchinson, Robert Edson Lee, Sanford E. Marovitz,Frederick Manfred, Barbara Meldrum, John R. Milton, Russel B. Nye, Levi Peterson, Henry Nash Smith, C. L. Sonnichsen, Wallace Stegner,Gary Topping, Don D. Walker,Max Westbrook,and Delbert Wylder. I am gratefulto these scholarsand others not listed for allowing me to quote from their letters.Their correspondence to me is cited by name and date.
The Rise ofa New Historiography 325 In fact,between 1930 and 1950 the practiceof westernliterary historyreached its apogee. No writer better illustrates the achievements of western literaryhistorians than Franklin Walker. Although Walker's fiveother book was published in 1932 and he has written first volumes that deal with the literatureof the West, his work, especially his literaryhistoriesof San Francisco and southern California, has not received as much attentionas it deserves. This oversightis unfortunate,for Walker demonstrateswhat first-rate literaryhistoryought to be, particularly throughthe and interrelateduse of biography,social and culturalhistory, criticism. literary Walker's firstbook, Frank Norris:A Biography (New York, the of demonstrates chief his work-his abili1932), strength ties as a superb literary biographer. In his studyof Norris,as well as in his later biographical study,Jack London and the Klondike (San Marino, 1966), and in his literaryhistories, Walker pays close attention to the lives of the writershe discusses. In addition, his work emphasizes the relationships between his subjects and their milieus. One knows how and why, for example, frontierSan Francisco and Los Angeles at the turn of the century produced the kinds of writersand literaturethat theydid. Walker's talentsare seen at theirbest in his second and most Frontier (New York, important book, San Francisco's Literary between 1939). The settingis San Franciscoand itshinterlands 1850 and 1870, and the focus is on the writers-Twain, Harte, Miller, Coolbrith,and others-influenced by thisexcitingtime and place. Walker illustrates how the magazines, newspapers, and early social, economic, and cultural organizations that San Francisco encouraged literary activsprang up in frontier ity. In addition, his evaluation of the prose and poetryof the early Far West demonstrates why so little of this nascent meritscontinued scrutiny. literary activity By unitinghistorical research and literarycriticism, Walker succeeds in adding to the "rapidly growing body of informationdealing with the influenceof the frontier on American life and letters"(p. vii). The same highstandardsare maintainedin Walker's A Literary of Southern History California(Berkeley, 1950), a volume that
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illustrates the methodology Walker uses to constructall his the topicor theme histories." He begins byintroducing literary of a section and then describingthe historicalorigins of the and books that theme. This is followedby an analysisof writers extended treatthe idea an central and, by finally, exemplify or workthatbest illuminates the theme. ment of a single writer In a brilliantchapter entitled"Cultural Hydroponics,"Walker shows that southern California, like other regions of the United States, hungered for a romantic past that it could idolize, and he illustrateshow writerslike George Wharton James, Helen Hunt Jackson, and Charles Fletcher Lummis played importantroles in capitalizingon thisneed by creating an idealized past. As in his other works,Walker stressesbiography and cultural historyand pays least attentionto literary criticism. In doing so he demonstrates his abilityto probe and to see what lies beneath the surface of cultural activity hidden from casual observers, a quality that is especially apparent in his perceptive discussions of Lummis, the San Diego Exposition, and the PacificElectric.By emphasizingthe symbolicimportance of authors, events,and economic development, Walker prefiguresone of the techniques utilized in Land. Henry Nash Smith's Virgin The work of Franklin Walker belongs on the top shelf of about the Americanliterary West. His solid importantwritings and well-researched volumes are indispensable groundwork for a complete historyof westernAmerican literaturethat is badly needed. No one has produced better western literary historythan Walker, and his books are stilluseful models for students and scholars who wish to pursue westernwriting via the approach of the literary historian.14 Another example of the historical approach to westernliterature is found in the three-volume Literary History oftheUnited
in his books, history '3Walker has not spelled out an explicitphilosophyof literary and of Turner, Parrington, essays, or reviews,though he acknowledgesthe influences Bernard DeVoto upon his work (Walker,June 30, 1974). But see his essay in thisissue of the PacificHistorical Review. '4Russel B. Nye states: "My generation was powerfullyinfluenced by Franklin Walker, first, Henry Nash Smith,next" (Nye, Sept. 20, 1974). Edwin R. Binghamfinds and social and cultural history" useful Walker's "smooth fusion of literarycriticism (Bingham, Sept. 18, 1974).
The Rise ofa New Historiography 327 States,edited by Robert Spiller and several other scholars."5 which paid Published thirty years after the Cambridge History, littleattentionto westernliterature, Spiller's volumes devoted several chapters to the subject. Dixon Wecter, Henry Nash Smith, George R. Stewart,and Wallace Stegnerdealt withthe region in such chapters as "LiteraryCulture on the Frontier," "Western Chroniclers and Literary Pioneers," "The West as Seen from the East," and "Western Record and Romance," which stressed the cultural ties of the West withthe East and the West's attempts to please eastern readers. Smith, for like Cooper, H. M. example, demonstratedhow earlier writers and Zebulon Pike with one eye on the wrote Brackenridge, details they were accumulating and the other eye trained on what eastern literati, especiallythe Romantics,wanted to read. Other writers,such as Josiah Gregg and Lewis H. Garrard, were less tied to eastern literary standards,more reluctantto polish theirdescriptions,and hence presentedmore authentic accounts of life along westerntrailsand among the mountain men. Smith adds that easterners usually saw the West as a strange and wonderful place of Indians, sylvan areas, and wilderness. The West thus became a region of wondrous settingsand characters,both of which held scenic and novel implicationsfor a thirsty reading public in the East. and Stegner Though the chaptersby Wecter,Smith,Stewart, were noteworthy the editorsof the Literary Hiscontributions, did not include discussions of western tory twentieth-century literature. There were sections on Willa Cather and Sinclair Lewis and brief mention of Steinbeck and Jeffers, but these authors were not treated as western writers.By 1950, then, historians were inclinedto treatsome nineteenthmanyliterary as westernauthors,but theywere stillreluctant centurywriters to classifyany writers after 1900 as western authors. writing
"Robert E. Spiller, Willard Thorp, Thomas H. Johnson,Henry Seidel Canby,etal., eds., Literary of the UnitedStates(3 vols., New York, 1948). There have been History revisionsof thiswork but none adds measurablyto the discussionsof the literary West. Another extensiveliterary of the United States,edited byArthurH. Quinn, The history Literature of the AmericanPeople: A Historicaland CriticalSurvey(New York, 1951), includes a chapter on twentieth-century southernliterature, but onlyscatteredsections on such modern western writersas Willa Cather, Robinson Jeffers, Ole R1olvaag, Conrad Richter,and John Steinbeck.
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The publication of Henry Nash Smith's VirginLand: The as Symbol American West and Myth (Cambridge, Mass., 1950) has to a be of the major turningpointin the historiography proven American literary West. Virgin Land increased interest in western literature, helped place western writingin a new perspective, and provided students with new research techWest.Smith'sstimulating niques fortheirstudiesof the literary book has influencedinterpretations of westernliterature more than any other study. In the twenty-five since its years publication, specialists in the field place it at the top of the list of books that have shaped theirthinkingand writing. Portions of VirginLand, which was completed at Harvard dissertationin the new fieldof Universityin 1940 as the first American Studies, appeared initiallyas a series of journal articles in the 1940s. When the completed volume was published in 1950, it was hailed immediately as an importantnew in of the West American thoughtand culture.16 interpretation Smith opens his book with a discussion of the views of about the West. He Benjamin Franklinand Thomas Jefferson uses the ideas of these two men as examples of what many Americans thoughtabout the frontier Westas itbecame partof their cultural experience. These thoughtsgraduallyclustered around three themes: "Passage to India," "The Sons of Leatherstocking,"and "The Garden of the World." Smith's approach in discussing these themes is an holistic one; he emphasizes that the West as symboland mythwas just partalbeit an important part--of what Americans were thinking and experiencing in the nineteenth century. Through this holisticapproach, Smith is able to show how Turner's famous thathad essay of 1893 was part factand part of the mythology in the the about West hundred previous grown up years.
have taken issue withsome of Smith'sresearchtechniquesand inter'6A few writers pretations.Laurence R. Veyseydiscusses some of the dangers involvedin the concepts of myth and suggests that regional stereotypesmay be of more use to studentsof Land. See his "Mythand western literaturethan the symbolicanalysisused in Virgin American XII (1960), 31-43. Realityin Approaching American Regionalism," Quarterly, Barry Marks, a formerstudent of Smith,challenges his mentorin "The Concept of V (1953), 71-76. The mostrecentdiscussion Land," American Mythin Virgin Quarterly, of Smithand otherscholarsin the AmericanStudies fieldcan be foundin Cecil F. Tate, The Search Studies(Minneapolis, 1973). for a Methodin American
The Rise ofa New Historiography 329 The final chapter in VirginLand deals with Turner and demonstrates Smith's use of symbolicanalysis. He shows how the idea of the West as the Garden of the World captured Turner's imaginationand caused him to linkmanyof his views about the importance of the words natureand civilization to America's cultural history.Smith shows that Turner's use of natureoften moved beyond social analysisinto poetry,a move that reflectedTurner's ties to what historianshave called "the agrarian myth."Using the close-readingtechniquesof literary critics, Smith demonstrates that Turner's use of naturewas more metaphoricalthan factual.In thischapterand frequently in several other sections of his book, Smith calls for a close study of the relationshipbetween the factsof westernhistory and the myths that have grown up about western experiLand also demonstrates thatscholarsneed not-in fact Virgin shouldnot-limit theirdiscussionsto eliteauthors(forexample, Cooper, Whitman,and Garland) if theywish to convey a full understanding of what the West meant to nineteenth-century Americans. The two chapters in Smith's volume devoted to heroes and heroines of the dime novel illustratethe author's commitmentto studyingall types of writingabout the West. Through close studyof the characters, plots,and themesof the dime novel, Smith shows how this popular genre reflected many of the controlling assumptions of the day about the nature of the American West. Smith'suse of history, literature, sociology, and cultural anthropologyreveals his strongattachment to an interdisciplinary approach to his subject.The sections on the dime novel are still models for subsequent research, and, as we shall see, they have been paradigms for recent research dealing withthe formulaWestern. in encourThe work of Smith,then, has been instrumental kinds two of to the West. The first approaches literary aging method-the one that has attractedthe most followers-has been called the American Studies school. These interpreters
"Smithexplains someofhisresearch methods in "Can'American Studies' Developa Method?" American IX (1957),197-208.Also,see hisintroductory comments Quarterly, in the twenty-year editionof Virgin Land (Cambridge, Mass., 1970). anniversary
ences.17
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stress(in followingSmith)thatwhat people have thoughtabout the West has frequentlybeen more important in molding western literaturethan what actually took place in the West. These writers have consistentlyplayed up the differences between what has been termed the real and the mythic West. For them, the West as state of mind is a concept thatwarrants continued study. Other scholars have been influencedmore by Smith'streatment of popular culture, particularly his analysisof the dime novel. These writers have recently shown a great deal of interestin the Western,a genre of formulaliterature thathas There arisen in the twentieth is considerable century. overlap between the American Studies and popular culture schools, but the differencesbetween the two groups are emphasized in order to plot the larger impact of Virgin Land upon western studies. literary In the quarter centurysince the publicationof Virgin Land, numerous scholars have relied on Smith's book for research into the Americanliterary methods and forinsights West. Kent in L. Steckmesser, his The Western Hero in History and Legend (Norman, 1965), acknowledges large "intellectual debts" to Smith. For example, he utilizessome of Smith'stechniques in in accounts of Kit Carson, tryingto separate factfromfiction Custer. Billythe Kid, Wild Bill Hickok,and George Armstrong In the only book-lengthstudypublished on the westernnovel, James K. Folson also admits thathe owes a "great deal" to the work of Smith."'8 Folsom is interestedin the "myth of the West" and the manner in which popular concepts about the West have spilled over into novels writtenabout Indians, farmers, and frontier society.Smith'spointof viewand his methodology are particularly apparent in Folsom'schapteron Cooper. In his first-rate FarmNovel in the monograph on The Middle Western Twentieth Century(Lincoln, 1965), Roy Meyer draws upon Smith'streatment of farmersin nineteenth-century imaginative literature. Several historianshave utilized Smith'sfindings.Earl PomWestern Novel (New Haven, 1966); Folsom, Oct. 6, 1974. I "8Folsom, The American have triedto detail some of the influences of Smithon Steckmesser, Folsom,and Robert Edson Lee in "Recent Views of the AmericanLiterary West,"Journal ofPopularCulture, III (1969), 144-153.
The Rise ofa New Historiography
331
eroy, in his study of tourismin the West,"9 employs some of Smith's discussionsof westerntravelers to show how theirviews shaped subsequent ideas about the West. Joseph G. Rosa, withoutacknowledgingthe influenceof Virgin Land, nevertheless adopts Smith's methods in his analysis of western gunEven some of the recentwesternhistory textstestify fighters.20 to the influence of Smith's approach to the West. The best of TheAmerican these is Robert V. Hine's beautifully written West: An Interpretive which contains (Boston, 1973), History chapters on farmers,western heroes, and "The FrontierExperience" that reflectSmith's point of view. During the last decade, two books have appeared that illustratethe American Studies approach so evident in Virgin Land. Both are wide-rangingstudies,both advance controversial theses, and although both deal with literature of the eastern United States,theyhave already lefttheirmarkson the field of westernliterary studies. Edwin Fussell's Frontier: American Literature and theAmerican West(Princeton, N. J., 1965) is a reinterpretation of American literaturefrom1800 to the CivilWar. The book deals primarily with Cooper, Hawthorne, Poe, Thoreau, Melville,and Whitman, and Fussell argues that these authors were inspired by the frontier, the meeting place between the civilizedEast and the barbarous West. But Fussell's frontier is not easy to define. Sometimes it is the high seas of MobyDick,the dark forests of The ScarletLetter, the sitesof Poe's conflicts betweennightmare and reality,and the locations of Thoreau's clashing Essential West and Real West. On other occasions the frontier is Poe's or or Hawthorne's Thoreau's Walden Pond. For Salem, South, are not specificlocationsbut primarily Fussell, these frontiers the states of mind of the authors. He repeatedlystressesthat is an idea, a metaphor.The mistakeof Turner and the frontier other historians who emphasized the frontieras place, he as idea. contends, was theirfailureto comprehend the frontier of the fronHad theyunderstood the metaphoricalpossibilities tier, they would have realized that it was the "real" West. Other views about the frontierwill have to be changed if
in Western America (New York, 19Pomeroy, In Search of theGoldenWest:The Tourist 1957). Man or Myth?(Norman, 1969). "2Rosa, The Gunfighter:
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are accepted. For example, Fussell'sassertions consider his belief thatthefrontier endedat leastthree and possibly four in 1893.Fussell decadesbefore Turner's announcement arthat 1855-1860 was the watershed of the frontier. period gues it no After thisera, therewas no longer a viablefrontier; of thus fired the writers and had vanished imagination longer this dubious as a shaping force. Besides offers Fussell opinion, in for his the frontier no additional the 1850s. closing proof on the dualities in the On the otherhand,in his stress in the of the American Fussell is Romantics, solidly writings ofthe Studies school. FortheRomantics, the essence American in conflicts westward movement wasexpressed between East civilization and wilderness, and head and West, past present, darkand light. The first three ofthese dichotomies and heart, in Virgin in Smith that stressed are tensions Land, particularly section on Cooper, one ofhis hisessays on Cooper.(Fussell's draws most analysis.) heavily uponSmith's chapters, persuasive to symbolic Smith's attachment a Fussellalso shares analysis, of diction. that intensive study Throughtechnique emphasizes tosymbols, buthisuse Fussell closeattention outhisbook, pays in thelastpartofhis is particularly evident of thetechnique when he argues that thefrontier closed American bookwhere in other directions. veered literature is a provocative The discussions of Fussell's Frontier study. of"frontier" and "West" arestimuthemetaphorical qualities the Whitbut more sections on are Cooper, convincing lating, if One the author's of Thoreau. wonders and man, reading ofthefrontier visions wasnot these three writers andtheir the The thesis of the book for this volume. fits Thoreau impetus best-and Poe least. toohard.If all hiscontentions But Fussell histhesis presses werepersuasive, hisbookwould F. O. Matthieshavereplaced
sen's TheAmerican as the bestinterpretation of early Renaissance But it has not done so, nineteenthcenturyAmericanliterature. the and one reason is Fussell's failureto emphasize sufficiently the Far West of and on the writers he discusses. impact Europe And surelyTheScarlet Letter, Dick,and LeavesofGrasshave Moby other major and more significantmeanings than Fussell is willing to assign to them.
The Rise ofa New Historiography 333 Most of all, Fussell seems discontentedwithhistorians.He is convinced that interpreterslike Turner, because they overstressed the geographical frontier trueof (whichis not entirely sent later readers the trails. No doubt Turner), up wrong forthose too tied to a Turnerian Fussell's viewsare a corrective but in an attemptto prove his interpretationof the frontier, thesis he distortsthe evidence. To argue thatthe frontier was 1860 is to omit much of the frontier. This termination gone by date misses the cowboy,several of the miningrushes, some of the overland trail years, and the sod house frontier.What seems closer to the truth is that after the Civil War, industrialism and cities caught up with the West as subjects. But writerslike Twain, Harte, attention-gathering several frontierhumorists,and such authors as E. W. Howe, Hamlin Garland, and Owen Wister proved that the frontier West was not as moribundas Fussell suggests.Had Fussellbeen more willing to qualify his thesis, to say that the frontieras of the on writers place and idea was one of the major influences work would occupy an even Romantic period, his stimulating more importantspot in westernliterary studies.21 Another volume that illustratessome of the strengths and limitationsfound in Fussell's book is Richard Slotkin'sRegenerationthrough Violence:The Mythology Frontier, of theAmerican 1600-1860 (Middletown, Conn., 1973). Much longer than Fussell's study, this heftybook (nearly 700 pages) is an outgrowth of the author's doctoral dissertationin the American Civilization program at Brown University. Slotkin pursues a in He is interested discussing the ideas that large goal: from the American frontier experiencebetween 1600 emerged and 1860. He wants to trace the impact of European views upon the New World wildernessand to describe the national myths that emerged from the conflictsbetween the old and new cultures.
2"Someof the same topicsdiscussed in Fussell are takenup in Wilson O. Clough, The Earth:Natureand Solitude inAmerican Literature (Austin,1964). Less wellknown Necessary than the book by Fussell, Clough's volume is, however,frequently more persuasiveon volume thatdeals withthe posttopics that both authors treat. Another little-known frontierera is Harold P. Simonson, The ClosedFrontier: Studiesin American Literary reactionsto (New York, 1970), which is a stimulating Tragedy studyof several writers' the closing frontier.
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Like Fussell, Slotkin emphasizes the contrapuntalstructure of his findings: Europe and America, civilization and wilderness, white and Indian. He is much more interestedin the role of the Indian than were Fussell and Smith,who have littleto say about American aborigines.In fact,Slotkin'smajor thesis is that Europeans, especially Puritans,in theirdesire to formulated make sense out of theirerrand into the wilderness, a myth of "regeneration through violence." Gradually these newcomers, as they became Americanized, persuaded themselves that in destroyingthe wildernessand conquering the Indians they were saving the continentfor civilization.In his finalchapter,Slotkinponders the relationship betweenthis destructive philosophy and modern American imperialism. In addition to the useful commentson earlyfrontier experiences found throughoutthe volume,the introductory chapters in Slotkin's book on myth-makingare instructivefor the student of the literary West. And his discussionsof the rise of the popular hunter hero like Daniel Boone and the treatments of this hero in regional literatureseast of the Mississippiare well done. Moreover, Slotkin has read widely in original like Benjamin sources; he deals withthe worksof major writers of a Franklin,Cooper, Thoreau, Melville,and withthewritings host of minor authors. No one should fault his extensive research in primarysources. But Regeneration Violence should be used withcaution. through Slotkin'streatment of the Puritansand theirrelationships with Indians does not take into account the views of Alden Vaughan, Edmund S. Morgan, and Ola Winslow,all of whom are less critical than he of the Puritans. The section on Thoreau is also distorted; the author makes too much of the Indianness of Thoreau. And other readers will question Slotkin's failure to use the accounts of Lewis and Clark,Josiah Gregg, and numerous other explorers who traveled into the trans-MississippiWest and wrote importantaccounts of what they saw and experienced. Slotkin's major problems are those often found in the work of historians of ideas. He moves from work to work for evidence of his thesis,but he failsto give sufficient to attention the changing milieu of what he examines. And the tone of his
The Rise ofa New Historiography 335 book reflectsthe point of view of a young man discontented withwhat he has seen and feltin the late 1960s and drawn to more sympathetic other popular ideas thoughtto be corrective: views of the Indian, increased interest in back-to-the-land movements, and the search for the purported causes of violence in Judeo-Christianavarice. Despite these weaknesses, too the volume is a major book in the field.Slotkinis sometimes but he is alwaysstimulating and should general and simplistic, be read and reread by all students interestedin the literary West. Leslie Fiedler, who has influencedSlotkina great deal, puts even more emphasis than Slotkinon the mythic nature of the West. In some of his earlier interpretive works on American but it is in The literature,Fiedler discussed westernliterature, ReturnoftheVanishing American (New York, 1968) thathe puts In stress on the this brief volume, Fiedler subject. major in his "venture literaryanthropology"witha study completes in of the role of Indians writingabout the frontierand the West. For Fiedler, American geography is primarily mythological, and "it is the presence of the Indian which defines the mythologicalWest" (p. 21). Thus, the Western is the story of the conflictbetween the WASP and the Indian. And, as he had in his earlier works,Fiedler stresseshere the hesitancyof white Americansto writeabout whitewomen and their tendencyto deal with masculine worlds. In the final sectionsof his book, Fiedler centerson what he calls the "New Western." His commentson thisnew genre are not surprisingwhen one realizes that Fiedler believes that"to understand the West as somehow a joke comes a littlecloserto getting it straight" (p. 137). He is convinced that the New Western has arisen because the older Westernand writers like A. B. Guthrie, Walter Van Tilburg Clark, and Frank Waters failed to deal with the Indian in a believable fashion. Hence, such writersas Thomas Berger and Ken Kesey have produced New Westerns that treat Indians as "returned" or vanished Americans whose relationshipswith whites are similarto the relationships found between Huck and Jim in Twain's novels and NattyBumppo and Chingachgook in the Leatherstocking Tales. The meetingin the wildernessbetween the whiteEuro-
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pean and the red man is thetheme of the West, and Fiedler is convinced that writersof New Westerns have taken up this in the old idea. These authors do not involvetheirprotagonists mythsof John Smith and Pocahontas; instead the heroes are placed in male-to-male relationshipslike those found in the works of Cooper, Melville, and Twain. Brotherhood is the major theme of the New Western.22 As Henry Nash Smith pointed out in a reviewof TheReturn the reader is not alwayscertainhow American, of theVanishing His descriptionof the New Western seriouslyto take Fiedler.23 does fit Ken Kesey's One Flew Over theCuckoo's Nest,Thomas and the work of such novelists Little some of Man, Berger's Big as David Wagoner and John Seelye. But his new genre does not describe the recent novels of WrightMorris,Wallace Stegner, Vardis Fisher, or A. B. Guthrie.Contemporary westernnoveland conists have stressed historicalties between the frontier the theme of utilized a man's initiayoung temporaryWests, tion into manhood, and emphasized the importance of the arid, spacious West as setting.Fiedler does not mentionany of these importantthemes,and because he does not,anyone who has taken the time to read a large number of novels written about the West in the last twenty-five yearsbecomes convinced of the narrowness of Fiedler's approach. His contentionthat West should be a journey into writingabout the contemporary madness defines the central emphasis in Seelye's The Kid (a novel dedicated to Fiedler), but this argumentdoes not apply the to Wallace Stegner's PulitzerPrize-winning AngleofRepose, of Larry novels of Richard Brautigan, and mostof the writing is The Return the American an McMurtry. of Vanishing important written about the Westin the aid in understandingsome fiction last two decades, but it is not a convincingguide to mostrecent western writing.24
22In a recent address before the Western Literature Association (Jackson Hole, whichhe renamed the Wyoming,October 1972), Fiedler argued thatthe New Western, "meta-Western,"deals exclusivelywithviolence,sex, and racism. "Smith's reviewof TheReturn Literature, American appears in American oftheVanishing XL (1969), 586-588. "4Severalscholars findFiedler's book more useful than I have in dealing withrecent western fiction.For example, Edwin R. Bingham, Sept. 18, 1974; John G. Cawelti, Oct. 24, 1974; and C. L. Sonnichsen, Sept. 19, 1974.
The Rise ofa New Historiography 337 In addition to itslarge impacton AmericanStudies scholars, VirginLand has also influencedstudentsof American popular were culture. Before the publicationof Smith'sbook, historians reluctantto deal withthe formulaWestern.They seem to have considered the popular genre as subliterature and hence not worthyof study. Before 1950 only a handful of notableessays had appeared thatdealt withthe dime novel and Western.But Smith showed that the careful scholar could learn a greatdeal fromthe studyof popular literature, and in the yearssince the of his seminal there has been an increasing study, publication amount of attentionpaid to the Western. about the Westernis The most penetratingof recentwriting (Bowling Green, Ohio, John Cawelti's The Six-Gun Mystique In his extended Cawelti summarizes the viewsof 1971). essay, of the Westernand thenoutlineshis thesis, several interpreters which asks readers to take seriously the conventionsof the formula Westernand to scrutinize the componentsof carefully the formula to see what they reveal about a society that produces and reads Westerns. Cawelti reminds studentsthat the Western can and does provide valuable insightsinto a changing American culture. Most of all, Cawelti argues that students of American thoughtand culture must cast offtheir of the Western,must predispositions about the worthlessness in the the repeated patterns popular genre, and comprehend must realize what these formulas tell us about American some of these demands in society. Henry Nash Smith fulfilled but Cawelti moves Land, beyond Smithby detailingthe Virgin formula that defines the Western. He shows how the ambiguities of plot and characterization apparent in the contemporaryWestern reflectthe growingtensionsin recent America. He points out that heroes in the Western are civilizationor "town" frequently caught between reaffiming values and trying to escape to a wildernessthatis untrammeled by coercive law and order and stillopen to the actions of the strong individual. Cawelti has produced a rich,highlyoriginalessay.Throughout his book, he touches on several themes, techniques,and ideas that are evident in the Western.While he does not deal withany of these topicsin his briefvolume,he does extensively
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illustratehow his contentions maybe applied to a large number of Westerns. Students have already begun to utilize the techniques of about the West. In a recent Cawelti in studyingformulawriting collection of essays dealing with the Western,several of the essayistsuse the commentsof Cawelti on the natureof formula fictionas the beginning place for theirarticles.These writers findespecially pertinentCawelti'sviewsabout the diverseroles of the hero, heroine, and community in the Western.Judging from the initial reactions of scholars to The Six-GunMystique, indebted subsequent research on the Westernwillbe strongly to the insightsof Cawelti.25 The other approach to the Westernthathas attracted a good deal of attentionin the last few years is that of the cultural historian.Before the large impactof Virgin Land was apparent, W. H. Hutchinson and Bernard De Voto wrote essays discussing the place of heroes, villains,and heroines in the Western, and they stressed the importance of Owen Wister, Eugene Manlove Rhodes, and Ernest Haycox in the Two decades ago Joe B. development of the popular type.26 Frantz and Julian E. Choate attempted to show how earlier writersof Westernsutilized stereotypes more than factin their treatmentof the cowboy.27 Also in the fifties David B. Davis and Philip Durham chronicled the rise of the cowboy in the early twentiethcentury and demonstrated how Wister's The Ten years Virginianbecame a paradigm for later Westerns.28
W. Etulain and Michael T. Marsden,eds., ThePopularWestern: toward 25Richard Essays a Definition (Bowling Green, Ohio, 1974). Cawelti's recent book on popular literary and Romance formulas,Adventure, Mystery (Chicago, 1976), includesa long sectionon the Western (Cawelti, Jan. 11, 1976). Henry Nash Smith, who read Cawelti's book in manuscript,feelsthat"the mostinteresting pathwayof advance in thestudyof Western literatureis thatbeing chartedby Mr. Cawelti,"especiallyhis "investigation of formulas and stereotypes"(Smith, Nov. 11, 1974). Other recentworks by Cawelti on formula literatureare "God's Country,Las Vegas, and the Gunfighter: Visionsof the Differing AmericanLiterature, IX (1975), 273-283; and "Myth, Symbol, and West," Western VIII (1974), 1-9. Formula," JournalofPopular Culture, XVI Library 26Hutchinson, "Virgins, Villains, and Varmints,"Huntington Quarterly, CCXI (Dec. 1955), 8-9, 12, 14, 16; (1953), 318-392; DeVoto, "Birthof an Art,"Harper's and "Phaithon on Gunsmoke Trail," Harper's, CCIX (Dec. 1954), 10-11, 14, 16. 27Frantz and Choate, The AmericanCowboy:Mythand Reality (Norman, 1955). VI (1954), 111-125; Durham, 28Davis, "Ten Gallon Hero," AmericanQuarterly, "Riders of the Plains: American Westerns,"Neuphilologische LVIII (Nov. Mitteilungen, 1957), 22-38.
The Rise ofa New Historiography 339 later Durham and his colleague, Everett Jones, in their much-cited The NegroCowboys (New York, 1965), argued that the strong Anglo Saxon prejudices of writerslike Wister, Emerson Hough, and B. M. Bower kept them fromtreating Durham and Jones illustrated black cowboys realistically. how the study of popular literaturecould reveal the tensions and ambiguitiesof Americans in a specificperiod of time. More recentlyRussel B. Nye has discussed the Western as one significant form of American popular culture.29His treatment is the best brief study of the development of the Richard W. Etulain,has treated Western. Another interpreter, various periods in the rise of the Westernand suggestedother topics and writersthat merit additional attention.There are increasing signs that many historians have overcome their initialreluctance to studythe Westernand thatwe can expect a new series of articles and books on this popular genre.30 At thispoint,one mightask ifany scholarshave attempted to unite the historical approach of Franklin Walker with the Land. The answeris research methods evidentin Smith'sVirgin of the this indicate that western and marriage yes, products literary scholarship is maturing rapidly. One of the most impressive examples is G. Edward White's The EasternEstabTheWest lishment and theWestern Remington, ofFrederic Experience: and OwenWister Theodore Roosevelt, (New Haven, 1968). White's book, which is the published versionof a doctoral dissertation in the American Civilizationprogram at Yale University, is a on an based interdisciplinary stimulatingstudy methodology. White centerson the pivotalperiod from1890-1910 and traces the lives of Remington,Roosevelt,and Wisterfromtheirearly twenties and their exposure to the eastern establishment of and membershipin private schools, Ivy League universities,
Muse: The Popular Arts in America(New York, 1970), 29Nye, The Unembarrassed 280-304. "Ernest Haycox: The HistoricalWestern,"SouthDakotaReview, V (1967), 30Etulain, 35-54; "Literary Historians and the Western,"Journalof Popular Culture, IV (1970), VI (1972), 799-805; 518-526; "Origins of the Western,"Journalof Popular Culture, "The Historical Development of the Western," VII (1973), JournalofPopularCulture, 717-726. The Popular Press of Bowling Green Universityis planning a series of monographs on popular Western writersto be edited by Richard W. Etulain and Michael T. Marsden.
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prestigious social clubs to their subsequent adventures in the West. In his analysis of the experiences of these three men, White demonstrateshow Americansused the East and Westas and agriculture, of symbolsof the presentand past,of industry urban and rural, and how theytriedto forgea consensus from their disparate experiences. White argues that at the turn of the century Americans wanted frontiergentlemen or gentlemanlycowboys. Or to make the oxymoron more exact, they wanted westernized easterners. The end product would be a Theodore Roosevelt who benefitted not only from his eastern upbringing and education but also fromhis experiences on his westernranch. White contends that comprehension of this desire to homogenize the East and West gives larger understandingof the Rough Riders and the conservationist impulse of the era of Roosevelt. He sees both of these activitiesas products of Americans tryingto bring togetherthe eastern establishment and westernexperience. Although White should have plunged deeper and traveled more in the many manuscript materials he lists in his bibliography, he does make clear at least a part of the consensus thatmany Americanstriedto fashionout of diverse regional and historicalbackgrounds. He is aware of the myths that grew up about the West in the nineteenth and he century, shows how these mythssometimescoincided with,sometimes Roosevelt, diverged from,the actual experience of Remington, and Wister in the West. Because White is able to show the relationship between the work of these men and theirmilieu, his book is an excellent example of what can be accomplished when western literature is studied within the broader perspective of a dynamic American culture.31
"Neal Lambert, in his articles on Wister,employs research techniques similarto those of White. See Lambert, "Owen Wister'sVirginian: The Genesis of a Cultural American VI (1971), 99-107; "Owen Wister'sLin McLean: Hero," Western Literature, The Failure of the Vernacular Hero," Western American V (1970), 219-232; Literature, and "The Values of the Frontier: Owen Wister's Final Assessment,"SouthDakota Review,IX (1971), 76-87. The same approach is utilizedin Richard W. Etulain,Owen Wister(Boise, 1973). Ben Merchant Vorpahl stressesthe importanceof Wisterand Frederic Remington in the formationof the cowboy hero in his My Dear Wister: The Frederic Remington-Owen WisterLetters(Palo Alto, 1972). No full-lengthliterary biography of Wisterhas been published; one is badly needed.
The Rise ofa New Historiography 341 Even more impressive in his marriage of the historical approach of Walker and the holistic techniques of Smith is Kevin Starr,author of the important and the volume,Americans 1850-1915 (New York, 1973). Starr, who CaliforniaDream, completed an earlier draft of his book in the Harvard American Civilizationprogram,owes a greatdeal to the architectonic sense of ideas developed by such men as PerryMiller and his student, Alan Heimert, who served as director of Starr's doctoral dissertation.Starr is interestedin the linear and he also wishes development of California'sculturalhistory, to show, on another level, how the ideas of residents and of the outsiders about the region helped to shape the history area. As Starr puts it, his book "seeks to integratefact and imagination in the belief that the record of theirinterchange through symbolicstatementis our most precious legacy from the past" (p. vii). To illustrate what the California "dream" came to mean, Starr deals withsuch culturalfiguresas Thomas StarrKing,an early Protestantminister; Henry George, social critic;Josiah Royce, philosopher; John Muir, naturalist;and David Starr Jordan, presidentof StanfordUniversity. Interspersedamong these discussions are sections on such literary figuresas Jack London, Gertrude Atherton,Frank Norris, and the literary and artisticcommunityat Carmel. These sectionsare the best and most significantportions of the volume. Not only does Starr exhibit first-rate abilitiesas an historianof literature, he also demonstrates a keen eye for close reading of his many first-hand sources. Some readers mayquibble witha fewof his commentson London and Athertonand wishthathe had done more withHarte and the Overland but these faultsare Monthly, minor compared to his brilliantanalysis of the complicated fabric that made up California'searly culturalhistory. Americans and the CaliforniaDream is a major book in the West. Utilizingsome historiographyof the American literary of the research methodsand the findings of FranklinWalker,32 Starr also stressesthe importanceof understandingmyths and if symbols one is to comprehend the full meaning of the
32See Starr's introductionand bibliographyfor commentson his indebtednessto Walker.
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California dream. In addition, the author is aware of the arguments among historians about the significanceof the frontierin American history, and he seems to side withEarl Pomeroy in stressingthe continuitiesbetween East and West In sum, more than the novel experiences of the frontier.33 Starr's volume is well written,full of valuable insights,and replete with useful models for research on similar subjects. Indeed, it is the most importantvolume dealing withwestern Land. literaturesince Virgin To imply,as I may have done thus far,that Virgin Land has influenced directlyall researchcompleted on the literary West in the last twenty-five be would Other books years misleading. have made a significant impact on the field.During the 1960s and 70s, "myth critics," like Northrop Frye and Richard such as Chase,34 and specialists in American cultural history, have influencedstudentsof Leo Marx and R. W. B. Lewis,35 western literature,especially those who completed graduate work in departmentsof English or AmericanStudies. Scholars the literature of thatregion livingin the Southwestor studying cite work P. the of Walter Webb, J. Frank Dobie, frequently and Mody Boatrightas crucial in theirresearch and writing.36 In addition, the solid and stimulating workof Wallace Stegner,
"Toward a Reorientationof Western History:Continuity and Environ33Pomeroy, Historical XLI (1955), 579-600. ment,"Mississippi Review, Valley between the Romance and the Novel in Chase's TheAmerican 34Distinctions Noveland Its Tradition(New York, 1957) are essential to an understandingof some of Folsom's contentionsin TheAmerican Western Novel.Edwin W. Gastonalso makesextensiveuse of Chase in The EarlyNovel of theSouthwest (Albuquerque, 1961). of the literary WestswayedbySmith'sVirgin Land usuallycitetheworksof 35Students Marx (a studentof Smith) and Lewis as major influences on theirthinking and writing. As Richard Astro says, Marx's TheMachinein theGarden(New York, 1964) "has implications whichopened myeyes to certainfeatuesof Westernliterature" (Sept. 19, 1974). Glen Love findsSmith,Marx, and Lewis helpfulbecause theirresearchis "botheclectic and sound in its use of history, myth,and formalliterary analysis"(Sept. 24, 1974). Another scholar adds: "It's R. W. B. Lewis,and his book TheAmerican Adam,who's had more effectupon my thoughtsand workthan almostanyone else" (L. L. Lee, Oct. 28, 1974). 3"Orlan Sawey and Edwin W. Gaston cite Dobie, Boatright,and Webb as strong influences on their work (Sept. 20, 1974; Sept. 24, 1974). Southwesternnovelist Benjamin Capps writesthat "The only scholar who directlyinfluencedmy work was Mody Boatright,under whom I studied in the '40s" (Dec. 23, 1974).
The Rise ofa New Historiography 343 who is committedto the fruitful marriageof westernliterature and history, has placed its mark on several students." Another point of view that owes much to Bernard DeVoto has made itsimpact feltin the last twoor threedecades. In the early years of the twentieth century,westernnovelistEugene Manlove Rhodes complained that eastern publishers and readers knew littleabout the West and itswriting and thatthey tended to classifyall novels writtenabout the region as "just another Western." In the twentiesand thirties DeVoto began his argument with Van WyckBrooks and otherswho, DeVoto thought, misread the western influences at work on Mark Twain. DeVoto, and many of those who followed his outspoken views, argued that there was a continuingconflict between the East and West in which the latter was the have applied thisviewpoint to underdog. When commentators western writing, as Vardis Fisher and Robert Edson Lee have done,38 they have asserted that the West has produced some first-rate literature,but it has not been recognized as such by eastern, effetecritics;or, as anotherline of thisargumentruns, western writinghas not been consistently better because the East has dominated American culture and has not allowed or encouraged the truth to be writtenabout the West. These
37Thomas W. Ford writes:"I findWallace Stegneralwaysperceptive, especiallyfrom the standpointof someone who is close to theWest,dearlyloves it,yetis able to temper his love with criticalperception" (Oct. 4, 1974). Stegner'sprovocativeessays,particularly "Born a Square" and "History, Myth,and the Western Writer,"are cited frequentlyin general essaysabout the West.These articles, plus his otherpieces on western literatureand conservation, are collected in TheSoundofMountain Water (Garden City, 1969). As one advanced graduate studentin American history puts it,"I soundlydisbut I have agree with some of his centralcontentions[in The SoundofMountainWater] never read a book on the Westand itsliterature thatliftedmyown sights higher"(Gary who admitto Stegner's Topping, Oct. 14, 1974). Other specialistsin westernliterature influence on theirwork are John R. Miltonand Richard W. Etulain. 38The fullestaccount of DeVoto's battleswithVan WyckBrooks,the Lost Generation and Marxistinterpreters can be found in Wallace Stegner'sbrilliant The Uneasy writers, Chair: A Biography of BernardDeVoto (Garden City, 1974). Stegner'sbook proves that westernhistory and biographycan also be first-rate literature. Stegnerhas edited some of DeVoto's livelycorrespondence in TheLetters DeVoto(Garden City,1975). ofBernard Orlan Sawey deals withDeVoto's literary in Bernard DeVoto(New York, 1969). artistry Fisher's position is explicit in "The Western Writerand the Eastern Establishment," Western American comments are included Literature, I (1967), 244-259. Lee's provocative in his well-written West book, FromWesttoEast: Studiesin theLiterature of theAmerican (Urbana, 1966).
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antieastern commentators have gained several followers among currentstudentsof westernliterature.39 In the 1960s there was a sharp increase in the amount of material writtenabout the literaryWest. For the firsttime, those adventurous scholars who wished to study western writingfound several marketsopen to theirwork. Previously, editors of literary journals seemed convinced that nearly all the West was of an inferiorsortand not worthy about writing of scholarly attention. Historical magazines were willing to accept biographical articles about well-known authors like Cooper, Twain, and Harte, but reluctant to publish essays westernwriters. dealing with twentieth-century In 1962, the South Dakota Review was the first journal to Edited by declare its primaryinterestto be westernliterature. the few R. the has been one of Milton, quarterly John of known for its encouragement writingsby and magazines western authors. a talented about Milton, poet and writerof fiction,has devoted at least one or two issues each year to westernliterature.In addition to his editorialwork,Miltonhas that turned out a series of essays dealing withwesternwriters have gained him a substantialfollowing.40He emphasizes the and settingof westernliteratureand contends form,rhythm, that western fictionowes much to the patternsof man-land have been experience in the region. Milton's interpretations continued and amplifiedin the work of Max Westbrook,who stressestheJungian and mythic qualityof westernliterature.41
39The West as colony of the East is dealt with in Gene Gressley,"Colonialism: A LIV (1963), 1-8; and in the eleven Western Complaint," PacificNorthwest Quarterly, essays collected in "The American West as an Underdeveloped Region,"Journalof Economic XVI (Dec. 1956). The same subject is treatedgenerallyin Gerald D. History, A ShortHistory Nash, The AmericanWestin the Twentieth of an Urban Oasis Century: stresseconomic and politicalhistory;I (Englewood Cliffs,N. J., 1973). These writers the dangers of thistheorywhen it is applied to western have tried to point out briefly Historical literaturein "Research Opportunitiesin Western LiteraryHistory,"Western IV (1973), 263-272. Quarterly, 40See, for example, Milton, "The Western Novel: Sources and Forms," Chicago DakotaReview, II Review,XVI (1963), 74-100; "The Novel in the AmericanWest,"South Western (1964), 56-76; "The American West: A Challenge to the Literary Imagination," American I (1967), 267-284; and "The WesternNovel: Whence and What?" Literature, to Western American Literature (Pocatello, Idaho, 1972), 7-21. Interpretive Approaches "Conservative,Liberal, and Western:Three Modes of AmericanReal41Westbrook, ism," South Dakota Review,IV (1966), 3-19; "The Practical Spirit: Sacralityand the American West," Western American III (1968), 193-205. The ideas in these Literature, Van Tilburg Walter stimulating essays and several othersare summarizedin Westbrook's Clark (New York, 1969).
The Rise ofa New Historiography 345 An even more widely known journal is Western American which firstappeared in 1966. Sponsored by the Literature, Western LiteratureAssociation,this reviewhas been the most available outlet in the last decade for research about western writing.Included in each year's winterissue is a useful annual bibliography of books, articles,and unpublished theses and dissertations. Thus far, most of the articles accepted for publication in the journal have been competent essays have centering on specificworks or authors; few contributors ventured comprehensive views of western writing.42As scholarship on the subject matures and critics become acquainted with more of the literature of the West, the editorial staffof the journal should be able to demand more wide-rangingessays. Other magazines have been open to essaysabout the literary American West. Southwestern Literature, published by the Southwestern American LiteratureAssociation,reflects the interests Review of that region. Until its demise in 1973, Western on all of the contributions Two West. aspects literary published the Western History Association, The journals representing Historical have accepted a American Westand Western Quarterly, few significant about western On occasion, literature.43 essays The Roundup, the house organ of the Western Writers of America, includes a surprisingly good articleon the popular Western. But the journal that has been most receptive to Dediresearch on the Westernis theJournal ofPopularCulture. cated to the idea that the culture of all Americans deserves study,thismagazine has devoted considerablespace to popular literatureand has published twospecial issues dealing withthe Western.44 in westernliterature Other evidence of the increased interest in two the Steck-Vaughn recent pamphlet collections, is found
and John Cawelti 42The essays of John R. Milton,Don D. Walker, Max Westbrook, are exceptions. X (Nov. 1973). West, 43See "Writersand the West: A Special Issue," The American Three broad-based articlesin Western Historical are RichardWestSellars,"The Quarterly Interrelationship of Literature, History, and Geography in Western Writing,"IV (1973), 171-185; Etulain, "Research Opportunitiesin Western LiteraryHistory,"IV in (1973), 263-272; and Don D. Walker,"The Mountain Man Journal: Its Significance a LiteraryHistoryof the Fur Trade," V (1974), 307-318. "44Thetwo special issues are IV (Fall 1970), 455-526; and VII (Winter 1973), 647-753. The latterwas reprintedin Etulain and Marsden, eds., ThePopularWestern: a Definition. Essaystoward
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Southwest WritersSeries and the Boise State WesternWriters Series. More than thirtypamphlets were published in the formergroup, and by the end of 1975 twenty had appeared in the latter collection. Intended as fifty-page introductions for students and scholars, these pamphlets seem to have fulfilled their modest purpose.45 Major authors like Clark, Fisher, have been dealt with as well as Guthrie, Stegner, and Jeffers such lesser known writers as Charles A. Siringo, Emerson Hough, and J. Mason Brewer. The voluminous Twayne United States Authors series contains several volumes on western writers.Notable Twayne volumes are those by Max Westbrook on Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Edwin W. Gaston, Jr., on Conrad Richter, Frederic I. Carpenter on Robinson Jeffers,David Madden on WrightMorris,Warren French on John Steinbeck and Frank Norris,Joseph M. Flora on Vardis Fisher, Thomas J.Lyon on Frank Waters,and Earle Labor on Jack London. In addition to the numerous books, journals, series, and organizations noted thus far, several persons have also influenced the historiographyof western literaturethrough their teaching and their directionof theses and dissertations. John Flanagan has given courses in midwesternand western literaturefor several decades at the University of Illinois,and some of his studentshave produced first-rate dissertations and books.46The studentsof Henry Nash Smithat the universities of Minnesota and California,Berkeley,have contributed much to our understanding of Mark Twain and the literaryWest. And those who have studied with Russel B. Nye (Michigan State University)47 and John Cawelti (University of Chicago) have turned out notable contributions in the areas of American cultural and literaryhistory.John R. Milton (Universityof South Dakota) has directed several graduate projects and
"See the briefreviewof the Boise State seriesin TheNewRepublic, CLXXII (March 1, IX (1975), 312-314. American 1975), 32, and the longer estimatein Western Literature, dissertations" he has directed "4Flanagan estimatesthat "over half of the some sixty "bear a direct relation to the middle or far west" (Sept. 17, 1974). one of the best general studiesof westernliterature. 47Astudent of Nye has written Unfortunately,it remains unpublished. See Francis E. Hodgins, Jr., "The Literary Emancipation of a Region: The Changing Image of the American West in Fiction" (Ph.D. dissertation,Michigan State University, 1957).
The Rise ofa New Historiography 347 served as consultant for many others. As directorof creative writing for many years at Stanford before his recent retirement, Wallace Stegner worked with such talented novelistsas Ken Kesey and LarryMcMurtry and inspiredother West. students to study carefullythe literary But in the last decade Don D. Walker of the University of Utah has had the largest impact on students of western on those scholarswho have been active literature,particularly in the Western LiteratureAssociation.Both editorsof Western studied withWalker, and several members American Literature of the journal's editorial board are his former students.48 Walker especially encourages students to study the relationships between western historyand literature,and he essays. His practices well what he preaches in his stimulating willingness to utilize techniques and findings from several disciplines and his use at timesof the close reading methodsof formalist critics reveal his training in American Studies. Beyond this, Walker writes with the humor and verve of a frustratednovelist, and his essays demonstratethat western literary studies can be both entertainingand intellectually It is increasinglyapparent that as teacher and stimulating.49 writer Walker has had as much impact in the 1970s on the study of western literatureas his mentor Henry Nash Smith. In the last decade the historiographyof the American literary West has come of age. The premier contributions to this development have been the worksof FranklinWalker
American Literature. Thomas J. Golden Taylor was the foundingeditorof Western 48J. Lyon now serves as editor. Alan Crooks, Levi Peterson, L. L. Lee, Neal Lambert, Richard Cracroft, Merrill Lewis, Ernest Bulow, and Gary Topping are a few of Walker's many students. 49Fewwriterscan match the livelinessof Walker's "The Rise and Fall of Barney American Literature, III (1968), 93-102, which should be required Tullus," Western Besides the articlesmentionedpreviously, reading forall studentsof westernliterature. other notable essaysby Walker include: "The Mountain Man as Literary Hero," Western American Literature, I (1966), 15-25; "Can the WesternTell What Happens?" Interpretive American to Western Literature, 33-47; "Philosophical and LiteraryImplicaApproaches American IX (1974), tions in the Historiographyof the Fur Trade," Western Literature, of the Western,"ThePopularWestern, 79-104; and "Notes toward a LiteraryCriticism 86-99. Walker edits and publishes The PossibleSack, a journal devoted to western of Utah, freefromthe Departmentof English,University literaturewhichis distributed Salt Lake City.
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and Henry Nash Smith. Walker laid the earlier foundationof solid historical studies, and Smith, through his emphasis on symbol and mythand on the importanceof studyingpopular literature,broadened interpretive approaches to westernliterature. Finally, within the last five years the writingsof such talented commentators as Richard Slotkin, JohnCawelti,Kevin Starr, and Don Walker have demonstrated that first-rate scholars are turning their attentionto the literaryWest and producing provocative books and essays about the subject."5 Western literary studiesare no longer in theiradolescentstage; they have taken on a new maturity.
50In addition to the authors and books mentionedhere, one mightread two collections of essays to gauge the current status of western literarystudies: Interpretive to Western American which contains essays by John Milton,DelLiterature, Approaches bert E. Wylder, Don Walker, and Max Westbrookand an annotated bibliography of other recent works; and Etulain and Marsden, eds., The Popular Western, which is a handy guide to contemporaryevaluations of the popular Westernand includes eight essays and a selective bibliography.Western Writing (Albuquerque, 1974), edited by Gerald Haslam, containsa dozen of the bestessaysthathave been written on thesubject isJayGurian's years.The mostrecentstudyof westernliterature during the last twenty Western AmericanWriting: Tradition and Promise(Deland, Fla., 1975), which analyzes what the author considers the major themesand styles in westernwriting. Haslam has also edited a series of lecture-tapes on western American literaturefor Everett/ of the growinginterest in Edwards, Deland, Florida (1974-1975). Anotherillustration western literatureis the competitionamong several university presses-New Mexico, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Brigham Young, and Utah, for example-for manuscripts dealing with the literaryWest.

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The American Literary West and Its Interpreters: The Rise of a New Historiography Author(s): Richard W.

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The Rise ofa New Historiography

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