Transcendentalism

General considerations:

transcendentalism, a philosophical theory that postulates the existence of realities which, though they are
beyond the reach of the senses and the understanding, the mind may nevertheless apprehend by direct
intuition.
in philosophy and literature, belief in a higher reality than that found in sense experience or in a higher kind of
knowledge than that achieved by human reason
nearly all transcendentalist doctrines stem from the division of reality into a realm of spirit and a realm of
matter
the concept of transcendence was developed by Plato
something beyond description and knowable ultimately only through intuition
God (divinity) is transcendent, he cannot be described in terms taken from human experience as he exists
outside of nature and is, therefore, unknowable

Nineteenth Century American Transcendentalism

not a religion (in the traditional sense of the word)

a pragmatic philosophy, a state of mind, and a form of spirituality

Basic Assumption:

the intuitive faculty, instead of the rational or sensical, became the means for a conscious union of the
individual psyche (known in Sanskrit as Adman (?) )with the world psyche also known as the Oversoul, life-
force, prime mover (?) and God (known in Sanskrit as Brahma)

Basic Premises:

1. An individual is the spiritual centre of the universe - and in an individual can be found the clue to nature, history
and, ultimately, the cosmos itself. It is not a rejection of the existence of God, but a preference to explain an
individual and the world in terms of an individual
2. The structure of the universe literally duplicates the structure of the individual self - all knowledge, therefore,
begins with self-knowledge. This is similar to Aristotle's dictum "know thyself."
3. Transcendentalists accepted the neo-Platonic conception of nature as a living mystery, full of signs - nature is
symbolic
4. The belief that individual virtue and happiness depend upon self-realization - this depends upon the
reconciliation of two universal psychological tendencies:

- the expansive or self-transcending tendency - a desire to embrace the whole world - to know and become one
with the world
- the contracting or self-asserting tendency - the desire to withdraw, remain unique and separate - an egotistical
existence

This dualism assumes our two psychological needs:

the contracting: being unique, different, special, having a racial identity, ego-centered, selfish
the expansive: being the same as others, altruistic, be one of the human race

This dualism has aspects of Freudian id and superego; the Jungian shadow and persona, the Chinese
ying/yang, and the Hindu movement from Atman (egotistic existence) to Brahma (cosmic existence).

Correspondence

It is a concept which suggests that the external is united with the internal. Physical or material nature is neutral
or indifferent or objective; it s neither beautiful nor ugly
 Transcendentalists believed that "knowing yourself" and "studying nature" is the same activity. Nature mirrors
our psyche.

Transcendentalism and the American Past

Transcendentalism as a movement is rooted in the American past: To Puritanism it owed its pervasive
morality and the "doctrine of divine light." It is alo similar to the Quaker "inner light." However, both these
concepts assume acts of God, whereas intuition is an act of an individual.
To Romanticism it owed the concept of nature as a living mystery and not a clockwork universe (deism)
which is fixed and permanent.

Transcendentalism was a 1. spiritual, 2. philosophical and 3. literary movement and is located in the history
of American Thought as:

a) Post-Unitarian and free thinking in religious spirituality

b) Kantian and idealistic in philosophy and
c) Romantic and individualistic in literature.

Basic Tenets of American Transcendentalism

Transcendentalism, essentially, is a form of idealism.

The transcendentalist "transcends" or rises above the lower animalistic impulses of life (animal drives) and
moves from the rational to a spiritual realm.
The human soul is part of the Oversoul or universal spirit (or "float" for Whitman) to which it and other souls
return at death.
Therefore, every individual is to be respected because everyone has a portion of that Oversoul (God). This
Oversoul or Life Force or God can be found everywhere - travel to holy places is, therefore, not necessary.
God can be found in both nature and human nature (Nature, Emerson stated, has spiritual manifestations.)
Jesus also had part of God in himself - he was divine as everyone is divine - except in that he lived an
exemplary and transcendental life and made the best use of that power which is within each one.

"Miracle is monster"

The miracles of the Bible are not to be regarded as important as they were to the people of the past. Miracles
are all about us - the whole world is a miracle and the smallest creature is one. "A mouse is a miracle enough
to stagger quintillions of infidels." - Whitman
More important than a concern about the afterlife, should be a concern for this life - "the one thing in the world
of value is the active soul." - Emerson

"Give me one world at a time." - Thoreau

Death is never to be feared, for at death the soul merely passes to the oversoul.
Emphasis should be placed on the here and now.
Evil is a negative - merely an absence of good. Light is more powerful than darkness because one ray of light
penetrates the dark. In other words, there is no belief in the existence of Satan as an active entity forcing
humans to commit immortality. Humans are good and if they do immortal acts they do so out of ignorance and
by not thinking.
Power is to be obtained by defying fate or predestination, which seem to work against humans, by exercising
one's own spiritual and moral strength. Emphasis on self-reliance.
Hence, the emphasis is placed on a human thinking. The transcendentalists see the necessity of examples of
great leaders, writers, philosophers, and others, to show what an individual can become through thinking and
action.
It is foolish to worry about consistency, because what an intelligent person believes tomorrow, if he/she trusts
oneself, tomorrow may be completely different from what that person thinks and believes today. "A foolish
consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds." - Emerson
The unity of life and universe must be realized. There is a relationship between all things. One must have faith
in intuition, for no church or creed can communicate truth.
 Transcendental Legacy

The influence on contemporary writers: Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman and Dickinson.
The Concord School of Philosophy founded by A. Bronson Alcott and William T. Harris in 1879
The Movements: Mind Cure through Positive Thinking - Christian Science (Mary Baker Eddy) and New
Thought (Warren F. Evans).
William James and his ideas on the "subconscious"
The influence on Mahatma Gandhi, Rev. M. L. King Jr., and others who protested using civil disobedience
The influence on the "beat" generation of the 1950s and the "young radicals" of the '60s and '70s who
practiced dissent, anti-materialism, anti-war, and anti-work ethic sentiments.

Transcendental Journals

- 1835-1841 The Western Messenger (Cincinnati, ed. James Freeman Clarke, 1836-39, and Christopher Pearse
Cranch))
- 1838-1842 Boston Quarterly Review (ed. Orestes Brownson)
- 1840-1844 The Dial (eds. Margaret Fuller, till 1842, and R. W. Emerson)
- 1843-1844 The Present (ed. William Henry Channing)
- 1843 The Phalanx became
- 1845-1849 Harbinger (ed. George Ripley)
- 1847-1850 Massachusetts Quarterly Review (ed. Theodore Parker)
- 1849 Aesthetic Papers (ed. Elizabeth Peabody; famous for publishing Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil
Government" or "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience")
- 1849-1850 Spirit of the Age

Transcendentalism was a philosophical, literary, social, and theological movement.

German and English Romanticism provided some inspiration towards the search for dome deeper 'truth'

"Transcendentalism represented a complex response to the democratization of American life, to the rise of
science and the new technology, and to the new industrialism - to the whole question, in short, of the
redefinition of the relation of man to nature and to other men that was being demanded by the course of
history."

Influences:

From Plato came the idealism according to which reality subsists beyond the appearances of the world. Plato
also suggests that the world is an expression of spirit, or mind, which is sheer intelligibility(zrozumiao) and
therefore good.
From Immanuel Kant came the notion of the 'native spontaneity of the human mind' against the passive
conception of the 18th c. sensational theory (also known as the philosophy of empiricism of John Locke and
David Hume; the concept that the mind begins as a tabula rasa and that all knowledge develops from
sensation).
From Coleridge came the importance of wonder, of antirationalism, and the importance of individual
consciousness.
From Puritanism came the ethical seriousness and the aspect of Jonathan Edwards that suggested that an
individual can receive divine light immediately and directly.

"Transcendentalism was, at its core, a philosophy of naked individualism, aimed at the creation of the new
American, the self-reliant man, complete and independent."

the abolition of slavery

Utopian, socialist experiments (Brook Farm)
Feminism (Margaret Fuller)

1. Nathaniel Hawthorne 1804-1864

born in Salem, Massachusetts, into an old Puritan family

 Fanshawe 1828, published at his own expense
Twice-Told Tales 1837, established Hawthorne as a leading writer
In 1852 he wrote a campaign biography of his college friend, Franklin Pierce. After Pierces election to the US
presidency, he rewarded Hawthorne with the consulship at Liverpool, England, a post Hawthorne held until
1857
In 1858 and 1859 Hawthorne lived in Italy, collecting material for his heavily symbolic novel, The Marble Faun
1860
In 1860, he returned to the US
The Scarlet Letter 1850
1850 Lenox, Massachusetts, where he enjoyed the friendship of the novelist Herman Melville
The House of the Seven Gables 1851
A Wonder Book for Girls and Boys 1852
1841 joined the communal society at Brook Farm near Boston, 1842 he married Sophia Amelia Peabody of
Salem and settled in Concord, Massachusetts, in a house called the Old Manse
Mosses from an Old Manse 1846 include Rappaccinis Daughter and Young Goodman Brown
worked as a surveyor of the Salem customhouse
Tanglewood Tales for Girls and Boys 1853
The Snow-Image and Other Twice-Told Tales 1852
The Blithedale Romance 1852
unfinished novels: Septimus Felton 1872, The Dolliver Romancce 1876, Dr. Grimshawes Secret 1883, The
Ancestral Fooststeps 1883, American Notebooks 1868, English Notebooks 1870, French and Italian
Notebooks 1871
modern psychological insight, father of psychological romance, secret motivations in human behavior, guilt and
anxiety, the consequences of sin, punishment due to lack of humility and overwhelming pride, regeneration by
love and atonement
most of his books are romances, the atmosphere of his scenes: allegory and symbolism, aim: to expose the
truth of the human heart, the emotional and intellectual ambivalence he felt to be inseparable from the Puritan
heritage of America

2/3. Herman Melville 1819-1891

born in New York City

1839 he shipped to Liverpool, England as a cabin boy
1841 sailed for the South Seas in 1841 on the whaler Acushnet. After an 18-month voyage Melville deserted
the ship in the Marquesas Islands and with a companions lived for a month among the natives, who were
cannibals
1843 he enlisted as a seaman on the U.S. Navy frigate United States
- 1844 discharged from the Navy began to write novels based on his experiences: Typee: A Peep at Polynesian
Life 1846, Omoo, a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas 1847, Mardi 1849, Redburn, His First Voyage
1849, White-Jacket, or the World in a Man-of-War 1850
1850 Melville moved to a farm near Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where he became an intimate friend of the
American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, to whom Melville dedicated his masterpiece
- Moby Dick, or the Whale 1851

4. Walt Whitman 1819-1892

Life:

Born near Huntington, New York

Brooklyn, New York attended public school
New York City worked in printing shops
Long Island in 1835 taught in country schools
New York City worked as a printer and journalist; enjoyed the theater, the opera, and the libraries
Edited the influential Brooklyn Eagle
A brief sojourn in New Orleans, Louisiana
Various jobs like building houses

1855 Whitman issued the first edition of Leaves of Grass

Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

 Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

Drum-Taps 1864 the hope for reconciliation between North and South

During the Civil War, Whitman ministered wounded soldiers in union army hospitals in Washington, D.C.

1873 suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed, settled in Camden, New Jersey

Public man liked to have his photographs taken

Prose Democratic Vistas, published in 1871 a classic discussion of the theory of democracy and its
possibilities

Impact:

Whitmans poetry has been translated into every major language

A formative influence on the work of such American writers as: Harte, Crane, William Carlos Williams, Wallace
Stevens, Allen Ginsberg

5. Emily Dickinson 1830-1886

Born in Amherst, Massachusetts

From 1840 to 1847 she attended the Amherst Academy, and from 1847 to 1848 she studied at the Mount
Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College)
A trip to Washington, D.C. in the late 1850s
A few trips to Boston for eye treatments
Dickinson lived in the same house on Main Street from 1855 until her death
She published only about 10 of her nearly 2000 poems
Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, was published in
1890
The play The Belle of Amherst 1976
Entertained guests at her home and at the home of her brother and sister-in-law
A voluminous correspondence with friends, family, a spiritual mentor
Dickinsons sister-in-law, Susan Dickinson 1998 Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinsons Intimate Letters to
Susan Huntington Dickinson

Literary influences:

The Bible
William Shakespeare, John Milton, Charles Dickens, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, George Eliot, Thomas Carlyle
Barrett Browning, Scottish poet Robert Browning, John Keats and George Herbert

Literary devices:

She frequently employed off-rhymes: ocean with noon and seam with swim
Defamiliarization, using common language/words in startling ways
Intense metaphors
Ellipsis the omission of a word or phrase necessary for a complete syntactic construction but not necessary
for understanding

The visual aspects of her poetry:

Arranged and broke lines of verse in highly unusual ways to underscore meaning
Created extravagantly shaped letters of the alphabet to emphasize or play with a poems sense
Incorporated cutouts from novels, magazines, and even the Bible to augment her own use of language

Mark Twain 1835-1910

Real name: Samuel Langhorne Clemens

Born in Florina, Mo., on Nov. 30, 1835, grew up in Hannibal, Mo., on the Mississippi
 Began his career as a journeyman printer. Later he joined his brother Orion in abortive efforts to edit
newspapers, first in Hannibal, then in Muscatine and Keokuk, Iowa. His first attempts at humor appeared
mainly in these papers.
He became an expert printer, and between 1853 and 1857 visited St. Louis, New York, Philadelphia,
Washington, and Cleveland, supporting himself by his trade.
In 1857 he set out for New Orleans. En route, talks with the pilot Horace Bixby, revived the boyhood dream of
learning the river, and Bixby agreed to take Clemens on as a cub. He became a licensed pilot in 1859, and
until Secession closed the river he appears to have been regularly employed.
In 1861 Clemens joined his brother in Nevada. He has enough saved from his pilots earnings to support
himself through almost a year of fruitless prospecting.
During that year he contributed some humorous skits to the Territorial Enterprise of Virginia City, and in August
1862, was invited to join the staff. Seeking a good pen name, he chose the Mississippi leadsmans call, mark
twain (i. e. two fathoms safe water).
In 1864, a quarrel with a rival journalist, whom he challenged to a duel, forced Clemens to flee to San
Francisco. For the next two years he worked for various California papers, except for an interlude (December
1864-February 1865) on Jackass Hill in the Mother Lode country of California. There he lived with Jim Gillis, a
prospector and a masterly teller of tall storied, who appears in Mark Twains books as Jim Baker and Dick
Stoker.
Early in 1866 the Sacramento Union commissioned Clemens to do a series of letters about Hawaii. Their
popularity encouraged him to try a humorous lecture on his experiences. First delivered in San Francisco on
October 2, with huge success, the lecture was repeated on a three-month tour. In December Clemens agreed
to supply a weekly newsletter to the Alta California of San Francisco and set out for New York via Nicaragua.
In New York he saw the announcement of a Mediterranean cruise in the steamer Quaker City and persuaded
the Alta to send him with it. Besides supplying the material for The Innocents Abroad, the tour brought him the
friendship of young Charles Langdon of Elmira, N.Y., whose sister Olivia he married, after a checkered
courtship, on. Feb. 2, 1870. With help from Jervis Langdon, his prosperous father-in-law, Clemens bought an
interest in the Buffalo Express, intending to make journalism his career.
The venture proved unhappy. Jervis Langdon died of cancer, Olivia, worn out with helping to nurse her father,
gave premature birth to a son, Langdon, who died in infancy.
In 1871 Clemens moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where Elisha Bliss of the American Publishing Co. the
subscription firm which handled The Innocents.. had his office
There the Nook Farm group, which included Harriet Beecher Stowe, Charles Dudley Warner, and Theodore
Hooker, furnished congenial company. In the big house on Farmington Avenue, Clemens spent his happiest,
most productive years, and Olivia bore three daughters: Susy (1872-1896), Clara (1874-1962), and Jean
(1880-1909).
In 1884 Clemens established his own subscription firm under the nominal management of his nephew by
marriage, Charles L. Webster. Their first publications were Huckleberry Finn (1884), and U.S. Grants Memoirs
(1885), the latter setting an all-time high in subscription sales. This success could not be repeated. The
Webster Company failed in the depression of 1893-1894.
To economize, the Clemenses in 1891 went to Europe and for the next decade had no permanent home. For a
couple of years Clemens himself returned at intervals to New York, in vain hopes of salvaging something from
the wreckage. Henry H. Rogers of the Standard Oil Company befriended him, and in 1894 handled the
negotiations with the Webster Companys creditors.
Clemens announced that he would pay all debts in full, and in July 1895 began a lecture tour around the world.
The tour was a triumph ending in heartbreak. Olivia and Clara had accompanied Clemens; Susy and Jean had
remained with their mothers family. On Aug. 18, 1896, Susy died of meningitis before her mother could reach
her.
Within four years all debts were paid, and Rogers management had stabilized the familys finances. Clemens
came home in 1900, to public honors and private grieves.
Olivia died in 1904, after long suffering, Jean had a fatal epileptic seizure on Christmas Eve, 1909, at
Stormfield, Clemens new home at Redding, Conn. He followed her in death less than four months later on Apr.
21, 1910.
He was proud of his public honors, which had culminated in a Litt.D. from Oxford in 1907, but his heart knew
its own bitterness. His last, most scathing invective against the damned race, Letters From the Earth, was
held from publication by his daughter Clara until 1962.
 WORKS:

- The Innocent Abroad (1869) made him nationally famous, with 40,000 sales in its first year. It also
established a pattern visible in much of his subsequent work a journey in space.
- Roughing It (1872)
- The Gilded Age 1874 written in collaboration with Charles Dudley Warner. Meant as contemporary social
satire, the story gave its name to the Grant administration.
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876)
- Life on the Mississippi 1883
- Huckleberry Finn 1884
- The Prince and The Pauper 1881 Clemens first attempt at historical romance
- A Connecticut Recollections of Joan of Arc 1896
- Puddnhead Wilson 1894
- Tom Sawyer Abroad 1894
- Tom Sawyer, Detective 1896
- The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 1898
- What is man? 1906
- The Mysterious Stranger 1916

Other writers on Twain father of modern American literature, especially because of Huckleberry Finn

Wealth and fame gave him the armature for his major works. Lived through three larger than life American
presidencies: Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt

Publicity:

Drew on elements of public style and self-promotion, knew how to grab publicity and turn it to good use for the
business
The first modern literary politician, the first newspaper and media personality, the first cartoon figure
Mark Twain, Incorporated

The pen name Mark Twain is more like a brand name in a commercial world of celebrities, advertisements
and products such as Ivory Soap, Coca Cola, McDonalds, or Levis

It was an enterprise that included:

Popular travel writing

Coast-to-coast lecturing
Door-to-door subscription sales of his books
A publishing house
Speculations in various inventions

His name was a trademark stabilized by a fixed and eccentric appearance.

His Hartford mansion (recalling a Mississippi River steamboat) was a form of corporate headquarters.

Designed by Edward Tuckerman Potter

Known for its apparent whimsy and stylistic idiosyncrasy, but also praised as an inspired and sophisticated
expression of modernity.
Defined mostly by the variety and unpredictability of its elements (no two elevations are alike; generally
symmetrical gables are, upon closer inspection, subtly different in their decorative treatments)
Employed new technologies, such as a gravity flow heat system and flush toilets
(now the Mark Twain House&Museum)

Three features of American culture were vital to Clemenss work

The newspaper
The lecture platform
The new national market made possible by the door-to-door salesman and the Sears, Roebuck Catalog
 Twain was aware of his audience and positioned his books in a calculated way. He followed every move of the
best seller market.

- The Prince and the Pauper (1882), and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court (1889) exploited the
popularity of childrens books and romance fantasies
- Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc 1896 followed Lew Wallaces Ben-Hur, and Henryk Sienkiewiczs- Quo
Vadis?
- Puddnhead Wilson 1894 picked up the detective story fad in the wake of Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock
Holmes
- Adventures of Huckleberry Finn responded to the craze started by Uncle Remus stories.

Twain followed Charles Dickens: a novel of the speaking voice, the novel as a gallery of voices.

The exploration and settlement of the American West coincided with the great European exploration of the
Nile, Africa and the Arctic
The invasion of another culture, the outsiders disturbing presence and his destructive impact. Twain was the
first Western writer aware of the nihilism latent in the crossing of cultural borders.

Hank Morgans visit to the world of King Arthur

9. Realism and Naturalism

Realism is an attempt to describe human behavior and surroundings or to represent figures and objects
exactly as they act or appear in life (a faithful representation of reality).

A movement that began in the mid 19th century, in reaction to the highly subjective approach of romanticism

The novel of Gustave Flaubert

The short stories of Guy de Maupassant
The plays and short stories of Anton Chekov
George Eliot introduced realism into English fiction
Mark Twain and William Dean Howells were the pioneers of realism in the US
Henry Jamess concern with the character motivation and behavior led to the development of the psychological
novel
The main tenet of realism: = writers must set down their observations impartially and objectively
Faithful representation of life and character
Middle-class life and preoccupations

Naturalism in literature, the theory that literary composition should be based on an objective, empirical
presentation of human beings.

Naturalistic writers:

regard human behavior as controlled by instinct, emotion, or social and economic conditions
Reject free will
Adopt the biological determinism of Charles Darwin and the economic determinism of Karl Marx

Exponents of Naturalism

First prominently exhibited in the writings of

Edmond Louis de Goncourt

His brother Jules Alfred Huot de Goncourt
Emile Zola

American exponents of naturalism:

Frank Norris
Sherwood Anderson
John Dos Passos
Theodore Dreiser
 James T. Farrell

William Dean Howells 1837-1920

American novelist and critic, born in Ohio

In 1860, he wrote the campaign biography of Abraham Lincoln. After Lincolns election, Howells was appointed
US consul in Venice, Italy, in 1861
In 1866, he became assistant editor of the literary magazine The Atlantic Monthly. Her served as editor in chief
from 1871 through 1881.
From 1909 until his death, he was president of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

William Dean Howells wrote more than 30 novels, among them:

- A modern Instance 1882, the story of a failed marriage,

- A Womans Reason 1883, a study of Boston society,
- The Rise of Silas Lapham 1885, a study of a self-made businessman who never loses his integrity

In the 1880s Howells became concerned with social issues:

- Annie Kilburn 1888 deals with class contrasts in a New England town
- A traveler from Altruria 1894 and Through the Eye of the Needle 1907 explored the problems of industrial
America
- A Hazard of New Fortunes 1890, a dramatic novel about the newly rich, socialism and labor strife in NYC, may
be Howells best work of fiction

The critical works of William Dean Howells include: Criticism and Fiction 1891, My Literary Passions 1895, and
Literature and Life 1902

Supported a diverse group of authors:

Introduced American audiences to Emile Zola, Benito Perez Galdos, Henrik Ibsen, and Leo Tolstoy
Encouraged: Stephen Crane, Frank Norris, and Hamilton Garland
Promoted women writers: Sarah Orne Jewett, Edith Wharton, and Emily Dickinson
Editor and friend to Henry Jams and Mark Twain

(Hannibal) Hamlin Garland 1860-1940

Born in West Salem, Wisconsin. He grew up working on farms

In 1884 he moved to Boston, Massachusetts, where he established a friendship with William Dean Howells.
The economics of farming in the Midwest furnished the central themes of his short stories
The grim conditions of American farm life: Main-Travelled Roads 1890, Other Main-Travelled Roads 1910
In 1894 Garland published Crumbling Idols, a volume of essays on literature and art in which he proposed his
critical theory of veritism, a socially conscious realism intended to express unembellished(nieozdobiona) truth
Hamlin Garland was involved in economic reform, and feminist reform movements
An advocate for Native American rights
- Autobiographical works: 1917 Son of the Middle Border, 1922 Daughter of the Middle Border

Jack London 1876-1916

Born John Griffith London in San Francisco

Worked at various odd jobs, and in 1897 and 1898 he participated in the Alaska gold rush

Wrote more than 50 books, experienced enormous popular success as an author

- The call of the wild 1903

- People of the Abyss 1903, about the poor in London
- The sea wolf 1904, a novel based on the authors experiences on a seal hunting ship
- Martin Eden 1909, an autobiographical novel about a writers life; John Barleycorn 1913, an autobiographical
novel about Londons struggle against alcoholism;
- The star river 1915, a collection of related stories dealing with reincarnation
 Frank Norris 1870-1902

Born in Chicago
Educated at the University of California and Harvard University
A newspaper correspondent during the Spanish-American War 1898 and the Boer War 1899-1902
- McTeague 1899, the tragedy caused by greed in the lives of ordinary people
- The Octopus 1901
- The Pit 1903
Vandover and the Brute 1914
A Mans Woman 1900
The Responsibilities of the Novelist and Other Literary Essays 1903

Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser 1871-1945

Born in Indiana, Dreiser was a reporter for the Chicago Daily Glob in 1892, traveling correspondent for the St.
Louis Globe Democrat and for the St. Louis Republican from 1893 to 1894

- Sister Carrie 1900

- Jenny Gerhardt 1911
- The Financier 1912
- The Titan 1914
- The Genius 1915
- An American Tragedy 1925

Dreiser believed in representing life honestly in his fiction, through detailed descriptions of the urban settings.
His characters are victims of social and economic forces and of fate. A member of the US Communist Party

- Dreiser Looks at Russia 1928

- Tragic America 1932
- America is worth saving 1941

Stephen Crane 1871-1900

Born in Newark, New Jersey

In 1891, NYC as a freelance reporter in the slums
Maggie, a Girl of the Streets 1893
The Red Badge of Courage
Crane was a correspondent during the Greco-Turkish War 1897 and the Spanish-American War 1898, The
Open Boat and Other stories 1898
Befriended by Joseph Conrad and Henry James
Two volumes of poetry: The Black Riders and Other Lines 1895, War is Kind and Other Poems 1899
Early examples of experimental free verse

Henry James 1843-1916

James was born In NYC on April 15, 1843

The second son of Henry James, a noted Swedenborgian theologian and social theorist, and the younger
brother of William James, the psychologist and philosopher
 James childhood and early youth were passed in unusually stimulating surroundings: He belonged to a novel-
reading, playgoing family., Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson were frequent visitors to his household.
The family had a substantial income Henry James, Sr., had inherited his fathers estate of $3 million and
periodically lived in Europe.

Education

James went to a number of schools and was provided with private tutors.
His education came from his walks, his reading, especially of novels, and his visits to the parks and museums
of European cities where he observed the people around him.
In 1860 the James family returned from Europe and settled in Newport, R.I. There the 17-year old Henry
developed a friendship with the painter John La Farge, which is reflected in his fiction: many of James major
characters are artists, and his imagery is often derived from painting.
In 1861 James received a back injury which prevented him from enlisting with the North at the outbreak of the
Civil War.
In 1865 James first signed short story appeared in the Atlantic Monthly. Its editor, William Dean Howells,
became a lifelong friend.

Europe

James made his first independent trip to Europe in 1869, going first to London and then to the continent. He
observed not only the countries themselves but also his fellow citizens: Americans adrift in the Old World,
bewildered by an environment with deep historical associations, filled with a profound sense of human
corruption but also an appreciation for beauty and the sensuous texture of experience.

This year abroad provided James with the international theme of much of his fiction: the collusion of the Old
and the New World, usually in the form of some innocent American lured but finally betrayed by Europe.

Work 1870s

First novel, Watch and Ward, in 1870.

First significant short story, A Passionate Pilgrim, published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1871. His early tales,
usually depicting American manners and relationships, reflect the influence of Dickens, Balzac, Hawthorne,
and George Eliot.
Roderick Hudson 1875, a novel describing the disintegration of a young American sculptor living in Rome

Paris

In 1875 he took up residence in Paris

A friend of the Russian novelist Ivan Turgenev
Member of the literary circle composed of Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, Emile Zola, Alphonse
Daudet, and Edmond de Goncourt

London

James felt himself an outsider in France, and in 1876 he emigrated to England. He lived in London for two
decades, occasionally journeying to the continent to gather material for his travel writing. His fiction focused on
the international theme.

- The American 1877

- Daisy Miller 1878
- The Portrait of a lady 1881
- Washington Square 1881
- The Bostonians 1886
- The Princess Casamassima 1886
- The Tragic Muse 1890
In 1897 James purchased Lamb House in Rye. He divided his time between writing and entertaining visitors.
Led a remarkable social life; he records dining out 107 times one winter.
A great favourite with the ladies, he never married.
 James emotional life has long fascinated critics. His fiction is unusually cerebral in nature, continually
emphasizing intellectual perception rather than immediate physical experience

Work 1900s

With the turn of the century, James entered into his final and greatest period of writing, producing three
massive novels:

The Wings of the Dove 1902

The Ambassadors 1903
The Golden Bowl 1904
In 1904 he returned to the US and toured the country. The product of this trip was The American Scene 1907,
a somewhat pessimistic analysis of American life.
During the remainder of his life, James chose and revised the pieces to be included in the 24-volume New
York edition of his works; he wrote his famous prefaces on the art of fiction for this edition.
Between 1910 and 1914 he completed two volumes of a projected 5-volume autobiography: Am small boy
1913, and Notes of a Son and Brother 1914
He also started two novels, The Sense of the Past and The Ivory Tower, and a volume of autobiography, The
Middle Years, which were never finished.

1915 Henry James disappointed with America renounced his American citizenship, became a British subject
(US proclaimed neutrality in IWW)

He died in London, Feb. 28, 1916.

1913 a very famous portrait of HJ

He was also a critic:

What makes a good novel?

How does the author write one?
Vision of life it contains?
He introduced the concept of the vision of life/ Should the story be narrated or narrated by a character in the
novel? He was the first theoretician of fiction.
1884 an essay The Art of Fiction a novel has only one obligation to be interesting
Life is mark made on intelligence
He believed in conveying somebodys impression into an image, not objective reality subjective perception of
reality
A great and conscious experimentalist, new ways of writing novels.
Followed E.A. Poe he wanted to make an effect on the reader.
The story is told by one of the characters, his perception as an observer
World is seen as appearances which are misleading the observer gradually penetrating appearances and
seeing the truth in the end.
He came up with the dramatizing of the thought
He influenced V.Woolf, Dorothy Richardson, J. Conrad, J. Joyce
20 full length novels, 500-600 pages; 12 novelas long short stories, 100 tales (short stories); autobiographic
essays, letters, ca. 7000, travel literature, criticism

His literary career:

First period the international theme (America and Europe)

American characters: + vitality, innocence, - tendency to misunderstand life, misled by beauty

European characters: +appreciation of beautiful things, aware of the complexity of life, - amorality
 American and European characters were complimentary. An Attempt to find a pattern of life that will combine
positive aspects of both. The Portrait of a Lady, Daisy Miller, The American, Roderick Hudson, The Europeans
(aristocrat European in America) focus on American in Europe

Middle period 1862-1900

Abandoned fiction and the international theme, 7 plays, he focused on drama; was rejected, The Awkward
Age, took interest in the feminist movement, fiction The Bostonians

2 memorable short stories: The turn of the Screw one of the first psychological horror stories, The Beast in
the Jungle

Last period 1900-1904

His greatest novels, complex stylistically

The Ambassadors exemplifies the effectiveness of Js narrative technique

presented through the heros consciousness, the events are his perceptions
theme is the lasting value of the insights gained from these perceptions
characteristic dashes and clauses signal further feelings and ideas suggesting themselves
he felt captured by the complexity of syntax :C

The Wings of the Dove is about a young heiress Milly Theale, who once possessed a great capacity for life,
but is doomed by a fatal ilness
an English doctor tells her that with sufficient will she might survive, maybe if she fell in love
she does so with a journalist Merton Densher who is in love with her friend Kate Croy
Kate loves him back, but she also wants money, because shes broke
so she has a plan: Merton marries Milly, Milly dies, Merton inherits her fortune, Kate marries Merton

The Golden Bowl - his most difficult work

plot is complicated, bc characters are acting upon knowledge theyre trying to hide from each other
James dictated the novel, so the style is oblique and convoluted
a great study of moral suffering, masterfully depicting anguish that accompanies all important human
relationships

Critical writings:
perceptive treatment of novelists in French Poets and Novelists (1878) and Notes on Novelists (1914)
noteworthy: studies of George Sand, G. Eliot, Balzac, essays on Turgenev, Trollope, Daudet, Maupassant, Loti
and dAnnunzio
Hawthorne (1879) accurately describes Hs excellences and limitations as a novelist
prefaces to the New Yoek edition of his works comprise one of the outstanding examples of a creative artists
commentary on his own performance and are regarded as essential to a truly comprehensive understanding of
the art of fiction.

recent fictionalised biographies:

David Lodge, Author, Author (2004)
Colm Tibn, The Master (2004)

Bret Harte (1836 - 1902)

born in 1836 in Albany, NY
family moved to Oakland, CA in 1853
Harte taught for a while, then worked in the mining industry
the weekly newspaper Northern Californian was Hartes first exposure to journalism, editing and writing
San Francisco: Harte worked as a typesetter and contributed poems, articles, and short stories for the journal
The Golden Era
much of his works was based on life in the Californian ???
editor of the literary journal The Overland Monthly where his famous stories of The Luck of Roaring Camp
(1870) were published - widespread fame
- Plain Language from Truthful James (1870)
with his family he settled in Boston
Atlantic Monthly contracted him for a year

Harte and Twain in Hartford 1876

Harte collaborated with Twain on the play Ah Sin (comedy-drama)
Twain: Bret came down to Hartford and we talked it over and then Bret wrote it while I played billiards, but of
course I had to go over it to get the dalect right. Bret never did know anything about dialect.

Harte mastered the genre of gold rush fiction capturing the corruption and greed of the wild new frontier lands
- Drift from Two Shores (1878)
- Poetical Works (1880)
- In the Carquinez Woods (1883)
- Maruja (1885)
- Ward of the Golden Gate (1890)
- Under the Redwoods (1901)
his stories served as the prototypes of all the Westerners with all the stock characters:
- the pretty New England schoolmistress
- the sheriff and his posse
- the bad man
- the gambler
- the heroic stage driver
- the harlot with the heart of gold

Edward Eggleston (1837 - 1902)

born in Indiana
a Bible agent and a Methodist preacher
editor of the National Sunday School Teacher and other NYC newspapers
in 1880 he began to focus on historical studies
The Beginners of a Nation (1896) and The Transit of Civilization (1901)
planned a series called History of Life in the United States; important as pioneer studies in social history
The Hoosier Schoolmaster (1871) - one of the first novels to exploit the dialect and local color of the Midwest

Lew Wallace (1827 - 1905)

born in Indiana
served as an officer in the Mexican War (1846 - 1848) and the Civil War (1861 - 1865)
governor of the territory of New Mexico from 1878 to 1881 and minister to Turkey from 1881 to 1885
- Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1880) - won him a worldwide reputation. A play (1899) and two films (1926,
1959) have been made
- The Fair God (1873)
- The Prince of India (1893)

Sidney Lanier (1842 - 1881)

born in Macon, Georgia and educated at Oglethorpe College
served in the Confederate army in the Civil War
1873 he became a flutist in the Peabody Symphony Orchestra of Baltimore, Maryland (a musical prodigy)
1879 he was appointed a lecturer in English at Johns Hopkins University
his poetry noted for its musical quality and its indictment of the social and economic evils in the South
his best known poems:
- Corn (1875)
- The Symphony (1875)
- Song of the Chattahoochee (1877)
- The Revenge of Hamish (1878)
- The Marshes of Glynn (1879)
- A Ballad of Trees and the Master (1880)
Science of the English Verse (1880) - a study of the relationship bw poetry and music
 Joel Chandler Harris (1848 - 1908)
born in Eaton, Georgia
worked for different newspapers in Georgia and Louisiana
- Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings (1880)
- Nights with Uncle Remus (1883)
- Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches (1887)
- Uncle Remus and His Friends (1892)
- Uncle Remus and Brer Rabbit (1906)
one of the first American authors to use dialect
important record of black oral folktales in the South

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940)

born in St. Paul, Minnesota
namsake and second cousin thrice removed of the author of the National Anthem
his given names indicate his parents pride in ancestry
Fs father, Edward was from Maryland, with an allegiance to the Old South and its values
his mother was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who became wealthy as a wholesale grocer in St. Paul
both Catholic
F attended St. Paul Academy
first writing in print: a detective story in the school newspaper (he was 13)
during 1911-1913 he attended the Newman School - a Catholic prep school in New Jersey
there he met Father Sigourney Fay who encouraged his ambitions for personal distinction and achievement
as a member of the Princeton Class of 1917 F neglected his studies for his literary apprenticeship
wrote scripts and lyrics for the Princeton Triangle Club musicals and was a contributor to the Princeton Tiger
humor magazine and the Nassau Literary Magazine
his college friends included Edmund Wilson and John Pearle Bishop
F joined the army in 1917 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry
he was sure he was going to die, so he quickly wrote a novel The Romantic Egoist
initially rejected, but Charles Scribners praised its originality and wanted it resubmitted when revised
in 1918 F was assigned to Camp Sheridan near Montgomery, Alabama
in Montgomery he fell in love with 18yr old Zelda Sayre, the youngest daughter of Alabama Supreme Court
judge
romance intensified Fs hopes for the success of his novel, but it was rejected a second time
F quit his job in 1919 and returned to St. Paul to rewrite his novel as The Side of Paradise
he commenced his career as a writer of stories for the mass-circulation magazines
hed interrupt work on his novels to write moneymaking pop fiction for the rest of his life
The Saturday Evening Post was his best market, he was described as the Post writer
his early commercial stories about young love introduced a fresh character: the independent young American
woman who appeared in The Offshore Pirate and Bernice Bobs Her Hair
publication of The Side of Paradise in 1920 made him an overnight celebrity
he married Zelda the same year in NY; led extravagant life as young celebrities enjoying the free-thinking,
hedonistic pursuits of the roaring twenties
F endeavored to earn a solid literary reputation, but his playboy imag impeded proper assessment of his work
after a riotous summer in Westport, Connecticut, the Fs took an apartment in NYC; there he wrote his second
novel The Beautiful and Damned, a naturalistic chronicle of the dissipation of Anthony and Gloria Patch
Zelda became pregnant in 1921 and then they settled in St. Paul for the birth of their only child, Frances Scott
(Scottie) Fitzgerald
the Fs expected to become affluent from his play, The Vegetable, a political satire subtitled From President to
Postman
in fall 1922 they moved to Great Neck, Long Island to be nearer Broadway
the play failed in 1923 and F wrote short stories to get out of debt
it prevented him from making progress on his 3rd novel and he started to drink more

critics were reluctant to accord F full mark as a serious craftsman

his drinking inspired a myth that he was irresponsible as a writer, yet he went through many drafts
style: clear, lyrical, colorful, witty, evokes emotions associated with the time and place
his work is an aspiration to the idealism he regarded as defining American character
another major theme: mutability or loss
as a social historian he became identified with the Jazz Age
 The Great Gatsby:
F went to France in 1924 where he wrote the novel
his marriage was damaged by Zeldas frickle frackle with a French naval aviator
they spent the winter in Rome, where he revised the Great Gatsby
published in April, when they were going back to Paris
an advance in Fs technique: complex structure and a controlled narrative point of view
critical praise, but sales were disappointing. though stage and movie rights brought income
in Paris he met Hemingway - friendsieees based on admiration of Hs genius and personality
Fs remained in France until the end of 1926
he made little progress on his 4th novel, a study of American expatriated in France titled The Boy Who Killed
His Mother, Our Type and Worlds Fair.
Zelda becomes more and more eccentric
back in America F rented Ellerslie, a mansion near Wilmington, Delaware, where the family remained for 2
years, but he still made little progress on his book
Zelda commenced ballet training and they went back to France, but the training was too intense and Zelda
injured herself which contributed to the couples estrangement
in 1930 she suffered her first breakdown. Treated in Switzerland in 1931; F lived in Swiss hotels; suspended
work on novel, wrote short stories to pay for the treatment
peak story fee from The Saturday Evening Post - $4000
not the highest paid writer of his time; most of his income came from 160 short stories
in 1920s his income averaged $25000 (schoolteachers annual salary $1300)
they spent money faster than he earned it; he wrote so eloquently about the effects of money, yet was unable
to manage his own finances
back in US in 1931 - they rent a house in Montgomery
second unsuccessful trip to Hollywood in 1931
Zeldas relapse - 1932 - enters Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore - a patient for the rest of her life
she wrote an autobiographical novel Save Me the Waltz - a lot of bitterness bw the Fs - F thought it used the
material he wanted to use in his new novel
Tender Is The Night - 1934 - most ambitious, a commercial failure, its merits were matters of cirtical dispute
set in France in 1920s, examines the deterioration of Dick Diver, a brilliant American pychiatrist during the
course of his marriage to a wealthy mental patient