History of American Literature Part 36

Gates's _Studies and Appreciations_. (Poe.)

Trent's _William Gilmore Simms_.

Erskine's _Leading American Novelists_. (Simms.)

Ward's _Memorial of Sidney Lanier_, in _Poems of Sidney Lanier_, edited by his Wife.

Burt's _The Lanier Book_.

Burt and Cable's _The Cable Story Book_.

Page's _The Page Story Book_.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Selections (not always the ones indicated below) from _all_ the authors mentioned in this chapter may be found in Trent's _Southern Writers_, 524 pages, and Mims and Payne's _Southern Prose and Poetry for Schools_, 440 pages. Selections from the majority of the poets are given in Painter's _Poets of the South_, 237 pages, and Weber's _Selections from the Southern Poets_, 221 pages. The best poems of Poe and Lanier may be found in Page's _The Chief American Poets_.

POETRY

POE.--His best poems are short, and may soon be read. They are _Annabel Lee_, _To One in Paradise_, _The Raven_, _The Haunted Palace_, _The Conqueror Worm_, _Ulalume_, _Israfel_, _Lenore_, and _The Bells_.

HAYNE.--_A Dream of the South Winds_, _Aspects of the Pines_, _The Woodland Phases_, and _A Storm in the Distance_.

TIMROD.--_Spring_, _The Lily Confidante_, _An Exotic_, _The Cotton Boll_, and _Carolina_.

LANIER.--_The Marshes of Glynn_, _Sunrise_, _The Song of the Chattahoochee_, _Tampa Robins_, _Love and Song_, _The Stirrup Cup_, and _The Symphony_.

RYAN.--_The Conquered Banner_, and _The Sword of Robert Lee_.

TABB.--Fourteen of his complete poems may be found on two pages (489 and 490) of Stedman's _An American Anthology_. Much of Tabb's best work is contained in his little volume ent.i.tled _Poems_ (1894).

CAWEIN.--_The Whippoorwill_, _There are Fairies_, _The Shadow Garden_, _One Day and Another_, _In Solitary Places_, _A Twilight Moth_, _To a Wind Flower_, _Beauty and Art_, _A Prayer for Old Age_.

The best two volumes of general selections from Cawein's verse have been published in England and given the t.i.tles, _Kentucky Poems_ (1902), 264 pages, edited with an excellent _Introduction_ by Edmund Gosse, and _New Poems_ (1909), 248 pages. His best nature poetry will be found in his single American volume of selections, ent.i.tled _Poems, Selected by the Author_ (1911).

PROSE

POE.--Poe's best short story is _The Fall of the House of Usher_, but it is better to begin with such favorites as either _The Murders in the Rue Morgue_, _The Gold-Bug_, or _A Descent into the Maelstrom_. There are many poor editions of Poe's _Tales_. Cody's _The Best Tales of Edgar Allan Poe_ and Macmillan's _Pocket Cla.s.sics_ edition may be recommended. The best part of his critical remarks on short-story writing is quoted in this text, p.

299. A part of his essay, _The Poetic Principle_, is given in Trent.

SIMMS.--Mims and Payne give (pp. 50-69) a good selection from _The Yema.s.see_, describing an Indian episode in the war of 1715, between the Spaniards and the Indians on the one hand, and the English on the other.

Trent gives (pp. 186-189) from _The Partisan_, a scene laid at the time of the Revolutionary War.

HARRIS.--Read anywhere from _Uncle Remus, his Songs, and his Sayings_ (1880), _Nights with Uncle Remus_ (1881), _Uncle Remus and his Friends_ (1892). An excellent selection, _Brother Billy Goat eats his Dinner_, is given in Trent.

CABLE.--_Madame Delphine_ and _Jean-ah-Poquelin_, two of Cable's best short stories, are published under the t.i.tle, _Old Creole Days_.

PAGE, ALLEN, AND CRADDOCK.--From Page, read either _Ma.r.s.e Chan_ or _Meh Lady_; from Allen, _King Solomon of Kentucky_, and _Two Gentlemen of Kentucky,_ from _Flute and Violin,_ or _The Kentucky Cardinal,_ or _The Choir Invisible_; from Craddock, selections from _Down the Ravine,_ _In the Tennessee Mountains,_ or _The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountain._

QUESTIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

Poetry.--Which of Poe's nine poems indicated for reading pleases you most and which least? What is the chief source of your pleasure in reading him?

Do you feel like reading any of his poems a second time or repeating parts of them? Account for the extraordinary vitality of Poe's verse. What is the subject matter of most of his poems?

What is the subject of Lanier's best verse? Compare his melody and ideals with Poe's. Is Lanier's _Song of the Chattahoochee_ as melodious as Tennyson's _The Brook?_ Which is the most beautiful stanza in _My Springs?_ What are the strongest and most distinguis.h.i.+ng qualities of Lanier's verse?

Which of these are especially prominent in _The Marshes of Glynn_ and _Sunrise,_ and which in _Tampa Robins?_

Compare Hayne and Timrod for artistic finish, definiteness, and spontaneity. Does Hayne or Timrod love nature more for herself alone?

Select the best stanza from Timrod's _The Lily Confidante_ and compare it with your favorite stanza from Lanier's _My Springs._ From each of the poems of Hayne suggested for reading, select some of the most artistic creations of his fancy.

Indicate the patriotism and the pathos in Father Ryan's verse.

Point out some unique qualities in Tabb's poetry. Is the length of his poems in accordance with Poe's dictum? Select some pa.s.sage showing special delicacy or originality in describing nature.

What in Cawein's verse would indicate that he wrote his poems out of doors?

Compare the definiteness of his references to nature with Hayne's. What specific references in Cawein's nature poems please you most? Compare Keats's poems _On the Gra.s.shopper and Cricket, Fancy,_ and stanzas here and there from _The Eve of St. Agnes_ with Cawein's imagery and method of appealing to the senses.

Prose.--Take one of Poe's tales, and point out how it ill.u.s.trates his theory of the short story given on p. 299. In order to hold the attention of an average audience, should you select for reading one of Irving's, Hawthorne's, or Poe's short stories? Should you use the same principle in selecting one of these stories for a friend to read quietly by himself?

Is Simms dramatic? In what particulars does he remind you of Cooper? In the selection from _The Yema.s.see_ (Mims and Payne) are there any qualities which Poe indicates for a short story?

What is the secret of the attractiveness of the stories of Joel Chandler Harris? Point out some valuable philosophy of human nature which frequently crops out. What special characteristics of Uncle Remus are revealed in these tales? What are the most prominent qualities of Brer Rabbit? Why does the negro select him for his hero? What is the final result of Brer Fox's trick in _The Wonderful Tar Baby Story_? What resemblances and differences can you find between the animal stories of Harris and Kipling?

Why are Cable's stories called romantic? What remarkable feature do you notice about their local color? Give instances of his poetic touch and of his power to draw character. Does he reveal his characters in a plain, matter-of-fact manner, or by means of subtle touches and unexpected revelations?

Compare Page's negroes with Uncle Remus. What characteristics of Virginia life do the stories of Page reveal? What do you find most attractive in him as a story-teller?

What impression does Allen's _King Solomon of Kentucky_ make on you? What are some of the strong situations in _The Choir Invisible_? What effect does the natural setting have on his scenes?

In the presentation of what scenes does Craddock excel? What are some of the characteristics of her mountain people? Is the individuality of the characters strongly marked or are they more frequently general types? In what parts of the South are the scenes of the stories of Cable, Page, Allen, and Craddock chiefly laid? How should you define "local color" in terms of the work of each of these writers?

CHAPTER VI

WESTERN LITERATURE

THE NEWNESS OF THE WEST.-It is difficult for the young of to-day to realize that Wisconsin and Iowa were not states when Hawthorne published his Twice Told Tales (1837), that Lowell's _The Vision of Sir Launfal_ (1848) was finished ten years before Minnesota became a state, that Longfellow's _Hiawatha_ (1855) appeared six years before the admission of Kansas, and Holmes's _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_ (1858), nine years before the admission of Nebraska. In 1861 Mark Twain went to the West in a primitive stagecoach. Bret Harte had finished _The Luck of Roaring Camp_ (1868) before San Francisco was reached by a transcontinental railroad.

Even after the early pioneers had done their work, the population of the leading states of the West underwent too rapid a change for quick a.s.similation. Between 1870 and 1880 the population of Minnesota increased 77 per cent; Kansas, 173 per cent; Nebraska, 267 per cent. This population was mostly agricultural, and it was busy subduing the soil and getting creature comforts.

Mark Twain says of the advance guard of the pioneers who went to the far West to conquer this new country:--

"It was the _only_ population of the kind that the world has ever seen gathered together, and it is not likely that the world will ever see its like again. For, observe, it was an a.s.semblage of two hundred thousand _young_ men--not simpering, dainty, kid-gloved weaklings, but stalwart, muscular, dauntless young braves, brimful of push and energy, and royally endowed with every attribute that goes to make up a peerless and magnificent manhood--the very pick and choice of the world's glorious ones." [Footnote: Roughing It.]