Literary History – Sharing History

“O Captain! My Captain!”

June 4, 2024June 15, 202419th CenturyLeave a Comment

On May 31, 1819, in Long Island, New York, Walt Whitman was born to parents Louisa Van Velsor and Walter Whitman. Considered one of the great American poets, Whitman was famous for deviating from the traditional forms of poetry and writing with a cadence that was more accessible to the average person. His work, dealing largely with themes of nature, growth, and individuality, has been widely anthologized in the centuries since his death.

Walt Whitman grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where he attended public school before becoming a printer. He worked as a journalist and editor for The Brooklyn Daily Eagle until he was let go due to his political beliefs. Whitman was a member of the Free Soil Party, which, prior to the Civil War, opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories. Their slogan was, “free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men.” During these years, Whitman dabbled in poetry, publishing a few verses in magazines, with little recognition.

In 1855, Whitman had collected enough poems to publish his first book, Leaves of Grass. Due to lack of interest, Whitman was forced to fund the venture himself. Its first recognition came from famous author Ralph Waldo Emerson who said that Leaves of Grass was “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom” written thus far in America. Whitman declared in the preface of the first edition: “Here are the roughs and beards and space and reuggedness and nonchalance that the soul loves.”

During the Civil War, Whitman attempted to work for the government in the Department of the Interior, but he was let go because his poetry was seen as indecent. He continued to write, publishing a collection of poems inspired by the war: Drum-Taps. Whitman also composed a series of poems extolling President Abraham Lincoln. In fact, probably his most well-known poem (due to its being featured in a classic film), was inspired by the president. It reads:

“O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won . . .”

Other of Whitman’s works, including “I Sing the Body Electric,” “I Hear America Singing,” and “Song of Myself,” were the inspiration for many an American poet throughout history.

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“America Was Promises”

May 8, 2024June 15, 202420th CenturyLeave a Comment

On May 7, 1892, a baby boy was born in Glencoe, Illinois, to Scottish immigrant and businessman Andrew MacLeish and college professor and president Martha Hillard. Martha named him Archibald, and as he grew, she encouraged in him a love for reading. This love took root in her son, who would go on to become a famous poet, a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, and influential statesman. Reflecting on his upbringing later, Archibald MacLeish said, “Her insistence on reading those books that had meant most to her . . . was the greatest piece of luck ever. I’ve often wondered how much it had to do with my commitment to poetry. I think I have a guess.”

Archibald MacLeish studied at Yale University where he edited Yale Literary Magazine. After graduation, he attended law school at Harvard University. While a student there, he met and married Ada Hitchcock in 1917. The two were married for 65 years. During MacLeish’s second year of law school, the U.S. entered World War I. MacLeish left to serve in France at a front-line hospital. He later transferred to a field artillery unit. MacLeish referred to WWI as “the most murderous, hypocritical, unnecessary and generally nasty of all recorded wars.” He said, “I had been under fire myself just enough to feel a lack of real purpose, only a presence of accidental mechanical purpose, and it colored the whole experience for me.” MacLeish was discharged in 1919 and returned to finish his law degree, graduating first in his class. During all this, MacLeish never stopped writing.

In 1923, after working for a prestigious Boston law firm for a few years, MacLeish and his wife decided to expatriate to Paris, where MacLeish could focus on his writing. He joined the group of writers often known as “The Lost Generation,” which included such literary legends as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, and T.S. Eliot. Of that time, MacLeish said, “what lured us to Paris and held us there was the fact of the magnificent work being done by people from all over the world and in all the arts. This was a period really like the great Quattrocento . . . it was a period of extraordinary achievement.” This was certainly true for MacLeish. He published a series of poems that would go on to become staples of literary anthologies.

In the 30s, MacLeish and his family returned to the U.S. He was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt as the librarian of Congress and, subsequently, assistant secretary of state. Of this time, MacLeish said, “I think that the reorganization of the Library of Congress . . . was the best thing I did.” In 1949, MacLeish became a professor of rhetoric at Harvard. MacLeish’s works garnered him plenty of attention. Some of his most enduring works are Conquistador, J.B., You, Andrew Marvell, Immortal Autumn, and America Was Promises. The hallmark of a legendary author is that their work is timeless. This certainly feels true of MacLeish’s writing. For example, in the last poem MacLeish wrote before taking the job as librarian of Congress, he explores the idea of America as the promise of the fulfillment of dreams. He writes:

Who is the voyager in these leaves?

Who is the traveler in this journey

Deciphers the revolving night: receives

The signal from the light returning?

America was promises to whom?

East were the

Dead kings and the remembered sepulchres:

West was the grass.

And all beautiful

All before us

America was always promises.

He goes onto suggest that the original promises of America haven’t always been kept. That

the Aristocracy of politic selfishness

Bought the land up: bought the towns: the sites:

The goods: the government: the people. Bled them.

Sold them. Kept the profit. Lost itself.

But he believes there is a chance. MacLeish reminds the reader of freedom-seeking uprisings in

Spain Austria Poland China Bohemia.

There are dead men in the pits in all those countries.

Their mouths are silent but they speak. They say

“The promises are theirs who take them.”

He goes on to implore his generation of Americans that if the promise of their country is not being given to them, they must take it. At the end of his life, MacLeish said of this poem: “Everything about America is based on a beginning which was all promises. We certainly have buggered them, but I guess that’s what mankind does, bugger the promises, and maybe save a few,” a message of action and hope that still seems poignant some eight decades later.

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An American English

April 12, 2024May 7, 202419th CenturyLeave a Comment

On April 14, 1828, the American Dictionary of the English Language was published. It was the first dictionary of the American English language. Compiled by Noah Webster, it contained 70,000 words, including many of the spelling changes between British English and American English that we see today. In addition to creating for Americans a distinct version of English, Webster is also well-known for championing the idea that “grammar should be formed on language, and not language on grammar.”

Noah Webster was a law student at Yale University when he took a leave of absence to fight in the American Revolution. Upon his graduation, Webster chose to take a job as a teacher in Goshen, New York. While teaching, Webster was unimpressed by the spellers and readers available to his students. He felt that the texts they used, written and published in England, ignored some distinctive aspects of American life. His quest to champion an American English began with his writing and publishing a series of books to be used by educators: a spelling book, a grammar book, and a reader.

Webster began working on the dictionary in 1807. He said, “It is not only important, but, in a degree necessary, that the people of this country, should have an American Dictionary of the English language; for, although the body of the language is the same as in England, and it is desirable to perpetuate that sameness, yet some differences must exist. Language is an expression of ideas; and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas, they cannot retain an identity of language.” He is responsible for many of the common spelling differences in words between British English and American English, including the removal of “u” in words like “color” and the switching of “e” and “r” in words like “center” or “meter.” The American Dictionary of the English Language was far from a bestseller in the 19^th century. Webster was berated for the inclusion of some colloquial words; however, Webster believed that public use was an important factor in an ever-changing language.

After Webster’s death, the rights to his dictionary were sold to George and Charles Merriam, who created the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. This dictionary is one of the most reliable and recognizable collections of American English today.

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1 . https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/noah-webster-dictionary#:~:text=Happy%20Birthday%2C%20Webster’s%201828!&text=April%2014%20is%20the%20anniversary,Dictionary%20of%20the%20English%20Language.

2. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Noah-Webster-American-lexicographer

Tennessee Williams and the American Gothic

March 26, 2024April 2, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On March 26, 1911, Tennessee Williams, née Thomas Williams, was born in Columbus, Mississippi. Williams would go on to become one of the most celebrated American playwrights in history, penning such southern gothic classics as The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. During his lifetime, Williams’s work was met with intense criticism from those who thought the subjects of his play were inappropriate for public consumption. The legacy of Tennessee Williams, however, is built upon his ability to poetically portray the range of human emotions and the tragic events that cause them.

Tennessee Williams remembered his childhood in Mississippi as idyllic. He spent those years being doted on by his grandparents and enjoying the space and freedom of living in a rural town. At age seven, his father, a traveling salesman, moved the family to St. Louis. This upheaval was difficult on Williams, and in reading his anthology, we see Williams look to the South as the inspiration and setting for many of his stories. His distaste for his life in St. Louis was the catalyst for his art. He began writing because, as he said, he “found life unsatisfactory.” He spent the next decades of his life moving around the country and writing. He moved several times for his father’s job, including to New Orleans, which provided him with the setting for two of his most famous plays. He attended three different universities, finally earning his degree in dramatic writing from the University of Iowa in 1938.

Williams’s first play that made it big was The Glass Menagerie, which made its way to Broadway. This was followed shortly by A Streetcar Named Desire, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sweet Bird of Youth, and The Night of the Iguana, most of which featured on stage and on television. All of Williams’s plays addressed topics that would have been considered taboo for the time, including cannibalism, violence, lobotomy, and homosexuality. While Williams claimed his works were not autobiographical, readers can’t help but see the distant father, the overbearing mother, and the fragile sister depicted in many of his works as commentary on his personal relationships. Williams also wrote often about themes such as desire and sexuality, the difficulty of being an outcast, and the facades put on to cover the darkness of humanity. His works have become classics of the American Gothic for his poetic treatment of these themes.

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What to Read in February

February 2, 2024February 1, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

February saw the births of many an eloquent writer throughout history, including James Joyce, Sinclair Lewis, Kate Chopin, and Toni Morrison. If you’re looking for a classic to read this month, consider the following options from these February-born literary icons:

Dubliners

James Joyce’s Dubliners is an extremely influential collection of short stories, with its final story, “The Dead,” being one of the most famous short stories in history. The collection, as its name suggests, is united by its setting: Dublin, Ireland. Joyce wrote of his collection: “My intention was to write a chapter of the moral history of my country, and I chose Dublin for the scene because that city seemed to me the centre of paralysis. I have tried to present it to the indifferent public under four of its aspects: childhood, adolescence, maturity, and public life.” The theme of paralysis is central to every story. We watch as characters are blocked by duty, by religious responsibility, and by the burdens of life from obtaining their true desires.

It Can’t Happen Here

The inspiration for Sinclair Lewis’ dystopian novel It Can’t Happen Here came from his wife, journalist Dorothy Thompson’s, interview with Adolf Hitler. As Lewis watched Hitler come to power across the Atlantic, he began to ask himself, “what would happen if a Fascist takeover occurred in the U.S.?” As Lewis writes it, in the 1936 election, populist candidate Berzelius Windrip promises to be the champion of the “Forgotten Men,” or working-class white men (sound familiar?). Upon his election, Windrip seizes control of Congress and the Supreme Court. If you’re looking for a novel to heighten your anxiety in an election year, this is it.

The Awakening

Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening is an essential text in the study of 19^th-century feminism. It follows a young woman, Edna Pontellier, as she travels with her husband and children for the summer. On her vacation, she meets a host of characters who force her to question her identity as wife and mother. The novel follows Edna’s quest to become free by taking full ownership of her own body and identity.

Sula

Sula is Toni Morrison’s second novel. It is a coming-of-age story that features two girls: Sula, and Nel. The two girls are best friends though their personalities are completely opposite. The reader watches as the girls mature and have experiences with family, tragedy, sexuality, and racism that indelibly change them. As in all of Morrison’s novels, Sula and Nel’s experiences are a portrait of Black Americans trying to find their place in a society that is determined not to make space for them.

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The Father of Detective Fiction

January 19, 2024January 18, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

It’s no secret that the crime fiction genre is wildly popular across the world. There are hundreds of award-winning television shows and movies and entire sections in bookstores dedicated to the subject. It’s not a new obsession, though. People enjoyed this genre from the moment of its conception—the 1840s. Who do we have to thank for the genre that brought us CSI, Law and Order, Longmire, Psych, and Only Murders in the Building and inspired writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Wilkie Collins, Agatha Christie, and Stephen King? Often referred to as the Father of Detective Fiction, it’s Edgar Allen Poe.

Poe was academically gifted from a young age. At 15, he attended the University of Virginia, and at 18, he published his first book of poetry: Tamerlane, and Other Poems. The collection was not well received, and Poe spent the next decade of his life editing magazines and writing short stories and poetry. From 1838-1841, Poe wrote some of the most impactful pieces of literature in history, including “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” These stories are some of the pioneering works in the field of psychological horror.

In 1841, Poe published “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” a short story about a grisly double murder that baffles police but is solved by amateur detective Auguste Dupin. The story was immediately popular and introduced tropes seen in crime fiction since, including the inept police, the sidekick narrator, and the final act revealing the perpetrator of the crime and then walking through the detective’s process of reasoning. Poe called the story a tale of “ratiocination,” which is defined as an extremely deliberate process of reasoning through a problem, something used widely in crime fiction to this day. Arthur Conan Doyle referenced Dupin and his process of crime solving as the inspiration for his character Sherlock Holmes, perhaps the most famous fictional detective of all time. Poe went on to write two more stories featuring Dupin, one based on a crime that had actually taken place. It looks like we have to credit Poe with the advent of true crime as well. Poe’s detective stories were immediately popular, but certainly their legacy is their true success.

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The Queen of Existentialism

January 9, 2024January 8, 2024UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On January 9, 1908, Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris. de Beauvoir would go on to become an award-winning author, a feminist icon, and a prolific existentialist philosopher. She lived her life by the philosophy she espoused: “One’s life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others by means of love, friendship, indignation, and compassion.” She remains a significant influence in the feminist and philosophic spheres.

From an early age, de Beauvoir was interested in in education, philosophy, and writing. She studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, becoming the youngest person to pass the extremely competitive agrégation exam, a series of test and interviews to become a teacher. Her score was second only to that of classmate Jean-Paul Sartre, who became de Beauvoir’s lifelong intellectual companion and lover. For many years, de Beauvoir was a philosophy teacher, but she lost her job upon the occupation of Paris by the Nazis in 1940. It was then that she began writing. Over the next 10 years, de Beauvoir penned a number of influential works, including The Ethics of Ambiguity, America Day by Day, and perhaps her most notable work, The Second Sex.

The Second Sex has been named one of the most important works of literature of the 20^th century. It was a major influence of the Second Wave Feminist movement in the U.S., and many notable feminists, including Betty Friedan, were inspired by de Beauvoir’s work. It was, in fact, de Beauvoir’s studies in philosophy that led her to assert that women owed it to themselves to transcend the limits that the world placed on them and become what their hearts led them to be. This individualism is a main tenant of existentialism. Existentialists believe that every individual’s purpose is created by themselves rather than by the societal structures around them. As a philosopher, de Beauvoir was often written off as merely Sartre’s disciple. However, after her death, studies of her personal journals and correspondences with Sartre prove that the two exchanges ideas equally, de Beauvoir’s as original as those of Sartre. de Beauvoir is admired worldwide for those contributions and her writings are still incredibly popular.

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Poor Richard’s Almanack

December 19, 2023December 12, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On December 19, 1732, the first edition of Poor Richard’s Almanack was published. While the almanac was centuries old by this point, this version, written and printed by Benjamin Franklin, became one of the best-selling books in the American colonies. While primarily used as a calendar, Poor Richard’s Almanack introduced countless adages that have become common colloquialisms in American English.

After 1732, Poor Richard’s Almanack was published yearly by Benjamin Franklin for 25 years. Franklin wrote under a pseudonym, “Richard Saunders,” or “Poor Richard.” Historians suggest that Franklin did so to better appeal to the common man. The almanac included the times of sunrises and sunsets, weather predictions, astrological charts, jokes, and aphorisms. Many of these aphorisms are commonly used today, including:

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”

“Fish and visitors stink in three days.”

“God helps them that help themselves.”

“To err is human, to repent divine, to persist devilish.”

“No gains without pains.”

The publishing of the almanacs was one of Franklin’s greatest business successes. However, it was also an incredible vehicle for Franklin to spread his political beliefs and encourage revolutionary sentiments. He wrote, “The King’s Cheese is half wasted in pairings; but no matter, ‘tis made of the people’s milk.”

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Alcott and Her Little Women

December 1, 2023December 3, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On November 29, 1832, famed author Louisa May Alcott was born in Philadelphia. She was born to two transcendentalist parents who filled her youth with idealism, books, and political activism. Alcott was taught by famed thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. With such an upbringing, it is hardly a surprise that Alcott grew into an intelligent woman with strong beliefs about women’s rights and abolition. Her fierce independence and wit is written into her female characters, providing inspiration for generations of girls and women, encouraging them to read, create, and be unfailingly themselves.

Lousia May Alcott’s father, Bronson Alcott, was a transcendentalist philosopher with a particular interest in education reform. During Alcott’s childhood, he started an experimental school in Boston and a utopian community in Harvard. Due to the nature of her father’s work, Alcott, her mother, and her three sisters lived in poverty, relying on charity and help from friends (including Emerson) to live. It was her family’s need that led Alcott to submit her writing to magazines. She wrote under a pseudonym, A.M. Barnard, which was not discovered to be Alcott until the 1950s. Under this name, Alcott wrote gothic thrillers and earned a small living to support her mother and sisters.

Alcott’s beliefs as an abolitionist led to her volunteering as a nurse during the Civil War. While working in a hospital, she contracted typhoid fever and was forced to return home. Her experiences as a nurse inspired Hospital Sketches, published in 1863. This work was immediately popular, and so, shortly after, Alcott was offered a job writing for a children’s magazine called Merry’s Museum. It was the editor of this magazine, Thomas Niles, who asked Alcott to write a novel for girls. While Alcott was not particularly interested in this project, her family needed the money, so she began in earnest.

Little Women is an autobiographical novel following Jo March (based on Alcott herself) and her three sisters: Meg, Beth, and Amy (based on Alcott’s sisters Anna, Lizzie, and Abby). The book follows these sisters and their long-suffering mother, Marmie, as they navigate life with their father gone at war, much as Alcott and her sisters would have done as their father was off philosophizing. The book was one of the first to feature educated, independent heroines and thus became an inspiration for many. Female writers in every generation since have acknowledged Alcott and her March sisters as guideposts for their own works. These writers include Simone de Beauvoir, Margaret Atwood, Susan Sontag, and Anne Tyler. The novel has been adapted into plays, movies, radio shows, and television series too many times to count. The novel has sold over 10 million copies. The grip Little Women has on us all has not diminished over the years. With any luck, it never will.

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Buy your copy of Little Women from an independent bookstore like this one: https://www.horizonbooks.com/search/site/louisa%20may%20alcott

“Call Me Ishmael”

November 14, 2023November 22, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On November 14, 1851, the now acclaimed novel Moby Dick was published by Harper Collins in the United States. Its author, Herman Melville, had previously published several novels which all received mixed reviews and didn’t make him much money. He hoped Moby Dick, or The Whale, as it was titled in England, would catapult him to literary fame.

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen that way. Reviews of the novel published immediately after its release concluded that “it is a crazy sort of affair, stuffed with conceits and oddities of all kinds . . .” and “extravagance is the bane of the book, and the stumbling block of the author. He allows his fancy to not only run riot, but absolutely to run amuck, in which poor defenceless Common Sense is hustled and belaboured in a manner melancholy to contemplate.” Moby Dick did not bring Herman Melville great success as a writer. It wasn’t until after his death in the 1920s and 30s that Moby Dick was declared one of the great American novels.

Herman Melville spent the years 1841 to 1844 having adventures across the sea that would provide the inspiration for his writing. He originally joined a whaling ship but abandoned it a year later only to be captured by cannibals on the Marquesas Islands. From there he traveled to Tahiti and Eimeo, became a harpooner on another whaling ship, and ended up in Honolulu, where he became a bookkeeper. In 1844, Melville returned to New England a member of the US Navy.

Upon his return, Melville wrote several novels, including Typee, Omoo, and Redburn. He also drafted Moby Dick. These writings were detailed, first-hand descriptions of life aboard a whaling ship and life on remote islands. Upon meeting famed American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hawthorne encouraged Melville to consider a more allegorical approach to writing. Melville rewrote Moby Dick, dedicating it to Hawthorne in gratitude for his advice. It was published in 1851.

Moby Dick never gained popularity during Melville’s life. However, in 1924, over 70 years after its original debut, Works of Herman Melville was published and Moby Dick finally got its proper due. It is considered one of the greatest American novels ever written and its vague allegorical nature has opened it up to over a century of interpretation and admiration.

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Order your copy of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick from an independent bookstore like this one: https://www.strandbooks.com/product/9780679783275?title=mobydick_or_the_whale