Until this week, our studies have focused on American literature of a particular bent: personal reflections and musings, delivered mostly through essays and journals, with only a few other forms (a poem or two, a political document) poking their head through at points. Interesting that American prose fiction, philosophy and poetry have yet to be explored with any depth, the former two having been unmentioned until now!
Well, until now: and with them, we see major American prose form (fiction) emerge, while a still-undeveloped strain of writing peaks and then disappears here with the two preeminent American philosophers: Emerson and Thoreau. Likewise, the scene of American fiction (if you believe high-school and lower-level college courses) peaks here, too, with the presence of Poe, Washington Irving, Cooper, and (most importantly) Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is interesting to note that of the 4 fiction writers, only Poe paves new ground thematically; Cooper and Irving are still most interested in American individualism and the American character as it exists in such turbulent, dangerous and shifting times, as well as its impressive ability to respond to the demands wrought by such a system. Hawthorne is still obsessed with the conflict between the individual and the community that plagued every religious-centric community in his time and before it. While they do not necessarily agree with their predecessors (Hawthorne seems to advocate the value of individuality and warn against the danger of dogma and the will of the mass, while Cooper and Irving seem to celebrate the wilderness and its power), they still focus on the same themes.
Only Poe dares to contemplate spheres beyond theirs, and not just simply in his obsession with the supernatural (a topic that he treats not so much with religious reverence as with fear). Where Hawthorne, Irving and Cooper all focus on love to some extent (it is the focus of The Scarlet Letter, van Winkle has a wife who is central to the story and one of the subplots in The Last of the Mohicans focuses on the betrothal of the Alice to a Duncan) none of them raise it to the level of central interests that Poe does. Love for Poe is not a fancy or a convenient avenue by which he can preach another point; it is the central focus of everything in his writing. The problem with all of their foci is that they are, generally, maudlin and lacking in any real depth. Poe only mourns love, never hoping to explain it or explore anything beyond the pain inherent in it, and the others are quick to expound their messages tritely. This is not to demean the power of their prose; stylistically, though they are generally accessible to the modern reader (they are incredibly verbal, these writers, and quick to switch syntax and to manipulate structure where it suits them), they are brilliant and command a power over the written word that has secured them their rightful place in history.
Our philosophers lack the stylistic gifts of our storytellers. Emerson is prone to obfuscation and rambling. His love of tangents muddles his impressive command of language and logic, and his points are either never explained or reiterated to excess. Thoreau is as boring a writer as they come, with a dry, boastful prose that reads less like philosophy and more like a journal he wrote to reassure himself of his masculinity. Nevertheless, these two begin to codify the rugged individualism and romanticism that embodies so much of the American character, adding a dash of metaphysics that, to the unobservant, upends religion (where in reality it merely replaces it). This does not stop prevent them from being fascinating, though, as they are truly the first American intellectuals and are in many ways the last. No American thinker since Emerson has had his impact: without Emerson, it is doubtful Nietzsche as we know him would exist, if not for the ideas he contributed to Nietzsche, then for the stylistic tendencies he lent the mad philosopher. Without Emerson, who would have synthesized the disparate body of American attitudes and writings into this coherent whole that embodies and explains so much of the American character?
Sadly, Thoreau is little more than a footnote in Emerson's shadow (he seems to admit as much by his incessant hero worship). All that is truly interesting in his character is how he bridges the gap between classic American frontiersman and city-dwelling dilettante. Much as he would love to be a woodsmen, independent from the world at large, he admits that his work in Walden is little more than a dare, a task he undertook just to prove that he could carry it through. Enabled to pursue his "rugged", "experimental" lifestyle by virtue of improvements in technology and standards of living, Thoreau is the bridge between modern American attitudes and earlier American attitudes.
Now the only link missing in this literary chain is a significant contribution from the poets!
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