XIX. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 282 XX. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE 299 XXI. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES 310 XXII. SOME METROPOLITAN POETS 324 XXIII. THE POETRY OF THE SOUTH 343 XXIV. WALT WHITMAN 362 XXV. THE WEST AND MARK TWAIN 380 XXVI. THE WEST IN SILL AND MILLER 396 XXVII. THE RISE OF FICTION; WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 411 XXVIII. CONTEMPORARY DRAMA 437 XXIX. THE LATER POETRY 453 INDEX TO LEADING NINETEENTH-CENTURY PERIODICALS 487 INDEX 503 A HISTORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE THE COLONIAL PERIOD CHAPTER I THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY In its beginnings American literature differs from the literatures of most other great nations; it was a transplanted thing. It sprang in a way like Minerva, full-armed from the head of Jove,--Jove in this case being England, and the armor being the heritage which the average American colonist had secured in England before he crossed the Atlantic. In contrast, Greek, Roman, French, German, English, and the other less familiar literatures can all be more or less successfully traced back to primitive conditions. Their early life was interwoven with the growth of the language and the progress of a rude civilization, and their earliest products which have come down to us were not results of authorship as we know it to-day. They were either folk poetry, composed perhaps and certainly enjoyed by the people in groups and accompanied by group singing and dancing,--like the psalms and the simpler ballads,--or they were the record of folk tradition, slowly and variously developed through generations and finally collected into a continuous story like the Iliad, the Æneid, the "Song of Roland," the "Nibelungenlied," and "Beowulf." They were composed by word of mouth and not reduced to writing for years or generations, and they were not put into print until centuries after they were current in speech or transcribed by monks and scholars.