The American Spirit in Literature By Bliss Perry A Chronicle of Great Interpreters Volume 34 of the Chronicles of America Series ∴ Allen Johnson, Editor Assistant Editors Gerhard R. Lomer Charles W. Jefferys Abraham Lincoln Edition New Haven: Yale University Press Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Co. London: Humphrey Milford Oxford University Press 1918 Copyright, 1918 by Yale University Press CONTENTS Chapter Chapter title Page Introduction I. The Pioneers 1 II. The First Colonial Literature 25 III. The Third and Fourth Generation 43 IV. The Revolution 66 V. The Knickerbocker Group 86 VI. The Transcendentalists 109 VII. Romance, Poetry, and History 143 VIII. Poe and Whitman 187 IX. Union and Liberty 206 X. A New Nation 234 Bibliographical Note 269 Index 273 THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IN LITERATURE ∴ CHAPTER I. The Pioneers The United States of America has been from the beginning in a perpetual change. The physical and mental restlessness of the American and the temporary nature of many of his arrangements are largely due to the experimental character of the exploration and development of this continent. The new energies released by the settlement of the colonies were indeed guided by stern determination, wise forethought, and inventive skill; but no one has ever really known the outcome of the experiment. It is a story of faith, of Effort, and expectation, and desire, And something evermore about to be. An Alexander Hamilton may urge with passionate force the adoption of the Constitution, without any firm conviction as to its permanence. The most clear-sighted American of the Civil War period recognized this element of uncertainty in our American adventure when he declared: "We are now testing whether this nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." More than fifty years have passed since that war rearmed the binding force of the Constitution and apparently sealed the perpetuity of the Union. Yet the gigantic economic and social changes now in progress are serving to show that the United States has its full share of the anxieties which beset all human institutions in this daily altering world.