Cincinnati, O. Mt. Pleasant, O. Lebanon, O. New Richmond, O. 1824. The Cincinnati Literary Gazette. 1829. Sentinel and Star in the West. 1821. The Moral Advocate. 1822. The Ohio Miscellaneous Museum. 1828. The Literary Register. Rogersville, Tenn. 1827. The Calvinistic Magazine. Vandalia, Ill. 1831. Illinois Monthly Magazine. * 1832. The Harbinger of the Mississippi Valley.2 Besides these journals, which have been examined by the writer, see the list in Venable's Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley, partly given in Appendix C. Raw and crude as the West was, there is a fin de siecle tone to these publications that is not found in the eastern magazines. The appeals for state aid to Transylvania University in 1821,3 with their abstract remarks on the value of culture, and their statistics of the money spent in the state by students, might, with the change of a few figures, be taken for a similar request to a legislature in 1897. It is possible to read a western magazine without recognizing the difficulties under which it was published, until one finds apologies for issues delayed because paper shipped from Pittsburg in November did not reach its destination until April, or until one reads an article like the following, entitled “Literary Intelligence:" 4 1 See Venable, Beginnings of Literary Culture in the Ohio Valley, page 125. See note, p. 80. Western Review, iv., 92. Illinois Monthly Magazine, i., 283. Ibid., i., 142, 144. "We have not a great deal to say under this head; because new books are not remarkably abundant in Vandalia. Nor do we expect to be able, at any time, to throw much light upon the passing events of the literary world. But we intend to pick up all that we can. A work entitled the 'Political Class Book,' written by Mr. Sullivan, has lately been published at BosWe have not read it; but are informed that the ton: style is pleasing, and well adapted to the subject." The difficulties of communication made the western magazines all the more important to the residents of the West. During the war and the years just following, Lexington, Kentucky, was the most prominent literary center west of the Alleghenies. This, it will be remembered, was the seat of Transylvania University; here were gathered a number of men of literary tastes. A literary magazine was established here as early as 1803.1 The Western Review, by James Gibbs Hunt, was begun in 1819 and continued two years. This was well edited, not too ambitious, and is on the whole much more readable than most of its contemporaries. It contained, besides reviews and miscellaneous papers, articles on Indian antiquities, adventures among the Indians, anecdotes regarding the history of the West, and the geology, botany, etc., of Kentucky. Some of these were written by members of the faculty of Transylvania University, some by army officers stationed in the West. The review department was good, and its criticisms are an interesting reflection of western thought. It seems strange, even to one born and educated in the Mississippi valley, to read a review of Don Juan printed in the wilds of Kentucky only six months after the poem appeared. Among other works reviewed in the journal are Mazeppa, The Sketch-Book, and Halleck's Fanny. A few years later Cincinnati made the loudest, and probably the most successful claim to be "The Athens of the West.' 1 The Medley. This very interesting journal continued but one year. Mr. Venable de. votes several pages to this work in his Literary Beginnings of the Ohio Valley, and ex presses the belief that the only copy extant is in the Lexington library. A complete volume, including twelve pages more than Venable ascribes to this copy, is in the library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. The city had several newspapers, and some facilities for publishing books. Only New York, Boston, and Philadelphia can show a larger list of literary periodicals established between 1824 and 1833. The Western Monthly Review continued two years. In 1833 James Hall1 issued the first number of the Western Monthly Magazine, a continuation of the Illinois Monthly Magazine, which he had for two years been trying to keep alive at Vandalia. Shortly after 1833 there were several other magazines of interest. These received contributions from eastern as well as from western authors; in one, the reader is surprised to find a hitherto unpublished poem by Keats. The two publications at Mt. Pleasant were devoted to reforms. The Literary Focus and the Literary Register were edited at Miami University. The Illinois Monthly Magazine was one of the most typical of the western journals. Vandalia was at this time the capital of Illinois, and was considered a city of great promise. It was not to be expected that great works of literature would be produced under conditions like those that existed in the West during pioneer days. Probably the best that was written found its way into the magazines; though some books were published by westerners, and highly praised by both eastern and western reviewers. Among the most prolific authors was Timothy Flint, who wrote several sketches of western life. The student of today is chiefly interested in the fact that the West showed so quick and so keen an appreciation of the tendencies that have since become dominant in American literature. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LITERATURE OF THE TIME. The characteristics of the writings of these early years are not easy to summarize. It should always be borne in mind that these beginnings were not the product of one school or tendency in the mother country, but show the influence of every great English writer. The result was a good deal of a medley at first; 1 Hiram W. Beckwith contributes a sketch of this pioneer of western letters to the Chicago Tribune for Sept. 8, 1895. but the essential difference between English and American literature, so far as such a difference has existed in the last half century, is largely due to this fact. In prose, aside from fiction, Irving set the fashion with a modification of the Addisonian type. In other words, he chose what was best in the English writings of the eighteenth century, and adapted it to the new conditions. Attempts at the same style are to be found almost everywhere.1 Perhaps it was due to Addisonian influences, working through Irving, that the short stories of the day were so stale, flat, and unprofitable. Irving's bits of fiction seem to be mostly modifications of the Addisonian essay, rather than real stories. Rip van Winkle and Sleepy Hollow are exceptions to this statement, and it is because the are exceptions that they are the most popular of his sketches. Following the same impulse, many other writers produced stories equally dull, and not half so genially told. Either it is possible to tell after the first few paragraphs exactly how the story will end, or the reader is asked to follow a long series of strange occurrences, only to find that it is "all a dream."2 Not quite all short stories were of this sort. At this time appeared studies in the psychologically horrible, a type which, in the hands of Poe and Hawthorne, became very effective. There had been enough of the purely horrible before; Charles Brockden Brown, for one, was famous for his use of it; but a story like Dana's Paul Felton3 is entirely different from this. In the latter, the horrors are real, no matter how they are accounted for. The facts are stated, and the reader is left to choose between demoniacal possession and insanity, or-if he would get the strongest effect,—to think the one theory, and feel the other. How this treatment originated is uncertain. Possibly it 1 Take, for example, the papers in the Talisman. 2 Illustrations may be found in any of the annuals; or, for an example that will not be too wearisome, see Bryant's early attempts at prose tales, reprinted in his collected works. First published in The Idle Man. came from the German;1 but there seems very slight evidence of this. Possibly it came from contemporary England, by carrying out in prose what Coleridge hinted in verse. The writer inclines to the opinion that it was a natural American development from what had preceded. A literature of horrors seems to be a necessity. At times the mind craves something of the sort. Since the days of Walpole, horrors had been introduced without apparent explanation; or, in a few cases, had been explained at the end of the story in some matter-of-fact way. The former plan could not satisfy the business-like American, with his increasing sense of scientific laws; the latter was flat. One course or the other seemed necessary so long as a physical explanation was sought for, but a psychological treatment obviated all difficulties. Perhaps the renewed interest in philosophy, and possibly something in the characteristics of the American mind, should be taken into account. Longer prose fiction was generally patterned after Scott. Those who had not originality enough to follow Scott directly took Cooper's Americanized version as their model. Epics do not seem to have been attempted much, perhaps because they would take too much time. Dramas, however, were common enough. Classical subjects seem to have had the preference. The verse is almost uniformly bad, owing, Bryant thinks, in the case of Hillhouse, to the influence of Milton;2 more probably to the extreme artificiality of everything connected with these productions. Hillhouse and Pickering wrote some of the dramas that were most favorably received. Payne, less ambitious and more practical, actually prepared plays for the stage. From one of these, Clari (1823), comes Home Sweet Home-almost the only thing from the pens of these would-be dramatists that has survived.3 1 Brandl, Life of Coleridge, page 166, remarks that horrors continued popular in the drama between 1790 and 1800, but that there were fewer robbers, ghosts, tyrants, etc., and more inward convulsions of soul. This the author thinks was due in part to the revolution, when executions were of daily occurrence. North American Review, xi., 384. 'Others who wrote plays were Clinch, Ingersoll, Morris, and Woodworth. |