Tracing the Common Thread

...Tracing the Common Thread Democratic Humanism and American Literature By Harold Kaplan Chicago 272 pp $12 00 Reviewed by Granville Hicks Author, "Literary Horizons A Quarter Century of American Fiction" Nearly 50 years ago-in 1926, to be exact-Lewis Mumford published The Golden Day, a work that both marked and contributed to a major change in the evaluation of American writing Maintaining that American literature had its great flourishing in the quarter century before the Civil War and declined thereafter, Mumford singled out Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Melville, and Hawthorne as the masters of that epoch Previously, Thoreau was known chiefly as a nature writer, Whitman was under suspicion of moral turpitude, and Melville was ignored The pictures bracketed together under the caption "Our Poets" on the parlor walls of many Victorian homes were those of Emerson, Bryant, Longfellow, Whittier, and Lowell In his introduction to a new edition of The Golden Day in 1957, Mumford allowed that he had done less than justice to many authors, but he placed the same quintet at the top of his list...

...In the end, it is what Kaplan says about particular authors, not his general thesis, that gives his book high value Even if his argument is largely sound, as I believe it is, it does not add much to our understanding and appreciation of 19th-century American literature There is nothing here that has the revolutionary importance of Mumford's book Still, basing himself firmly on 25 years of scholarly analysis and critical meditation, Kaplan has given us further reason for cherishing our literary heritage...

...With other books and authors Kaplan is less satisfying It is not easy, for example, to make a democrat out of James Fenimore Cooper, and Kaplan manages to get away with it only by adopting D H Lawrence's views on Cooper's Indians Huckleberry Finn, with its subtle portrayal of the relationship between Huck and Nigger Jim, fits Kaplan's categories neatly enough, but much else that Twain wrote, especially in his later years, raises problems James, too, was more complex than one might gather from Kaplan's analysis of The Ambassadors...

...In Democratic Humanism and American Literature Harold Kaplan accepts Mumford's quintet, adds Cooper and Poe by way of commenting on D H Lawrence's Studies in Classic American Literature, and embraces Twain and James None of his essays sets out to be comprehensive, some consider only single books But his thesis is that all of these writers have something in common, what he calls democratic humanism...

...The preeminence of Mumford's choices has rarely been disputed in the years since he crowned them Collectively they have formed the subject of many books, perhaps most notably F O Matthiessen's American Renaissance, and dozens of individual studies have appeared On the other hand, Mumford's denigration of post-Civil War writers has frequently been challenged, and there is a critical consensus that Mark Twain and Henry James, though not chronologically of the Golden Day, stand with the five in the American pantheon...

...At first glance, these terms seem too vague to be useful Few words today are more abused than "democratic", and "humanism" can mean anything from the conservative philosophy of Irving Babbitt to the left wing of Unitarianism Kaplan, however, seeks to be specific about both "The important and distinguishing political features of American democracy are the individual franchise, the adversary system of elections, the bill of rights for expressive freedoms, and the contractual concept of the state, making it subject to the criticism of its members and their right of dissent ". He defines humanism by its relation to democratic politics, quoting, as he often does, Alexis de Tocqueville "I am persuaded that in the end democracy diverts the imagination from all that is external to man and fixes it on man alone The destinies of mankind, man himself taken aloof from his country and his age and standing in the presence of Nature and of God, with his passions, his doubts, his rare prosperities and inconceivable wretchedness, will become the chief, if not the sole, theme of poetry among these nations " And, citing the Declaration of Independence, Kaplan says "It seems clear that this claim of antecedent rights and the primordial contract implies a radical humanism, that is to say, humanism as a first premise ". Not surprisingly, Kaplan does best with the four authors who best illustrate his thesis Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, and Whitman Emerson is the trickiest, not because it is hard to prove that he was a democrat and a humanist in Kaplan's sense, but because he was so much else To most readers Emerson's philosophy seems amorphous, the gnomic phrases he was fond of can be used to prove almost anything one wishes...

...In contrast, Thoreau was wonderfully straightforward, yet the notion persists that he was primarily interested in nature, and Kaplan's demonstration that he was even more concerned about man is sound and valuable Walden, Moby Dick and Leaves of Grass are the three works Kaplan places at the pinnacle of American literature, and he writes about each with passion as well as insight...