Literary Democracy: The Declaration of Cultural Independence in America

by Larzer Ziff

Tries to explain the development of a true American literature in the midnineteenth century by examining the careers of writers like Melville, Hawthorne, Whitman, and Thoreau.

Genres: Literary Criticism

333 pages, Hardcover

First published August 26, 1982

About the author

Larzer Ziff is Caroline Donovan Research Professor of English at The Johns Hopkins University.

Reviews

[Chet]

While we were discussing this book last week and its seamless melding of literary criticism and history my wife reminded me that Harvard's department of literature is actually called the department of literature and history. As it should be. These two should never be separated. I feel similarly about philosophy and history. Ziff does a great job blending all three, anchoring Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Stowe, Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, and some other names you may not know, in the events of the time leading up to all out Civil War, including intense economic panic, but also exploring their philosophizing on the nature of democracy, and how their verse and prose forged a new national literature in the process. Speaking of those names you may not know, I'm quite grateful to Ziff for introducing me to George Lippard and George Washington Harris, the latter while virtually unspoken of today nonetheless apparently a massive influence on Twain and Faulkner. All around an excellent and worthwhile read on an important era and turning point for American literature.