John Sundman’s Reviews > American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman > Status Update

Wrapping up on Whitman. Discussion of Whitman and USian painters of his era, such as Mount & Eakins. Whitman compared & contrasted with Wordsworth. Whitman's foundational & passionate commitment to the dignity & worth of ordinary people gives force & urgency to his poetry but often leads to 'types' & generalizations rather than portraits of actual individuals. Even Thoreau was better than Whitman at that.

Boy, he really doesn't have much love for Walt Whitman, does he?

Deep into Melville now; this is the good stuff and the whole book up to here is kind of preparation for the discussion now. Matthiessen is making the case that Melville's binging on Shakespeare in the year before he wrote Moby-Dick is key to understanding how the author of Mardi and Typee, etc, worthy but not spectacular books, could create Moby-Dick, an indisputable masterpiece.

Hawthorne and history, Hawthorne on how Puritanism's stifling aftereffects lasted for centuries in New England. Great stuff.

Snuck in a whole chapter on Melville in the Hawthorne section, then a chapter on how Hawthorne influenced Henry James.

How Hawthorne thinks about imagination & his idiosyncratic definition of the "romance" (which is what he called The Scarlet Letter) as distinct from the "novel". More on allegory, symbolism, metaphor, & related.

Hawthorne now. His sense of tragedy/human complexity that Emerson & Thoreau clearly did not have. His literary style was more classical than E & T's; more abstract when discussing the natural world. So Hawthorne both more & less modern than E &T. A harsh & funny critic of his own short stories. Funny private comments by Hawthorne & Melville about E & T.

Now we're entering the darker worlds of Hawthorne & Melville. Having spent so much time (close to 200 pages) getting really familiar with the thinking & writing of Emerson & Thoreau pays off now that we can read what Hawthorne thought of each of them. Great gossip (and insight). I'm really enjoying this.

Very interesting discussion of Thoreau's craftsmanship, and how he came closer to making is own art (his books) conform to his stated philosophy than did either Emerson or (sculpter) Horatio Greeenough.