Study of U.S. Literature Comes of Age

Emerson D is filled these days with English concentrators and dilettantes leaning forward to memorize Perry Miller's interpretations of the White Whale; Sever Hall draws about a roomful of the less dilettantish who wish to gain Kenneth Murdock's analyses of American literature to 1825; and the Coop is stocked with books by Faulkner, Twain, Hawthorne, Cooper, and the Puritan writers.

The student persuing the catalogue for a course on American literature has a difficult time. He is faced with choices, ranging from a survey course spanning the entire subject, to intensive graduate courses in Melville.

The student of 1895 looking for a course in American literature also had a difficult time, but in a different way. In 1895 no courses in American literature were given at Harvard, and no mention of American literature was made in the catalogue. Twenty-three years before, in 1872, Princeton reputedly initiated the study of American literature in America; but Harvard, home of many of the greatest American writers, would have nothing to do with it.

It was only the next year, in the fall of 1896 that there appeared in the catalogue any evidence that there was a literature in the United States. In that year, there is a notation at the end of the English section that graduates might engage in "special study" on the topic of American Literature with Professor Barrett Wendell. This is all.

Attempt at Americanism

In his Theory of American Literature, Howard Mumford Jones asserts that American academic aversion to its national literature was due to its abhorrence of the clean break which American authors were trying to make with European literary tradition. Noah Webster called for a purely American language, and a literature not based on "the mouldering pillars of antiquity."

To this, academicians replied that the literature which was being produced led to "disobedience to parents -- debaucheries -- prostitutions -- broken promises -- perjuries -- adulteries -- and other crimes too horrid to name ... caused by learning in and inculcated from this abominable library of hell."

Harvard piously avoided hell and confined itself to teaching safe Anglo-Saxon literature and language, plus a few scattered courses in more modern English writings.

Straw Beard and Cigarette

But there was a professor at Harvard with a straw-colored beard, who stalked through the Yard with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He--Barrett Wendell-- put an end to the university's avoidance of a national literature. His "special study" graduate course remained stubbornly alone in the catalogue until 1902, when it was joined by a course which has been given at Harvard, or at least listed in the catalogue, for 55 years: English 33hf, which was changed to English 7 in a general course renumbering in 1935. The course was called "The History of American Literature."

English 33hf was not actually given until 1905-06, though it appeared in the catalogue for three years preceding this time. A fall term course at first, it was given on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday at 11; its popularity may be indicated by the fact that it was given twice the following year. The year after it was first announced, English 33hf was joined by a third American literature course, English 45hf, "The Lives, Characters, and Times of Men of Letters, English and American." This was given by the beloved Charles Townsend ("Copey") Copeland.

Story of Men

But it was Wendell who can truly be called the founder, and the main supporter of American literature at Harvard in its early years. Kenneth Murdock has said that the history of the teaching of American literature at Harvard is not the story of "general attitudes, but of men," and Wendell is perhaps the prime example. An avowed Anglophile, his beard and spats gave him the appearance of "a real professor," in the words of one awed freshman in his course. It is told that upon walking into his first class of the term and being greeted by thunderous applause, he responded with an expression that was half annoyance and half bemusement, and bellowed, "For God's sake, gentlemen, don't make a noise!"

Wendell and "Copey" continued their trilogy alone until 1911, when the second great name in the teaching of American Literature at Harvard, Bliss Perry, began teaching a graduate course on Emerson. This was the first non-survey U.S. literature course to be offered and one of the few non-survey courses in the department. Survey courses, " in outline," were "the norm for college literature courses in that day," Murdock explains, adding, "I wouldn't be caught dead giving one like that now."

But the break in survey courses brought about by Perry's Emerson course was only temporary. Other survey-type courses in American literature were being added to the English Department. In 1914, "Puritanism in English and American Literature." Chester N. Greenough, the third "founder" of United States literature study here, taught that one.

This new interest was noted the next year. Although Barrett Wendell had retired from teaching, English 33hf-was expanded to a full course; it was taken over by Greenough, another somewhat charismatic individual, who had headed English A and was later to become Dean of the College and the first Master of Dunster House.

In 1924 a new name was added to the "greats" of Harvard teachers of American literature. Murdock, who had taught part of English 33 the year before, took over the survey course alone, and began as well a course in "Problems in Early American Literature" which was another departure from the English 33 approach.

Big Three

By this time there was an informal Big Three in the American Literature field at the University: Greenough, and Murdock, and Bliss Perry. Perry, who had made his entrance into the field at about the same time as Wendell, was quite different from his bearded colleague. Possessed of a slow deep voice, he had "nothing of the showman about him--he didn't need to have." He had, Douglas Bush recalled at Perry's death in 1954, "bright blue eyes, a slow smile, a warm and selfless concern with literature and things humane." Perry wrote one of the first favorable biographies extant of Walt Whitman, and edited the Atlantic Monthly for almost ten years.

Perry retired in 1930, and so the field was left to his two co-pioneers. Greenough taught a course in eighteenth-century English thought and expression; Murdock taught a course in the American Novel.

In 1931 there was again a Big Three in American literature. Assistant Professor Francis O. Matthiessen joined the staff of English 33, an association that was to last until his tragic suicide in 1950.

A Fourth

Shortly after Matheissen's entrance into the Department, a fourth giant was added: Perry G. E. Miller, who made his Harvard debut by aiding Murdock with English 33 and later taking over Matthiesson's course in sectional American literature. Miller has since established himself as perhaps the foremost scholar on colonial literature, and has kept himself yoked to English 33 (or 7) for almost 25 years.

By 1935 there were about six courses offered in American literature, and the English Department moved to recognize this field as a formal part of its curriculum. In a major reorganization of its courses in 1935, it changed the name of the section called "The History of English Literature" to "The History of English and American Literature."

By this time Greenough had retired from active teaching, but another scholar came to fill his place. His name was Howard Mumford Jones, and he broke into U.S. literature at Harvard by teaching part of the course which he still heads, English 170.

For 15 years, these four scholars--Murdock, Mathiessen, Miller, and Jones--strengthened the department and greatly broadened the scope of its offerings. This was done by the continual change in the character of English 170 and 270: one year 170 would become Murdock's novel course; another year it would be Miller's course in American Romanticism; again, it became Matheissen's course in American poetry.

In 1950, the Department made perhaps its most recent advancement by showing that it was cognizant of the importance of contemporary authors, and offered a course on Faulkner.

"I am Exhausted"

But 1950 was a significant year for the Department in several ways. It showed its interest in contemporary literature, and it lost one of the men contributing most towards its growth and development. On April 1, 1950, Francis O. Matthiessen jumped to his death from the twelfth floor of the Manger Hotel in Boston, saying in a suicide note that "I am exhausted. . . I find myself terribly oppressed by the present tensions."

His death left Murdock, Miller, and Jones to carry forward American literature at Harvard by themselves. Today there are fourteen courses listed in the catalogue or actually being taught, and it may be assumed that, with interest in the field increasing, the number of courses will also increase. It is doubtful that there will ever be a concentration program in American literature, since, as Murdock says this would result in concentrators becoming "awfully provincial." American writing, he continues, "cannot be seriously studied without realizing how very much it has been influenced by English literature."

University Keeps Perspective

Harvard's approach to the subject, by offering many courses comparing British and American writing, has kept U.S. literature in just this perspective. The distinguished men who have taught it here have done much to lift American literature from the "abominable library of hell" and set it well on the road to being ensconced in the library of quite an other place.PERRY G. E. MILLER