Literature and Ideas in America: Essays in Memory of Harry Hayden Clark ed. by Robert Falk, and The Literary Journal in America to 1900 by Edward E. Chielens

Abstract

Reviews 187 His second preoccupation is with the nature of style, and here he is much more intriguing and his ideas are more original. The very concept of style, he sees, is more comprehensive than are most of our unthinking definitons of it. Style is greater than grammar, or word choice, or syntax, or whatever. It is ultimately “the signature of the writer [which], like spoor traces, can be detected in a phrase, or the tracks of a sentence” (p. 25). Since all these stylistic tracks are individual, it follows that even though there may well be individual “bad” styles there is no single “good” style existing in some Platonic realm of pure form toward which the aspiring literary artist should aspire. Nevertheless, when all is said the value of About Fiction to any given reader will probably depend mostly on Morris’s admittedly argumentative insights than upon these general considerations. Here is where Morris as a cult author becomes important, for the significance of the various reverent reflections and irreverent observations lies not primarily in their general analysis of the nature of fiction or in their appraisal of specific authors: their significance lies rather in what they tell us of Morris himself. And indeed they tell us a great deal. They indicate Morris’s feelings about what makes both good readers and good writers. They indicate his view of the responsibilities of the novelist, of the critic, and of the student of literature. They provide “A Reader’s Sampler” of twenty-one selected works of twentieth-century fiction together w'ith Morris’s defense — often witty, always provocative — of his choices. For Morris the supreme fiction is life, and this book in praising fiction praises life itself. JAMES K. FOLSOM, University of Colorado Literature and Ideas in America: Essays in Memory of Harry Hayden Clark, ed. by Robert Falk. (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1975. 243 pages, $10.00.) The Literary Journal in America to 1900, by Edw'ard E. Chielens (Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1975. 197 pages, $18.00.) Harr)' Hayden Clark taught American literature at the Universty of Wisconsin for over forty years. Literature and Ideas in America was planned to honor him in retirement; unfortunately it appears as a posthumous festschrift. The book includes eleven essays by colleagues and former stu­ dents of Clark as well as an eleven-page bibliography of his books, articles, and reviews. Robert Falk’s preface is both a brief biography and a per­ sonal tribute. The essays primarily reflect Clark’s own scholarly interests: Freneau, Emerson, Holmes, Hawthorne, Henry James. In general they reveal a close 188 Western American Literature reading of carefully selected texts with appropriate comment and rather too much quotation. Numerous footnotes (one chapter has 80), attesting to the desire of the writers to document their statements or to identify their texts, do not contribute much to the readability of the volume. Festschriften tend to be erudite rather than exciting and this is no exception. The most attractive essays are Edwin FI. Cady’s discussion of Freneau as an archetypal American poet and Benjamin Spencer’s demonstration that Gertrude Stein was more essentially American than ex-patriate. Alexander Kern’s analysis of Thoreau’s religious thought has unusual interest and Richard Rust’s reading of The Blithedale Romance and the character of Miles Coverdale is provocative, Howard Baetzhold deals definitively with a minor Twain essays and burlesque, and Merton M. Sealts and Gay Wilson Allen offer comment on Emerson, the first concentrating on the early essay “Literary Ethics,” the second reexamining Emerson’s attitude toward sci­ ence. Three essays treat novels: W. R. MacNaughton focuses on James’s The Sacred Fount, Richard A. Davison on Norris’s The Octopus, and John Stephen Martin on Holmes’s Elsie Venner and other “medicated novels.” Neil F. Doubleday scrutinizes the reviews of fiction as they appeared in the North American Review from 1815 to 1826. Edward E. Chielens’s book is a useful library tool. He groups his literary periodicals in four regional categories, within which the arrange­ ment is alphabetical. Although 1900 is the technical terminal date for consideration, journals like Harper’s and the Atlantic Monthly which are...