The Teaching of American Literature in Britian

Abstract

I do not know how many ways of teaching American literature there are, but I can think of at least three. One can accept it as a literature in its own right and teach it for its moral and aesthetic values; one can regard it as worthy only of being treated as part of American intellectual history, or as an illustration of American life and thought; or one can make some compromise between these two methods. I should like, at the outset, to examine the practicability of the first method. George Bernard Shaw said once that an Englishman “does everything on principle. He fights you on patriotic principles; he robs you on business principles; he enslaves you on imperial principles.” If, therefore, I propose a principle for the teaching of Amerioan literature, it will perhaps be understood that, although I am not exactly announcing my deliberate perfidy, I am at least acknowledging that I am aware that the current frame of mind in Britain would suggest a certain strategy.