American literature may help to account for the fact that native letters have been, until recently, almost neglected in our colleges and universities. It is more than time that this condition should change, and it will be an event of happy augury for our future as a nation when it can be said confidently that it has changed. Some college professors have been heard to say that they would consider their lives wasted if spent in the teaching of our literature, but such an attitude can be only the result of ignorance, bred by a vicious specialism. Our little specialists, indeed, have tended to rob all literary studies of breadth and substance and deep human value by their acceptance of "current finical and transitory definitions of literature" which divorce the subject from intellectual, social, and political history; but the ignorance and narrowness encouraged by specialism cannot indefinitely delay the realization that neglect of American letters is disgraceful. For in reality there are "admirable riches of human nature' stored in our literature whose discovery should not be left to unlikely accident and the chance recommendations of journalists; and, in addition, it requires but little thought to recognize the extraordinary nature, after all, of the fact that we should pretend to give our youth a liberal education, and yet should omit their own literature from their courses of instruction. This may have been well once; it is well no longer when as any candid review of such matter as is gathered in the present work must show-we incontestably have produced a national literature of high value from any point of view, and one which must be known and studied by all who seek to learn what it means to be an American. In the preparation of this collection of texts, I have endeavored to reduce explanatory matter to its minimum, but, at the same time, I have aimed to provide such help as may be needed for fairly rapid yet accurate reading, and also to provide information sufficient for the personal approach to the various writers represented which is an indispensable element in the study of literature. Wherever it has been possible, only pieces complete in themselves have been selected for use. Omissions have been permitted solely because of considerations of space; and all editorial omissions in the texts are indicated by asterisks, so as to distinguish them plainly from the cases where authors themselves have, for one purpose or another, made use of extra periods. In general, modern usage has been followed in the matters of spelling and punctuation, though to this rule a few exceptions have been made in cases where (as in Bacon's Epitaph) this has seemed advantageous. Such a work as the present one involves many debts, not all of which can even be acknowledged, much less repaid. The help afforded by the Cambridge History of American Literature has been indispensable, and I also owe much to earlier editors. I am indebted, in common with all students of our literature, to the important historical studies of Professor Fred Lewis Pattee and to his scholarly edition of the more important poems of Freneau. Other obligations there are, too numerous for any save this general acknowledgment, but I must at least express my gratitude to several persons without whose help or encouragement my work would have been far more difficult:-Mr. Edwin Arlington Robinson, Mrs. William Vaughn Moody, Mr. Paul Elmer More, Mr. John Jay Chapman, Mr. and Mrs. Vachel Lindsay, Mr. Wilson Follett, Mr. Horace Liveright, Mrs. Alfred A. Knopf, Professor J. Penrose Harland of the University of Cincinnati, Mrs. O. T. Wilson of the Cincinnati Public Library, Mr. E. D. Hellweg and Mr. W. E. Thomas of the staff of Messrs. Doubleday, Page and Company, and, finally, my wife, whose aid in the preparation of the manuscript, in the reading of proofs, and indeed in every phase of the work, has been constant and invaluable. My obligations to several publishing houses are recorded in each case on the pages where they occur. No pains have been spared to secure accuracy in both texts and notes, but in such a compilation as this errors are almost inevitable. I hope that at least no serious ones remain to be discovered, but I shall be grateful to any who use the work for pointing out to me any errors they find, of whatever sort, so that they may be promptly corrected. 10 MAY, 1926. ROBERT SHAFER CONTENTS Book II, Chap. IV, Life of John Winthrop Book VI, Chap. VII, Preternatural Occurrences: The Ninth Example The Alhambra: Palace of the Alhambra Important Negotiations.-The Author Succeeds to the Throne of Boabdil Chap. IV Chap. V (A portion omitted) |