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QUESTIONS

What was the cause of the marked difference between the oratory of this period and that of the preceding? Who was the most famous pulpit orator of the time? Give some account of his career. What were the striking characteristics of his oratory? What remarkable series of orations did he deliver? In what respects did the pulpit oratory of Phillips Brooks differ from that of Beecher? Give an outline of his career. What was his method of address? Analyze briefly the selection from "The Influence of Jesus." What type of oratory is represented by Robert C. Winthrop? Describe the style of Wendell Phillips. Describe the oratory of Charles Sumner. What two distinguished men represent the oratory of the Southern States in this period? Give some account of the life and public career of Alexander H. Stephens. In the selection from Jefferson Davis, what are the leading thoughts presented? Give some account of the early career of Abraham Lincoln. What famous utterance in one of his earlier political speeches? What striking qualities were displayed in the debate with Douglas? Describe the Cooper Institute address. What was the occasion of the Gettysburg address? Describe the second inaugural address. Analyze briefly the Gettysburg address.

2 A

General
Remarks.

CHAPTER XIV

THE LAST TWENTY YEARS

IN the effort to give a general view of the present condition of Literature in America, a cause of embarrassment is the amount of material. The wide diffusion of intelligence has tended to stimulate Literature by affording a very large reading public; and the multiplication of newspapers and magazines has worked in the same direction by furnishing an easy mode of access to this public. Moreover, the general habit of reading and the study of good Literature which has been fostered by the popular reading circles and clubs, has developed a certain amount of technical ability with the pen; so that the number of those who can turn out a copy of reasonably correct verse, or a readable story or essay, is now very large. The university movement has led to the production of a vast number of treatises and theses; and every ambitious teacher, nowadays, thinks it due to his own reputation and to that of his institution that he print something. Some popular authors have made large sums of money by their writings; and one result of this is the mistaken impression that "Literature" is a sure and easy road to wealth. These facts and tendencies, with others which have worked in the same direction, have resulted in an enormous amount

of book production; so that even to name all the
writers of the last twenty years would require another
volume at least as large as this; and the volume
would not be so useful as an ordinary trade catalogue.
If all those and only those could be named who really
deserve a place in American Literature, a valuable
result would be secured; but it is not at all probable
that this could be successfully attempted.
It may
be possible, however, and if possible, it will be useful,
to point out some of the qualities and tendencies of
our present Literature; mentioning only a very few
representative names under each class. In doing this,
no disparagement is intended toward those whose
names may be omitted. Completeness being out of
the question, it is only hoped that the survey may be,
in some degree, representative.

Characteris

tics.

The most of the verse-writing at present is Lyric, Verse. and of the lighter, less serious type. There is a great deal of technical excellence and delicacy of form with General a tendency to the cultivation of the more artificial types, such as the Sonnet and the French forms. The influence of the realistic movement, so strong in all nineteenth-century Literature, is seen in the number of dialect poems, illustrating the character and habits of different sections of the country. One of Riley's titles, "Poems Here at Home," and one of Field's, "A Little Book of Western Verse," illustrate the local character, which is one of the accompaniments of this realistic tendency. The average quality of the verse now published far exceeds that of earlier periods, but there is none which appeals to the uni

Dialect
Verse.

versal heart as did that of Longfellow and Whittier. There is an interesting group of writers in Canada who have recently attracted attention by work of excellent quality, both in verse and in prose fiction. Brander Matthews, in his recent "Introduction to American Literature," expresses the opinion that we have a right to expect a distinctively Canadian Literature as well as an Australian. There may be reasonable doubt whether the differences between Canada and the United States are sufficient to cause a distinct type of Literature, but it is of great interest to mark the appearance of this group of writers as one of the signs of developing national life in our northern neighbor.

It was in 1870 that a little bit of dialect verse called "The Heathen Chinee" caught the eye of the Amer

Francis Bret ican public. It was such a perfect satire upon the

Harte, born,

1839.

John Hay.

Anti-Chinese agitation of that period, and in all respects so perfect a thing of its kind, that it proved the advent of a new force in our Literature. Francis Bret Harte has, of late years, given himself to storywriting, to the loss of the amount and quality of the verse he might have given us. His best work has represented the life of the mining camps in California and the Rocky Mountain region; often in dialect. He has written strong, dramatic, spirited stories both in prose and verse, and has a rich fund of humor and pathos. Of late years he has resided in England, and his later writings are better known there than in America. John Hay's "Pike County Ballads" shows similar characteristics; and Eugene

Field,

Field, whose recent death brought to a premature Eugene close a most promising career, employed the same 1850-1896. method in many of his "verses," as he always modestly termed them. But Field was not limited to this vein. Probably his reputation is more firmly based upon his poems of childhood. He entered, as few writers have been able to do, into the child spirit; and in "Little Boy Blue," and other similar poems, has very tenderly expressed the sorrow of bereavement. A very different writer, and yet one whom we instinctively associate with Field on account of his similar power in dealing with the thoughts and feelings of the child, is James Whitcomb Riley. His verse is much of it in the dialect of the Indiana farmer; and is quite unique in our Literature. He is not confined to this, however; but has written some beautiful verse in literary English. The strong lyrical tendency of our present poets Nature is illustrated by Edith Matilda Thomas, in delicate studies of nature, full of the sweetness and spice of the woods; by Emily Dickinson, in very quaint, original, and suggestive utterances of a rare spirit; and by Richard Watson Gilder, in verse which sometimes speaks with a force unusual in recent poetry.

James Whitcomb Riley.

Verse.

Henry Cuyler Bunner best illustrates the tendency French to the use of the French forms, and the bright, deli- Forms. cate, little poems which no term so well describes as Henry Cuyler the French phrase, "Vers de Société." We have quoted, in the Introduction, his pretty triolet "The Pitcher of Mignonette."

Bunner,

1855-1896.

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