II. Literature of the Revolution

As American literature thus emerges from its isolation, we note instantly that it has become more practical, more worldly, more intent on solving the problems of the present than of the future life. In nearly all books of the period the center of interest shifts from heaven to earth; theology gives way to politics; and the spiritual yearnings of an earlier age, which reached a climax in Jonathan Edwards, are replaced by the shrewd, practical "philosophy of common sense," with Benjamin Franklin as its chief apostle.

Not only the spirit but the form also of literature is changed in the Revolutionary period. The great social movement which we have outlined gave rise to numerous newspapers and magazines, with their poems, satires, essays, stories,—a bright and varied array compared with the Colonial product. More significant of the new social life are the crude plays of Royall Tyler and William Dunlap, which were immensely popular in the new playhouses, and the romances of Charles Brockden Brown, which at the close of this period mark the beginning of the American novel.

Just as the new social life brought forth this ephemeral writing—a kind of literature of amusement, to be enjoyed to-day and forgotten to-morrow—so the various political movements had each its distinctive form of literary expression. The years following the obnoxious Stamp Act saw the beginning of that brilliant oratory which was, and still is, one of the great molding influences in American life and literature. The strife of Whigs and Tories is mirrored in a host of ballads, songs and satires in verse; and the struggle between Federalists and Anti-Federalists over the Constitution produced, in the writings of John Adams, Washington, Madison, Jay, Hamilton, Jefferson, and many others, a new form of political writing, the first true literature of Democracy, which had influence far beyond the borders of the American nation.

Another marked characteristic of the poetry of the age is its imitativeness, its bondage to fashion. The thought is sometimes original, and the setting is generally American, but the style and phraseology are usually only slavish copies of British originals. Thus, one of the most notable American poems of the eighteenth century was the Philosophic  Solitude  of William Livingston. The author was a soldier in the French and Indian Wars, a member of the Continental Congress, a war governor of New Jersey during the Revolution,—a rugged, Cromwellian kind of man, to be cherished as a friend and feared as an enemy. When he writes prose he speaks like a man, often like a soldier; but when he turns to poetry he straightway simpers, and becomes the mere slave of a literary fashion:

1 From Philosophic Solitude  (1747). The same imitation of Pope is seen in another famous poem, Barlow's Hasty Pudding  (1796).

A far cry this from the gloom and terror of Wigglesworth's Day of Doom , which has, at least, the two virtues of being sincere and of reflecting a true side of the Puritan imagination. These endless rimed couplets have two chief faults: they are artificial, and they give false impression of the mothers of the Revolution. One has hardly read a dozen lines before he knows that Livingston has merely taken Pope's Rape of the Lock  and given it an American setting.

Because of the political turmoil of the age, a large part of Revolutionary verse is devoted to satire. Here again our writers follow the English poets of the eighteenth century—who were sometimes hired by Whigs or Tories to satirize political opponents—and their verses copy the style and methods of Dryden, Pope and Churchill. It was a beautiful case of "fighting the devil with his own weapons," for every one of these vigorous American satirists used his British model as a club wherewith to belabor the mother country for her political blunders:

1 From Freneau, "The Country Printer."

To the student, the most interesting thing in Revolutionary poetry is the new and vibrant note of nationality. Songs and ballads appeared in countless numbers; satires fairly peppered the columns of every Patriot newspaper; and all alike voiced the national spirit of the first Continental Congress. A score of verses from different sections might easily be quoted, but a single illustration must suffice. At the period of which we are writing, one of the most popular songs in England was David Garrick's sailor chantey, the chorus of which ran:

In the Virginia Gazette of May 2, 1766, when the Colonies were all aflame over the Stamp Act, appeared a parody on this "English Hearts of Oak." Though the title remained intact, the verses warned England that crossing the ocean had not changed the Saxon spirit, and that a lion's whelp is a lion, no matter where he happens to be born. One of the stanzas ran:

2 Duyckink, Cyclopedia of American Literature .

Ten years later, on the eve of conflict, the song was parodied by another Virginian, and now it was called "American Hearts of Oak." The meaning of the changed title is obvious. The verses, and indeed all the songs of the period, are echoes of Patrick Henry's passionate declaration: "I am not a Virginian; I am an American."

Almost as notable as this individuality of Revolutionary prose writers is another trait, a kind of "commonwealth quality," arising from community of interests on the one hand, and from a man's profound sense of responsibility to his fellows on the other. If the lonely Colonial writers impress us as voices crying in the wilderness, the Revolutionary authors seem like men speaking in a great assembly; and their words have power because they voice the thought and aspiration of a multitude. For a new problem has been suddenly thrust upon the Colonies by the Revolution. It is the problem of forming one union out of many states, of making one government out of many factions, of bringing a multitude of all sorts and conditions of men into national peace and harmony. Hence the orators and prose writers, if they are to help solve that mighty problem, must appeal to the love of freedom and the sense of justice which lie deep in the hearts of men; they must emphasize ideals which are acknowledged by rich and poor, wise and ignorant; and, like Bradford, they must have an eye single to the truth in all things.

That they felt their responsibility, that they used voice and pen nobly in the service of the nation, is evident enough to one who reads even a part of the prose literature appearing between Henry's impassioned "Liberty or Death" speech and Washington's calm and noble "Farewell Address" to his people. Clearness, force, restraint; here a touch of humor, when the crowd must be coaxed; there a sudden exaltation of soul, when the old Saxon ideal of liberty is presented,—all the elements of a fine prose style are manifest; but it is not so much the form as the substance that appeals to us, and especially the greatheartedness of the Revolutionary writers. They gave the world the first example of what has been well called "citizen literature," that is, the expression of the ideals of a whole commonwealth, and to this day their work remains unrivaled in its own political field.

This Revolutionary prose belongs largely to the "literature of knowledge" and is seldom found in literary textbooks; but it is well to remember two things concerning it: that it began with our national life; and that it reflects a strong, original and creative impulse of the American mind. It was as if Democracy, silent for untold ages, had at last found a voice, and the voice spoke, not doubtfully, fearfully, but in trumpet tones of prophecy. It gave the startled old world something new and vital to think about; and it is quite as remarkable in its way as are the forest and sea romances of Cooper, which surprised and delighted all Europe a half century later.