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The Rise of Realism:. 1860-1914. The U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) between the industrial North and the agricultural, slave-owning South was a turning point in American history.
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The Rise of Realism: 1860-1914
The U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) between the industrial North and the agricultural, slave-owning South was a turning point in American history. • The innocent optimism of the young democratic nation gave way, after the war, to a period of exhaustion. American idealism remained but was rechanneled. • Before the war, idealists championed human rights, especially the abolition of slavery. • After the war, Americans increasingly idealized progress and the self-made man. • This was the era of the millionaire manufacturer and the speculator, • when Darwinian evolution and the "survival of the fittest“ • seemed to sanction the sometimes unethical methods of the successful business tycoon.
In 1860, most Americans lived on farms or in small villages, but by 1919, half of the population was concentrated in about 12 cities. Problems of urbanization and industrialization appeared-- • --Poor and overcrowded housing; • unsanitary conditions; • low pay (called "wage slavery"); • difficult working conditions; • and inadequaterestraints on business … • Labor unions grew, and strikes brought the plight of working people to national awareness. • Farmers, too, saw themselves struggling against the "money interests" of the East, the so-called robber barons like J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller.
Eastern banks tightly controlled mortgages and credit so vital to western development and agriculture, while railroad companies charged high prices.
The farmer gradually became an object of ridicule, lampooned as an unsophisticated "hick" or "rube." The ideal American of the post-Civil War period became the millionaire. In 1860, there were fewer than 100 millionaires; by 1875, there were more than 1,000. • As industrialization grew, so did alienation. • Characteristic American novels of the period, Stephen Crane's _Maggie: A Girl of the Streets_; • Jack London's _Martin Eden_; and later Theodore Dreiser's _An American Tragedy_ • depict the damage of economic forces and alienation on the weak or vulnerable individual.
Survivors, • like Twain's Huck Finn and • Humphrey in London's _The Sea-Wolf_, • endure through • inner strength involving • kindness, • flexibility, and, • above all, • individuality.
Mark Twain (1835-1910)
The blunting effects of slavery upon the slaveholder's moral perceptions are known and conceded the world over; and a privileged class, an aristocracy, is but a band of slaveholders under another name.Any kind of royalty, however modified, any kind of aristocracy, however pruned, is rightly an insult. - A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court We have to be despised by somebody whom we regard as above us or we are not happy; We have to have somebody to worship and envy or we cannot be content. In America, we manifest this in all the ancient and customary ways. In public, we scoff at titles and hereditary privilege, but privately, we hanker after them, and when we get a chance, we buy them for cash and a daughter. - Mark Twain in Eruption ARISTOCRACYAccording to Twain
Two major literary currents in 19th-century America merged in Mark Twain: popular frontier humor and local color, or "regionalism." • These related literary approaches began in the 1830s – • and had even earlier roots in local oral traditions. • In ragged frontier villages, on riverboats, • in mining camps, and around cowboy campfires, • far from city amusements, storytelling flourished. • Exaggeration, tall tales, incredible boasts, and comic workingmen heroes enlivened frontier literature. These humorous forms were found in many frontier regions -- in the "old Southwest" (the present-day inland South and the lower Midwest), the mining frontier, and the Pacific Coast.
From the writers of this period and the American frontier folk came fun new American words: • "absquatulate" (leave), • "flabbergasted" (amazed), • "rampagious" (unruly, rampaging). • Local boasters, or "ring-tailed roarers," • who asserted they were half horse, half alligator, • also underscored the boundless energy of the frontier. • They drew strength from natural hazards that would terrify lesser men-- • "I'm a regular tornado," one swelled, "tough as hickory and long-winded as a nor'wester. I can strike a blow like a falling tree, and every lick makes a gap in the crowd that lets in an acre of sunshine.
Sidney Lanier was born in Macon, Georgia, on February 3, 1842, He attended Oglethorpe University located in Midway, Georgia, graduated at age 17 and taught several years at that university, volunteered in the Confederate Army, was in the 2nd Georgia Battalion which included the Macon Volunteers, served on a blockade runner as a signal officer, and was captured in 1864. • He spent five months in a federal prison at Point Lookout, Maryland, • and there contracted tuberculosis from which he never recovered. • He was exchanged after the war, returned to Macon, taught school briefly, • and later in 1865 went to Montgomery, Alabama, to work as a • clerk for his grandfather in the Exchange Hotel. • During the years 1865-1867, when Lanier worked as a desk clerk, • he began writing his first novel, Tiger Lilies. • During that time, he also studied law and was admitted to the Alabama • Bar. • It is said, however, that his heart was not in practicing law. • He was a lover of music, and • he excelled not only as a flute player, • but he also played with much success the banjo, guitar, violin and the organ.
While a resident of Montgomery, he was organist at the First Presbyterian Church. He played the wedding march at the December 20, 1866, wedding of Georgena Bird to Thomas Goode Jones. Jones later was elected governor of Alabarna, 1890-1894. Eventually Sidney Lanier moved to Prattville, Alabama, where he was a teacher and served as principal of a school. While he lived in Prattville, he married a Miss Mary Day of Macon. • In the Spring of 1867, he travelled to New York to attempt to get his book, • Tiger Lilies, published. He left Prattville with his fimiily in 1869 and • returned to Macon where he began to practice law until 1873. His health • gradually deteriorated; he travelled to various parts of the country seeking • relief in different climates, and even rented a house and resided at Point Clear • for a brief period. • During these years, his reputation as a poet was secured ,and • his fame spread throughout the country. • Settling in Baltimore in 1873, Lanier became the first flutist of the Peabody • Symphony Orchestra of Baltimore, and • in 1879, he was appointed lecturer in English literature at Johns Hopkins University. • During this period, he wrote poetry, fiction and criticism.
His works include his novel, Tiger Lilies, and • his poems include “The Marshes of Glynn,” and “ Song of the Chattahoochee”. • He also wrote musical compositions for the flute • To this day, generations of Laniers still reside in Montgomery, Alabama. • In February, 1940, a bronze memorial tablet was placed in • the First Presbyterian Church of Montgomery, • where he had served as organist. • His flute is in the collection of artifacts • in storage at the Alabama Department of Archives and History.
Sidney Lanier's Flute, From Montgomery Daily Advertiser, Sept. 25, 1883. [Observer] "It was at Point Lookout [a federal prison for Confederate soldiers during the Civil War], twenty years ago, that I made the acquaintance of Sidney Lanier. We were in the Confederate service, and both, though running at different times, had been captured at sea by a blockade boat. I was the first to encounter my fate, and had been some weeks a prisoner when he was brought in. "It was a trying time, the midsummer season, and the 'long, yellow days,' as one poor fellow termed them, made the hospitals full and death rates appalling. Late one evening I heard from our tent the clear sweet notes of a flute in the distance, and I was told that the player was a young man from Georgia, who had just come among us. I forthwith hastened to find him out, and from that hour the flute of Sidney Lanier was our daily delight. It was an angel imprisoned with us to cheer and comfort us. "Well I rememberhis improvisations, and how the young artist stood there in the twilight (it was his custom to stand while he played) breathing what seems to me now the first dream of his wonderful 'Marsh Hymns.' Lanier's Flute
Many a stem eye moistened to hear him, many a homesick heart for a time forgot his captivity. • The night sky, • clear as a dewdrop above us, • the waters of the Chesapeake [Bay] far to the east, • the long gray beach and the distant pines, seemed all to have found an • interpreter in him.... • "His music embodies the charm of his verse, • the same deep, wave-like • passionate • swell of the long full line.
'Sweet friends, Man's love ascends To finer and diviner ends Than man's mere thought e'er comprehends.' "We lived as fellow prisoners for more than six months, and at the end of that time were exchanged together. The boat that brought us to Aiken's Landing was delayed for some time before reaching the wharf. While we were very impatiently waiting, a steamer from Richmond came alongside and someone called out to a man on our deck to inquire if Sidney Lanier was on board. The flute had betrayed its master again; but this time it told of a captive's release." He died at Asheville, North Carolina, on [Sept. 7, 1881, a victim of consumption. He had been ill for many months, and had gone to Asheville with the vain hope that its bracing air would arrest the cruel inroads the disease was fast makingupon his failing strength. But it was too late. He passed away in the very prime of his young manhood, and when he had attained a fame which opened to him a field of usefulness and honor that any man might have envied. His name is not only a familiar sound in all literary circles throughout the United States, but his works were hardly less popular in England. He was only thirty-eight years old when he died, leaving a widow and several children. He is interred in Baltimore, His 'Magic Flute' was his soul's mouthpiece for many a year before he wrote poetry. In all these dreary months of imprisonment, under the keenest privations of life, exposed to the daily manifestations of want and depravity, sickness and death, his was the clear hearted, hopeful voice that sang these words in after years:
Evening Song The Dying Words of Stonewall Jackson http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/lanier02.html
For Fun • http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/Lobby/1009/newcountry/k652.htm
The Marshes of Glynnby Sidney Lanier • Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and wovenWith intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven • Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs,-- • Emerald twilights,--Virginal shy lights, • Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows,When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnadesOf the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,
Of the heavenly woods and glades, • That run to the radiant marginal • sand-beach within
The wide sea-marshes of Glynn;-- • Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon-day fire,-- • Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire, • Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves,-- • Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that grieves, • Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood, • Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good;--
O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine,While the riotous noon-day sun of the June-day long did shineYe held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine;But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest,And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West,And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seemLike a lane into heaven that leads from a dream,-- • Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak,And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the strokeOf the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low,And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know,And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within,That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of GlynnWill work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of yoreWhen length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitterness sore,And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable painDrew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain,--
Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to faceThe vast sweet visage of space. • To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn,Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn, • For a mete and a mark • To the forest-dark:-- • So: • Affable live-oak, leaning low,--Thus--with your favor--soft, with a reverent hand,(Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land!)Bending your beauty aside, with a step I standOn the firm-packed sand
FreeBy a world of marsh that borders a world of sea. • Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering bandOf the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land. • Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and curlAs a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl.Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight,Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light.And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high?The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky!A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in the blade,Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade,Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain,To the terminal blue of the main.
