We have been searching ever since, and many eminent critics think
that we have still failed to establish American literature upon
American soil. The old traditions, of course, were essential. Not
even the most self-sufficient American hopes to establish a brand-
new culture. The problem has been to domesticate Europe, not to
get rid of her. But the old stock needed a graft, just as an old
fruit tree needs a graft. It requires a new tradition. We found a
tradition in New England; and then New England was given over to
the alien and her traditions became local or historical merely. We
found another in border life; and then the Wild West reached the
Pacific and vanished. Time and again we have been flung back upon
our English sources, and forced to imitate a literature sprung
from a riper soil. Of course, this criticism, as it stands, is too
sweeping. It neglects Mark Twain and the tradition of the American
boy; it neglects Walt Whitman and the literature of free and
turbulent democracy; it neglects Longfellow and Poe and that
romantic tradition of love and beauty common to all Western races.
But, at least, it makes one understand why the American writer has
passionately sought anything that would put an American quality
into his transplanted style.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127