May 7, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, in our 24th episode of our Story of America series with Bill McClay, author of Land of Hope, Bill tells the story of how through the efforts of a few men in Concord, Massachussetts, America became culturally unique from our mother country—Britain.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Up next another installment of our series about us, the
Story of America series, with Hillsdale College professor and author
of the terrific book Land of Hope, Professor Bill McLay.
(00:32):
For much of our early existence, our culture was derivative
of our mother country, Britain, and of course Europe. To
many creatives, it was becoming clear that we needed a
second revolution, not with guns and bullets, but with words.
Let's get into the story, take it away, Bill.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
As Americans went about the business of building new political institutions,
radical new political institutions, the question remain what would American
culture look like? Was there a culture of democracy?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
What would it look like?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Could Americans on native grounds replicate the artistic genius of
America's European competitors. Could we produce a Shakespeare of our own,
a Miquelangelo of Voltaire, a Mozart. Would it be something
that reflected the new nation's.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
People, its land.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Would it be of the highest caliber or would it
be mediocre? Many critics, like the British literary critics Sidney Smith,
were skeptical.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Smith, in an essay in the Edinburgh Review, put forward
this rhetorical.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Question series of questions in the four corners of the globe.
Who reads an American book, or goes to an American play,
or looks at an American picture or statue.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Well, he wasn't entirely wrong about that. Not many did.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
The early part of the nineteenth century saw the gradual
formation of what could be called a cadre of distinctly
American writers, but there were not many of them. James
Fenimore Cooper his writing about the Frontier, his invention of
marvelous characters like the half white, half Indian Natty Bumbo,
(02:43):
and there was Edgar Allan Poe, whose strange, brooding, psychological
tales were far ahead of their time. There was also
Washington Irving, who penned popular fables like the Legend of
Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle. These were popular both
(03:03):
at home and abroad, but up until really the eighteen fifties,
it would be safe to say that America was not
exactly a beacon of culture or literary talent. This began
to change in the eighteen thirties, and the change came
from Europe. Thanks to the Romantic Movement. The Romantic movement
(03:32):
was an artistic movement born out of rebellion, rebellion against
the Enlightenment and rebellion against the Industrial Revolution.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
In its extreme manifestations.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
It emphasized the individual nature, creativity and imagination, fantasy and mystery,
more emphasis, in short, on the emotional and intuitive aspects
of life, of love and loss, and the fate of
(04:07):
the soul. His turning point in America's cultural life happened
in a specific time and place, one small town just
outside Boston called Conquered, Massachusetts. Individuals such as Ralph Waldo Emerson,
(04:28):
Henry David Thureau, Nathaniel Hawthorn, and others all were living
there at one time or another, and all were buried
there on the author's ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. What
was it that drew these writers together. It was a
patchwork of ideas, some of which fell under the name Transcendentalists,
(04:53):
with the glories and mysteries of nature serving as a backdrop,
and some of it coming simply from the enormous and
unsearched potential of America. Americans that turned out were prepared
at this moment of history to challenge and reconsider almost
every aspect of their lives, and not always in a
(05:16):
careless or nihilistic way, but usually in an hopeful and
expansive way. Transcendentalism was not interested in the way things
were done in the past. They established social elites of
the day, and let's be clear, Transcendentalism was born out
of frustration with the religion of the dominant religion.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Of the time in New England among elite classes, and
that was Unitarianism.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Unitarianism which itself was a product of a sort of
liberal rebellion against Calvinism. Emerson himself, Ralph Waldo Emerson, was
the product of a family filled with ministers, including his
own father, As was Emerson following in his father footsteps,
(06:02):
and he'd followed and followed until he no longer could.
As a relatively young man, he resigned his post at
a leading Boston church and left the ministry without any
substantive plans for the future, none but to become a
(06:22):
writer and speaker. I would say that Emerson could be
considered the first example of a freelance intellectual in American history.
There's a freelance in the sense that he had no
connection to any institution's academic or ecclesiastical. He was a
(06:48):
free intellectual and he made his living addressing the general public,
which is something that was possible to do in those
days because books and other printed publications were widely available.
Americans were very literate people. They liked to read, and
they liked gathering for lectures on subjects of interest. Every
(07:12):
town had a lyceum and needed a steady stream of
lecturers to fill out their schedule, and so Ralph, although
Emerson became an itinerant speaker much of his life on
the road.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
When we come back more of the remarkable story of us.
This is Lee Habibe, and this is our American stories,
and all of our history stories are brought to us
by our generous sponsors, including Hillsdale College, where students go
to learn all the things that are beautiful in life
and all the things that matter in life. If you
(07:49):
can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with
their free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu.
That's Hillsdale dot edu. And we continue with our American
(08:11):
stories in our Story of America series with Hillsdale College
professor and author of Land of Hope Bill McLay. When
we left off, Bill was telling us about Ralph Waldo Emerson,
a former Unitarian pastor who became America's first independent, traveling intellectual.
Let's return to the story here again is Professor maclay.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Emerson's career altering moment occurred with an address he gave
at Harvard in eighteen thirty seven. Now, Emerson was himself
a product of Harvard. He'd got in his education at
Harvard College, which was a seminary in those days, and
at the Harvard Divinity School, and he was invited to
give the Phi data kamp As speech at the beginning
(09:05):
of the academic year because he was a distinguished graduate.
Little did those who invited him know that he was
going to pour out, not quite contempt, but certainly criticism
of everything that Harvard and Harvard Divinity School stood for.
(09:25):
His speech challenged the rationalism, the dry rationalism of Harvard
and its academicism.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
The speech was a rallying.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Cry for creative types, for thinkers and artists who worked
outside the box, who really were interested in forging a
cultural independence and originality.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Something that was distinctly American. So for anyone who was listening.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And interested in cutting through the old establishment or the
oxes and the imitative streak in American culture, that is
the desire to be just like the English only American.
This speech was a call to action. And here's how
Emerson ended the speech at Harvard. Mister President, and gentlemen,
(10:20):
this confidence in the unsearched might of man belongs by
all modings, by all prophecy, by all preparation, to.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
The American scholar.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe.
The spirit of the American freeman's already suspected to be timid,
imitative and tame. No, not so, brothers and friends, Please God,
ours shall not be so.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
We will walk on our own feet.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
We will work with our own hands, We will speak
with our own mind.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
A na should have been will.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
For the first time exist because each himself inspired by
the divine soul, which also inspires all men.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
A nation of men will for the first time exist
because a nation will exist that has absorbed these notions,
the unsearched.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
To might of man, of the enormous and really.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Infinite potential in each individual. And notice how he connects
that to being imitative. He says, we have listened too.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Long to the courtly muses of Europe.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Courtly muses that implies, first of all, the court of
a king. We're not that kind of place. We're a republic,
so we don't need courtly muses. The courtly muses also
their genteel. They're nice, they're refined, they're oh so careful,
And we've.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Listen too long to that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
We need to break out and speak with our own voice,
work with our own hands, walk on our own feet.
So for many, this speech then and now and in
the years in between, has been seen as America's declaration
of intellectual independence, to follow on from the declaration of
(12:25):
political independence in seventeen seventy six. And Emerson viewed the
American Revolution as a great, great event, a beacon of
hope for all of humanity. He admired the farmers, tradesmen,
and shopkeepers, the common people who fought for American independence.
(12:45):
His patriotic poem Conquered Him contains the most well known
verses he'd ever write, and he believed these words with
every fiber of his being. By the rude bridge that
arched the flood, there flag to April's breeze unfurled here
(13:06):
once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard
around the world. The foe, long since in silence, slept
alike the conqueror silently sleeps, And time the rooted bridge
has swept down. The dark scream which seaward creeps on
this green bank. By this soft stream we set today
(13:30):
a votive still that memory made their deed redeem When.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Like our sires, our sons are gone.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Spirit that made those heroes dare to die and leave
their children free bid time and nature gently spare the
shaft we raise to them and leave. Emerson was calling
for US America to follow our own muse rather than Europe's,
(14:04):
because we were worthy, we had our own stories to tell,
and we had our own ways of telling them. He
was calling for Americans to develop and discover their own voices,
their own art and culture, their own form of worship,
all befitting a beast and bold new nation. And recon
(14:27):
also believed the same principle should apply to the individual
lives of Americans as well. His essays Self re Lives
drove that point home. Here's an excerpt from that essay.
Society Everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every
one of its members. Society is a joint stock company
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in which the members agree for the better securing of
his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and
culture of the eater. The virtue at most request is conformity.
Self reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators,
but names and customs.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered
by the name of goodness.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
That must explore if it be goodness.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our
own mind. I am ashamed to think how easily we
capitulated to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.
Every decent and well spoken individual effects and sways me
more than is right. I ought to go upright and
(15:43):
vital and speak the rude truths.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
In all ways.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
These are words that are just as useful, just as applicable,
just as transgressive justice threatening today to entrench establish as
they were in the eighteen thirties. Here's one last passage
of Emerson that reflects his fierce dedication to the sanctity
of the individual.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Person above all.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
You may not like what he's saying, or you may
like it a lot, but it is an American voice
above all. Else, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of
little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
(16:32):
With consistency, a great soul has simply nothing to do.
He may as well concern himself with his shadow on
the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words,
and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words. Again,
though would contradict everything you said today. Ah, so you
(16:53):
shall be sure to be misunderstood. Well, is it so
bad then to be misunderstood? Parthagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates
and Jesus and Lutheran Copernicus and Galileo and Newton in
every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To
be great is to be misunderstood. To be great has
(17:17):
to be misunderstood. What ever since was after them was
an abandonment of the refined, elite culture of Europe, transplanted
in a rather dead way to America, at least to
the northeastern part of America, and a celebration of the
common people of his country.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
The Story of America, the Story of Us brought to
us by Bill McLay. The story continues here on our
American Stories, and we returned to our American stories in
(18:11):
our Story of America series with Hillsdale College professor and
author of Land of Hope Bill maclay. When we last
left off, Bill was telling us about the philosophy of
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wanted a more real and more
emotional form of art than that found in Europe, something
we Americans could call our own. This influenced many other
(18:35):
authors and creative types. Let's get back to the story.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Emerson would go on to influence others in his orbit,
including a neighbor named Henry David Thureau, who tried his
best to put some of Emerson's ideas into practice. The
result was a two year stint living alone in a
cabin on Walden Pond, where he spent his time writing
and reflecting on nature and his surroundings. From that time,
(19:03):
alone in the Woods sprang one of the great pieces
of American literature. Walden the book was the first of
its kind anywhere, part spiritual journey, part nature reporting, part
social critique, and part first person adventure storytelling.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Here's how Thurrow explained the.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Decision to take up such a challenge, again in very
American words. I went to the woods because I wished
to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life,
and see if I could not learn what it had
to teach, and not when I came to die discover
(19:50):
that I had not lived.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I did not wish to live what was not life.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice
resignation unless it was quite necessary.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Live deep and suck all the marrow out of life,
to live so sturdily and spartan like as to put
to route all that was not life, to cut a
broad swath as shave close, to drive life into a
corner and reduce it to its lowest term. Most men,
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even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake,
are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse
labors of life, that its finer fruits cannot be fucked
by them. Their fingers from excessive toil are too clumsy
and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring men
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has not leisure for a true integrity. Day by day
he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men.
His life labor would be depreciated in the market. He
has no time to be anything but a machine. How
can he remember well his ignorance which his growth requires,
(21:11):
who has so often to use his knowledge? We should
feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with
our cordials before we judge of him. The finest qualities
of our nature, like the bloom and the fruits, can
be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we
do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tendered here
(21:34):
is Atheroe describes the relationship between government and the individual.
The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from
a limited monarchy to democracy is a progress towardinate true
respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise
(21:54):
enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire.
As a democracy such as we know it, the last
improvement possible in government. Is it not possible to take
a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of men.
There will never be a really free and enlightened state
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until the state comes to recognize the individual as a
higher and independent power from which all its own power
and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please
myself with imagining a state at last which can afford
to be just to all men, and to treat the
individual with respect as a neighbor, which even would not
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think it inconsistent with its own repose, if a few
were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it,
nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of
neighbors and fellow men. A state which bore this kind
of fruit and suffered it to drop off as fast
as it might, would prepare the way for a still
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more and glorious state, which also I have imagined, but
not yet anywhere seen. Another great American writer of this
period was Nathaniel Hawthorne, who also did Diamond Concord. He
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was born in Salem and very influenced by Salem by
the Salem Witchcraft trials in which one of his ancestors participated,
but ended up spending time in Concord as well. He
had been influenced in college. He had gone to college
at Boden College in Maine. Still there, still thriving College,
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the commencement address at Boden, this is still true today.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Is given by a student.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
And the student who gave the commencement address at Boden
which influenced Hawthorne so greatly, was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who
went on to become arguably the leading poet of nineteenth
century America.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
And the talk was.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
A passionate urging of Americans to find and discover.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Their own voice.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
That the talk was called our Native Writers fired Hawthorne's
imagination that he as a writer who would achieve exactly
the goals that Longfellow was talking about in his remarks.
And after a long period of seclusion and writing short
(24:41):
stories that bare the distinctive mark of Hawthorne, very mysterious, uncanny,
often weird stories, he wrote the first great American novel,
The Scarlet Lit. Awthorne's work, however, was in some respect
(25:05):
a rebuke of his conquered allies and peers and friends.
It was a rebuke of the unfettered optimism that suffused
their work, and you could hear it in the passages
from Emerson and Thereau that we've read. Instead, Hawthorne went
back into the distant past.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Of New England.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
His early works explored the sins of New England's past,
sins against Indians and Quakers and others. In The Scarlet Letter,
he condemns the community's cruel, even sinful treatment of adultery.
In his novel Blithdale Romance, he turned his acid pen
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towards puncturing utopian delusions of communal living experiments happening around him,
one of which he protasipated in the brook Farm Experiment.
These utopian communities were one of the other expressions of
this boundless American optimism and his literary output. Hawthorne's literary
(26:15):
output was a sharp critique of that culture, of the
intellectual and spiritual fashions of the day.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
And you've been listening to Hillsdale College professor Bill maclay
tell the story of the declaration of cultural and artistic
independence in America from the Old Country, from Britain, Great Britain,
and France and Europe. We heard the story of Emerson
and how we influenced Thereau and Walden. The masterpiece of
therew's Hawthorne and his rebuttal in his sense to the optimism,
(26:51):
the unbridled enthusiasm of Walden and Emerson and his masterpiece,
The Scarlet Letter, America's first great American novel.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
When we come.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Back more of the remarkable story of America's independence from Europe,
on the artistic front, America's search for its own voice
here on our American Stories, and we returned to our
(27:39):
American Stories and the Story of America series with Professor
Bill McClay of Hillsdale College. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Another literary giant at the time, Herman Melville, was born
to entered vile south of Concord in New York City,
but he was greatly influenced by Hawthorpe The Two matt
in eighteen fifty. Hawthorne, at that time was forty six
years old and a celebrity soon to be an international celebrity,
and Melville, whose debut novel TYPEE, had already become a
(28:12):
literary star in his twenties and now is thirty two
years old. Melville wrote these words described the impact that
Hawthorne's presence, his physical presence, had on his life. I
am posterity speaking by proxy when I declare that the
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American who up to the present day has evinced in
literature the largest brain with the largest heart.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
That man is Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Melville would also say this about Hawthorne's standing among the
literary giants of the world. In this world of lies,
truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe
in the woodlands, and only by cunning glimpses will she
reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the
great art of telling the truth, even though it be
(29:08):
covertly and by snatches. One year after meeting the man
he so much admired, Melville would dedicate his masterpiece Moby
Dick to Hawthorpe. The epic story of Captain Ahab's quest
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to seek revenge against the giant white sperm.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Whale that bit off his leg was unlike any American
novel in a scope, breadth, and depth, and.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
It was based in part on Melville's experiences at sea.
A whaleship was my Yale College and my Harvard, he
famously equipped through his altered ego Ishmail. It was not
an ordinary education he received on the high seas. As
a young man, Melville experienced that true extremes of human existence,
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having once been captured by cannibals, once participated in a mutiny,
and sometimes would even arrive home with some treasures for
his troubles with Moby Dick. He didn't want the book
to be a mere action or adventure story. He wanted
it to be a metaphysical exploration. Everything was on the table,
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most of all God himself. But it appears that Melville's
fans wanted more of his superficial seafaring accounts rather than
metaphysical explorations, and Moby Dick would become a commercial flop,
only to be discovered by scholars nearly seventy five years later.
(30:45):
That's right, Melville's epic novel, which most people see as
one of the top three five American novels. Many people
would say the single greatest American novel. It was in
its own time in epic failure, but it also became
a great example of American literature, a fact for which
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Melville had, among others, Sawthorne to thank.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Like Melville, Whitten was born in New York.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
City and was a man of the city. He admired
the city, admired its bustling crowds, the rugged peaks and canyons,
and contours of its skyline more than any writer of
his time. Whitman reflected the spirit of the age of
Andrew Jackson. He was, in that sense a populist writer
if there ever was one. Whitman was a great admirer
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of Emerson, and served as an editor for newspapers in
Brooklyn and New Orleans, and then virtually out of nowhere
popped Leaves of Grand the first edition of his book
of poems, published in eighteen fifty five. Melville sent it
to his literary hero and Emerson, and who responded with
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a letter of his own. Dear Sir, I am not
blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of leaves
and grass. I find it the most extraordinary peace of
wind and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I'm very
happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
It meets the.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Demand I'm always making of what seemed the sterile and
stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, too much lived
in the temperament we're making our Western wits fat and mean.
I give you joy of your free and brave thought.
I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things
that incomparably will as they must be. I find courage
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of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception
only can inspire. I greet you at the beginning of
a career, which yet must have had a long core.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Ground somewhere for such a start.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this
sunbeam were no illusion. But the solid sense of the
book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits,
namely of fortifying and encouraging. I did not know until
I last night saw the book advertising a newspaper I
could trust the name is real and available for a
post office. I wish to see my benefactory and have
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felt much like striking my task and visiting New York
to pay.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
You my respects Our w Emerson.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Can you imagine getting a letter like that from him,
a legend in your own line of work. What a
beautiful thing to say, I give you joy of your
free and brave thought.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
I have great joy.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
What a beautiful thing to say to an aspiring struggling off.
So Lisa Grass was a sensation, and Whitman became the
poet laureate of the common man. Indeed, on the cover
of the book was Whitman himself, dressed in common worker clothing,
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a T shirt, his.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Hat cear of his head, crooked.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Writing in Free Unrhymed First, Whitman wrote about every aspect
of life, high and low, reflecting the city had doored
in the country he loved as democratic features.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Who was this man? Well?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
In Song of Myself, Whitman tries to tell us what
you get is not a picture of some and lee writer,
a fancy salon dogging down.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
To his fellow right. But this.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me. He complains
of my gab and my loitering. I too him, not
a bit tamed. I too him, untranslatable. I sound my
barbaric yaw over the roof of the world. The last
cut of day holds back for me. It flings my
(35:06):
likeness after the rest, and true is any one the
shadowed wilds. It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air. I shake my white locks at
the runaway sun. I effuse my flesh and eddies and
drift it in lacy jags. I bequeathed myself to the
(35:26):
dirt to grow from the grass.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
I love.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
If you want me again, look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean.
But I shall be good health to you, nevertheless, and
filter and fiber your blood.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Failing to vetch me.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
At first, keep encouraged, missing me one place, search another.
I stopped somewhere waiting for you. Beautiful evocation of poetry.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
That takes the high and the low all in stride, altogether,
all equally dignified, all equally worthy.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
The poet compares himself to the dirt under your booth souls.
You will hardly know who I am or what I
mean anonymous, And yet I.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Shall be good health to you.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Nevertheless, I stopped somewhere waiting for you. Yeah, Whitman could
be messy, he could be gushy, he could be gabby.
It's easy to make fun of him, parody him. But
the British literary giant D. H. Lawrence understood the achievement
(36:54):
of witmen. Wi you meant, he understood the literary achievements
springing from this new and vibrant democracy called America. And
here is what Lawrence wrote. Whitman's essential message was the
open road, the leaving of the soul free unto herself,
(37:16):
the leaving of his fate to her and to the
loom of the open road, which is the bravest doctrine
man has ever proposed to himself, the true democracy where
soul meets soul in the open road. So MESSI brought
Witman's poetry, you bet, but was a different inform and
(37:39):
substance and tone.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
From Europe's best writers. You bank it.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
American made, homegrown literature by the people and for the
people literature and the America and Americans alone could produce America.
Thanks to these writers had found her muse, found her voice, and.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
A special thanks to Professor Bill McClay. His performance of
these writings just remarkable. The Story of America series with
Professor Bill McClay here on our American Stories
This is Lee Habib and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American people.
Up next another installment of our series about us, the
Story of America series, with Hillsdale College professor and author
of the terrific book Land of Hope, Professor Bill McLay.
(00:32):
For much of our early existence, our culture was derivative
of our mother country, Britain, and of course Europe. To
many creatives, it was becoming clear that we needed a
second revolution, not with guns and bullets, but with words.
Let's get into the story, take it away, Bill.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
As Americans went about the business of building new political institutions,
radical new political institutions, the question remain what would American
culture look like? Was there a culture of democracy?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
What would it look like?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Could Americans on native grounds replicate the artistic genius of
America's European competitors. Could we produce a Shakespeare of our own,
a Miquelangelo of Voltaire, a Mozart. Would it be something
that reflected the new nation's.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
People, its land.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Would it be of the highest caliber or would it
be mediocre? Many critics, like the British literary critics Sidney Smith,
were skeptical.
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Smith, in an essay in the Edinburgh Review, put forward
this rhetorical.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Question series of questions in the four corners of the globe.
Who reads an American book, or goes to an American play,
or looks at an American picture or statue.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Well, he wasn't entirely wrong about that. Not many did.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
The early part of the nineteenth century saw the gradual
formation of what could be called a cadre of distinctly
American writers, but there were not many of them. James
Fenimore Cooper his writing about the Frontier, his invention of
marvelous characters like the half white, half Indian Natty Bumbo,
(02:43):
and there was Edgar Allan Poe, whose strange, brooding, psychological
tales were far ahead of their time. There was also
Washington Irving, who penned popular fables like the Legend of
Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle. These were popular both
(03:03):
at home and abroad, but up until really the eighteen fifties,
it would be safe to say that America was not
exactly a beacon of culture or literary talent. This began
to change in the eighteen thirties, and the change came
from Europe. Thanks to the Romantic Movement. The Romantic movement
(03:32):
was an artistic movement born out of rebellion, rebellion against
the Enlightenment and rebellion against the Industrial Revolution.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
In its extreme manifestations.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
It emphasized the individual nature, creativity and imagination, fantasy and mystery,
more emphasis, in short, on the emotional and intuitive aspects
of life, of love and loss, and the fate of
(04:07):
the soul. His turning point in America's cultural life happened
in a specific time and place, one small town just
outside Boston called Conquered, Massachusetts. Individuals such as Ralph Waldo Emerson,
(04:28):
Henry David Thureau, Nathaniel Hawthorn, and others all were living
there at one time or another, and all were buried
there on the author's ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. What
was it that drew these writers together. It was a
patchwork of ideas, some of which fell under the name Transcendentalists,
(04:53):
with the glories and mysteries of nature serving as a backdrop,
and some of it coming simply from the enormous and
unsearched potential of America. Americans that turned out were prepared
at this moment of history to challenge and reconsider almost
every aspect of their lives, and not always in a
(05:16):
careless or nihilistic way, but usually in an hopeful and
expansive way. Transcendentalism was not interested in the way things
were done in the past. They established social elites of
the day, and let's be clear, Transcendentalism was born out
of frustration with the religion of the dominant religion.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Of the time in New England among elite classes, and
that was Unitarianism.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
Unitarianism which itself was a product of a sort of
liberal rebellion against Calvinism. Emerson himself, Ralph Waldo Emerson, was
the product of a family filled with ministers, including his
own father, As was Emerson following in his father footsteps,
(06:02):
and he'd followed and followed until he no longer could.
As a relatively young man, he resigned his post at
a leading Boston church and left the ministry without any
substantive plans for the future, none but to become a
(06:22):
writer and speaker. I would say that Emerson could be
considered the first example of a freelance intellectual in American history.
There's a freelance in the sense that he had no
connection to any institution's academic or ecclesiastical. He was a
(06:48):
free intellectual and he made his living addressing the general public,
which is something that was possible to do in those
days because books and other printed publications were widely available.
Americans were very literate people. They liked to read, and
they liked gathering for lectures on subjects of interest. Every
(07:12):
town had a lyceum and needed a steady stream of
lecturers to fill out their schedule, and so Ralph, although
Emerson became an itinerant speaker much of his life on
the road.
Speaker 1 (07:26):
When we come back more of the remarkable story of us.
This is Lee Habibe, and this is our American stories,
and all of our history stories are brought to us
by our generous sponsors, including Hillsdale College, where students go
to learn all the things that are beautiful in life
and all the things that matter in life. If you
(07:49):
can't get to Hillsdale, Hillsdale will come to you with
their free and terrific online courses. Go to Hillsdale dot edu.
That's Hillsdale dot edu. And we continue with our American
(08:11):
stories in our Story of America series with Hillsdale College
professor and author of Land of Hope Bill McLay. When
we left off, Bill was telling us about Ralph Waldo Emerson,
a former Unitarian pastor who became America's first independent, traveling intellectual.
Let's return to the story here again is Professor maclay.
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Emerson's career altering moment occurred with an address he gave
at Harvard in eighteen thirty seven. Now, Emerson was himself
a product of Harvard. He'd got in his education at
Harvard College, which was a seminary in those days, and
at the Harvard Divinity School, and he was invited to
give the Phi data kamp As speech at the beginning
(09:05):
of the academic year because he was a distinguished graduate.
Little did those who invited him know that he was
going to pour out, not quite contempt, but certainly criticism
of everything that Harvard and Harvard Divinity School stood for.
(09:25):
His speech challenged the rationalism, the dry rationalism of Harvard
and its academicism.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
The speech was a rallying.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Cry for creative types, for thinkers and artists who worked
outside the box, who really were interested in forging a
cultural independence and originality.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Something that was distinctly American. So for anyone who was listening.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And interested in cutting through the old establishment or the
oxes and the imitative streak in American culture, that is
the desire to be just like the English only American.
This speech was a call to action. And here's how
Emerson ended the speech at Harvard. Mister President, and gentlemen,
(10:20):
this confidence in the unsearched might of man belongs by
all modings, by all prophecy, by all preparation, to.
Speaker 3 (10:27):
The American scholar.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe.
The spirit of the American freeman's already suspected to be timid,
imitative and tame. No, not so, brothers and friends, Please God,
ours shall not be so.
Speaker 3 (10:46):
We will walk on our own feet.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
We will work with our own hands, We will speak
with our own mind.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
A na should have been will.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
For the first time exist because each himself inspired by
the divine soul, which also inspires all men.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
A nation of men will for the first time exist
because a nation will exist that has absorbed these notions,
the unsearched.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
To might of man, of the enormous and really.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Infinite potential in each individual. And notice how he connects
that to being imitative. He says, we have listened too.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Long to the courtly muses of Europe.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Courtly muses that implies, first of all, the court of
a king. We're not that kind of place. We're a republic,
so we don't need courtly muses. The courtly muses also
their genteel. They're nice, they're refined, they're oh so careful,
And we've.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Listen too long to that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
We need to break out and speak with our own voice,
work with our own hands, walk on our own feet.
So for many, this speech then and now and in
the years in between, has been seen as America's declaration
of intellectual independence, to follow on from the declaration of
(12:25):
political independence in seventeen seventy six. And Emerson viewed the
American Revolution as a great, great event, a beacon of
hope for all of humanity. He admired the farmers, tradesmen,
and shopkeepers, the common people who fought for American independence.
(12:45):
His patriotic poem Conquered Him contains the most well known
verses he'd ever write, and he believed these words with
every fiber of his being. By the rude bridge that
arched the flood, there flag to April's breeze unfurled here
(13:06):
once the embattled farmers stood and fired the shot heard
around the world. The foe, long since in silence, slept
alike the conqueror silently sleeps, And time the rooted bridge
has swept down. The dark scream which seaward creeps on
this green bank. By this soft stream we set today
(13:30):
a votive still that memory made their deed redeem When.
Speaker 3 (13:35):
Like our sires, our sons are gone.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
Spirit that made those heroes dare to die and leave
their children free bid time and nature gently spare the
shaft we raise to them and leave. Emerson was calling
for US America to follow our own muse rather than Europe's,
(14:04):
because we were worthy, we had our own stories to tell,
and we had our own ways of telling them. He
was calling for Americans to develop and discover their own voices,
their own art and culture, their own form of worship,
all befitting a beast and bold new nation. And recon
(14:27):
also believed the same principle should apply to the individual
lives of Americans as well. His essays Self re Lives
drove that point home. Here's an excerpt from that essay.
Society Everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every
one of its members. Society is a joint stock company
(14:48):
in which the members agree for the better securing of
his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and
culture of the eater. The virtue at most request is conformity.
Self reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators,
but names and customs.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered
by the name of goodness.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
That must explore if it be goodness.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our
own mind. I am ashamed to think how easily we
capitulated to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions.
Every decent and well spoken individual effects and sways me
more than is right. I ought to go upright and
(15:43):
vital and speak the rude truths.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
In all ways.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
These are words that are just as useful, just as applicable,
just as transgressive justice threatening today to entrench establish as
they were in the eighteen thirties. Here's one last passage
of Emerson that reflects his fierce dedication to the sanctity
of the individual.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Person above all.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
You may not like what he's saying, or you may
like it a lot, but it is an American voice
above all. Else, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of
little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
(16:32):
With consistency, a great soul has simply nothing to do.
He may as well concern himself with his shadow on
the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words,
and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words. Again,
though would contradict everything you said today. Ah, so you
(16:53):
shall be sure to be misunderstood. Well, is it so
bad then to be misunderstood? Parthagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates
and Jesus and Lutheran Copernicus and Galileo and Newton in
every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To
be great is to be misunderstood. To be great has
(17:17):
to be misunderstood. What ever since was after them was
an abandonment of the refined, elite culture of Europe, transplanted
in a rather dead way to America, at least to
the northeastern part of America, and a celebration of the
common people of his country.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
The Story of America, the Story of Us brought to
us by Bill McLay. The story continues here on our
American Stories, and we returned to our American stories in
(18:11):
our Story of America series with Hillsdale College professor and
author of Land of Hope Bill maclay. When we last
left off, Bill was telling us about the philosophy of
Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wanted a more real and more
emotional form of art than that found in Europe, something
we Americans could call our own. This influenced many other
(18:35):
authors and creative types. Let's get back to the story.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Emerson would go on to influence others in his orbit,
including a neighbor named Henry David Thureau, who tried his
best to put some of Emerson's ideas into practice. The
result was a two year stint living alone in a
cabin on Walden Pond, where he spent his time writing
and reflecting on nature and his surroundings. From that time,
(19:03):
alone in the Woods sprang one of the great pieces
of American literature. Walden the book was the first of
its kind anywhere, part spiritual journey, part nature reporting, part
social critique, and part first person adventure storytelling.
Speaker 3 (19:24):
Here's how Thurrow explained the.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Decision to take up such a challenge, again in very
American words. I went to the woods because I wished
to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life,
and see if I could not learn what it had
to teach, and not when I came to die discover
(19:50):
that I had not lived.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
I did not wish to live what was not life.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
Living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice
resignation unless it was quite necessary.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
I wanted to.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Live deep and suck all the marrow out of life,
to live so sturdily and spartan like as to put
to route all that was not life, to cut a
broad swath as shave close, to drive life into a
corner and reduce it to its lowest term. Most men,
(20:28):
even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake,
are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse
labors of life, that its finer fruits cannot be fucked
by them. Their fingers from excessive toil are too clumsy
and tremble too much for that. Actually, the laboring men
(20:51):
has not leisure for a true integrity. Day by day
he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men.
His life labor would be depreciated in the market. He
has no time to be anything but a machine. How
can he remember well his ignorance which his growth requires,
(21:11):
who has so often to use his knowledge? We should
feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with
our cordials before we judge of him. The finest qualities
of our nature, like the bloom and the fruits, can
be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we
do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tendered here
(21:34):
is Atheroe describes the relationship between government and the individual.
The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from
a limited monarchy to democracy is a progress towardinate true
respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise
(21:54):
enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire.
As a democracy such as we know it, the last
improvement possible in government. Is it not possible to take
a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of men.
There will never be a really free and enlightened state
(22:14):
until the state comes to recognize the individual as a
higher and independent power from which all its own power
and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please
myself with imagining a state at last which can afford
to be just to all men, and to treat the
individual with respect as a neighbor, which even would not
(22:38):
think it inconsistent with its own repose, if a few
were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it,
nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of
neighbors and fellow men. A state which bore this kind
of fruit and suffered it to drop off as fast
as it might, would prepare the way for a still
(22:59):
more and glorious state, which also I have imagined, but
not yet anywhere seen. Another great American writer of this
period was Nathaniel Hawthorne, who also did Diamond Concord. He
(23:21):
was born in Salem and very influenced by Salem by
the Salem Witchcraft trials in which one of his ancestors participated,
but ended up spending time in Concord as well. He
had been influenced in college. He had gone to college
at Boden College in Maine. Still there, still thriving College,
(23:44):
the commencement address at Boden, this is still true today.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Is given by a student.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
And the student who gave the commencement address at Boden
which influenced Hawthorne so greatly, was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who
went on to become arguably the leading poet of nineteenth
century America.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
And the talk was.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
A passionate urging of Americans to find and discover.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Their own voice.
Speaker 2 (24:18):
That the talk was called our Native Writers fired Hawthorne's
imagination that he as a writer who would achieve exactly
the goals that Longfellow was talking about in his remarks.
And after a long period of seclusion and writing short
(24:41):
stories that bare the distinctive mark of Hawthorne, very mysterious, uncanny,
often weird stories, he wrote the first great American novel,
The Scarlet Lit. Awthorne's work, however, was in some respect
(25:05):
a rebuke of his conquered allies and peers and friends.
It was a rebuke of the unfettered optimism that suffused
their work, and you could hear it in the passages
from Emerson and Thereau that we've read. Instead, Hawthorne went
back into the distant past.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Of New England.
Speaker 2 (25:28):
His early works explored the sins of New England's past,
sins against Indians and Quakers and others. In The Scarlet Letter,
he condemns the community's cruel, even sinful treatment of adultery.
In his novel Blithdale Romance, he turned his acid pen
(25:52):
towards puncturing utopian delusions of communal living experiments happening around him,
one of which he protasipated in the brook Farm Experiment.
These utopian communities were one of the other expressions of
this boundless American optimism and his literary output. Hawthorne's literary
(26:15):
output was a sharp critique of that culture, of the
intellectual and spiritual fashions of the day.
Speaker 1 (26:26):
And you've been listening to Hillsdale College professor Bill maclay
tell the story of the declaration of cultural and artistic
independence in America from the Old Country, from Britain, Great Britain,
and France and Europe. We heard the story of Emerson
and how we influenced Thereau and Walden. The masterpiece of
therew's Hawthorne and his rebuttal in his sense to the optimism,
(26:51):
the unbridled enthusiasm of Walden and Emerson and his masterpiece,
The Scarlet Letter, America's first great American novel.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
When we come.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Back more of the remarkable story of America's independence from Europe,
on the artistic front, America's search for its own voice
here on our American Stories, and we returned to our
(27:39):
American Stories and the Story of America series with Professor
Bill McClay of Hillsdale College. Let's return to the story.
Speaker 2 (27:49):
Another literary giant at the time, Herman Melville, was born
to entered vile south of Concord in New York City,
but he was greatly influenced by Hawthorpe The Two matt
in eighteen fifty. Hawthorne, at that time was forty six
years old and a celebrity soon to be an international celebrity,
and Melville, whose debut novel TYPEE, had already become a
(28:12):
literary star in his twenties and now is thirty two
years old. Melville wrote these words described the impact that
Hawthorne's presence, his physical presence, had on his life. I
am posterity speaking by proxy when I declare that the
(28:33):
American who up to the present day has evinced in
literature the largest brain with the largest heart.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
That man is Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
Melville would also say this about Hawthorne's standing among the
literary giants of the world. In this world of lies,
truth is forced to fly like a scared white doe
in the woodlands, and only by cunning glimpses will she
reveal herself, as in Shakespeare and other masters of the
great art of telling the truth, even though it be
(29:08):
covertly and by snatches. One year after meeting the man
he so much admired, Melville would dedicate his masterpiece Moby
Dick to Hawthorpe. The epic story of Captain Ahab's quest
(29:29):
to seek revenge against the giant white sperm.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Whale that bit off his leg was unlike any American
novel in a scope, breadth, and depth, and.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
It was based in part on Melville's experiences at sea.
A whaleship was my Yale College and my Harvard, he
famously equipped through his altered ego Ishmail. It was not
an ordinary education he received on the high seas. As
a young man, Melville experienced that true extremes of human existence,
(30:03):
having once been captured by cannibals, once participated in a mutiny,
and sometimes would even arrive home with some treasures for
his troubles with Moby Dick. He didn't want the book
to be a mere action or adventure story. He wanted
it to be a metaphysical exploration. Everything was on the table,
(30:23):
most of all God himself. But it appears that Melville's
fans wanted more of his superficial seafaring accounts rather than
metaphysical explorations, and Moby Dick would become a commercial flop,
only to be discovered by scholars nearly seventy five years later.
(30:45):
That's right, Melville's epic novel, which most people see as
one of the top three five American novels. Many people
would say the single greatest American novel. It was in
its own time in epic failure, but it also became
a great example of American literature, a fact for which
(31:07):
Melville had, among others, Sawthorne to thank.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
Like Melville, Whitten was born in New York.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
City and was a man of the city. He admired
the city, admired its bustling crowds, the rugged peaks and canyons,
and contours of its skyline more than any writer of
his time. Whitman reflected the spirit of the age of
Andrew Jackson. He was, in that sense a populist writer
if there ever was one. Whitman was a great admirer
(31:41):
of Emerson, and served as an editor for newspapers in
Brooklyn and New Orleans, and then virtually out of nowhere
popped Leaves of Grand the first edition of his book
of poems, published in eighteen fifty five. Melville sent it
to his literary hero and Emerson, and who responded with
(32:01):
a letter of his own. Dear Sir, I am not
blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of leaves
and grass. I find it the most extraordinary peace of
wind and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I'm very
happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
It meets the.
Speaker 2 (32:22):
Demand I'm always making of what seemed the sterile and
stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, too much lived
in the temperament we're making our Western wits fat and mean.
I give you joy of your free and brave thought.
I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things
that incomparably will as they must be. I find courage
(32:46):
of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception
only can inspire. I greet you at the beginning of
a career, which yet must have had a long core.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Ground somewhere for such a start.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this
sunbeam were no illusion. But the solid sense of the
book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits,
namely of fortifying and encouraging. I did not know until
I last night saw the book advertising a newspaper I
could trust the name is real and available for a
post office. I wish to see my benefactory and have
(33:26):
felt much like striking my task and visiting New York
to pay.
Speaker 3 (33:31):
You my respects Our w Emerson.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Can you imagine getting a letter like that from him,
a legend in your own line of work. What a
beautiful thing to say, I give you joy of your
free and brave thought.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
I have great joy.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
What a beautiful thing to say to an aspiring struggling off.
So Lisa Grass was a sensation, and Whitman became the
poet laureate of the common man. Indeed, on the cover
of the book was Whitman himself, dressed in common worker clothing,
(34:13):
a T shirt, his.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Hat cear of his head, crooked.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
Writing in Free Unrhymed First, Whitman wrote about every aspect
of life, high and low, reflecting the city had doored
in the country he loved as democratic features.
Speaker 3 (34:29):
Who was this man? Well?
Speaker 2 (34:31):
In Song of Myself, Whitman tries to tell us what
you get is not a picture of some and lee writer,
a fancy salon dogging down.
Speaker 3 (34:39):
To his fellow right. But this.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me. He complains
of my gab and my loitering. I too him, not
a bit tamed. I too him, untranslatable. I sound my
barbaric yaw over the roof of the world. The last
cut of day holds back for me. It flings my
(35:06):
likeness after the rest, and true is any one the
shadowed wilds. It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
I depart as air. I shake my white locks at
the runaway sun. I effuse my flesh and eddies and
drift it in lacy jags. I bequeathed myself to the
(35:26):
dirt to grow from the grass.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
I love.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
If you want me again, look for me under your bootsoles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean.
But I shall be good health to you, nevertheless, and
filter and fiber your blood.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Failing to vetch me.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
At first, keep encouraged, missing me one place, search another.
I stopped somewhere waiting for you. Beautiful evocation of poetry.
Speaker 4 (36:03):
That takes the high and the low all in stride, altogether,
all equally dignified, all equally worthy.
Speaker 2 (36:14):
The poet compares himself to the dirt under your booth souls.
You will hardly know who I am or what I
mean anonymous, And yet I.
Speaker 3 (36:28):
Shall be good health to you.
Speaker 2 (36:30):
Nevertheless, I stopped somewhere waiting for you. Yeah, Whitman could
be messy, he could be gushy, he could be gabby.
It's easy to make fun of him, parody him. But
the British literary giant D. H. Lawrence understood the achievement
(36:54):
of witmen. Wi you meant, he understood the literary achievements
springing from this new and vibrant democracy called America. And
here is what Lawrence wrote. Whitman's essential message was the
open road, the leaving of the soul free unto herself,
(37:16):
the leaving of his fate to her and to the
loom of the open road, which is the bravest doctrine
man has ever proposed to himself, the true democracy where
soul meets soul in the open road. So MESSI brought
Witman's poetry, you bet, but was a different inform and
(37:39):
substance and tone.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
From Europe's best writers. You bank it.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
American made, homegrown literature by the people and for the
people literature and the America and Americans alone could produce America.
Thanks to these writers had found her muse, found her voice, and.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
A special thanks to Professor Bill McClay. His performance of
these writings just remarkable. The Story of America series with
Professor Bill McClay here on our American Stories
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