T PREFACE HE purpose of this volume is to give an outline of the history of American literary criticism, accompanied by a number of representative examples sufficient to illustrate the chief phases of the development of this department of American literature. The twelve authors from whom selections have been made all belong to the nineteenth century, for within that term is included all the writing having any critical significance thus far produced in this country. The number would be greater had it not been decided to exclude writers born after the middle of the century. In each case the selection made is of a character which seems to illustrate in the most typical manner the critical ideas, methods, and interests of its author. In the mechanical matters. of spelling, punctuation, and the like, all the peculiarities of the original texts have been scrupulously preserved. The chronological order of the selections is determined by the birth-dates of their respective authors, rather than by the publication-dates of the essays reproduced. For permission to reprint the copyright matter included in this volume the following acknowledgments are due: to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for Lowell's "Thoreau," Whipple's "Thackeray," and Stedman's "The Faculty Divine"; to Messrs. Charles Scribner's Sons for Lanier's "The English Novel "; and to Messrs. Harper & Brothers for Howells's "The Art of the Novelist" and "Tolstoy." Both Mr. Stedman and Mr. Howells have joined with their publishers in granting the above permission; and Mr. James has made a special revision of his "Sainte-Beuve" (first published in The North American Review) for the purposes of the present volume. CHICAGO, August, 1904. W. M. P. AMERICAN LITERARY CRITICISM ad T Wo matos Payne, Jomprew, then, d INTRODUCTION HE literature of a nation or a race, in its normal development, is first creative, and then critical. In the creative stage, there is a natural process of growth from instinctive or naïve beginnings to the perfection of self-conscious art. The crude folk-song becomes the finished lyric; the popular ballad or tale of legendary heroism becomes the formal epic; and the puppet-show or religious pageant becomes the play, comic or tragic according as it has for its burden the follies of mankind or the deep issues of human fate. Similarly the philosophical historian finds the beginnings of his art in the saga, or the monkish chronicle, or the personal memoirs of the garrulous man of action; and the founder of the metaphysical system derives from those who, in the childhood of the race, first questioned the world with open-eyed wonder, and indulged in fanciful speculations concerning the real, as distinguished from the apparent nature of things. Throughout all this process of development, while there is much criticism implied in the gradual perfecting of the several literary forms, there is practically none in the explicit |