Foreign literature

“ The fruitfulness of modern invention in the arts of life, the general fusion of thought through the medium of an extra-territorial literature, which from its easy domestication among us is scarcely regarded as foreign, the convenience and comfort of European customs which have been incorporated into our scheme of living,—all these, aided and diffused by our extraordinary facilities of travel and circulation, have made sad work, even in the present generation, with those old nationalisms that were so agreeable to the contemplation of an admirer of the picturesque in character and manners. ”

“ The unbounded popularity of fiction caused greater attention to be bestowed on that branch of Literature, and memorable works were given to the world. For nearly seventy years the chief inspirer was patriotism, as was only natural in the Century that witnessed the liberation of the Peninsula from foreign oppression. The Literature of England and Germany began to be studied, and the romantic movement introduced an entirely new style of subject and treatment. ”

“ Our language has been subjected to those dominant events in the history of our country which have so powerfully influenced our genius and our destiny; and, our insular position occasioning a general intercourse with all the Continental nations, our national idiom has been mottled by foreign neologisms. ”

“ Of their civilization, which goes back beyond the reputed date of the Deluge, they are intensely proud, their ancient literature, in their conception, is far superior to the literatures of all other nations, and their self-satisfaction is so ingrained that they still stand aloof in mental isolation from the world, only the most progressive among them seeing anything to be gained from foreign arts. ”

“ It favours the existence of whatever is peculiar and local; of a distinctive literature, manners, dress, and character. When it conceives the common country to be weak, it tries to discard every foreign element as dangerous; and when it is conscious of its strength, it tries to assimilate what is best from abroad. ”

“ In any inquiry involving the question of foreign influence in literature it is obviously necessary to treat of the work done in the way of translation, although when the influence is of at all a widespread nature, as in the present instance, such discussion is apt to usurp a position unjustified by its intrinsic importance. ”

“ We travel-writers love to picture the gruff, impolite American because he shows the reading public by contrast that we are cultured, considerate persons, with an international breadth of mind that enables us to appreciate foreign countries and foreign customs. ”

“ It is obvious, too, that recourse to foreign subjects would become the more frequent, according as the nation advanced in knowledge and refinement, and ceased to depend on their poets for the preservation of their history. ”

“ There is so much that is foreign and so little of our own! Even our home subjects are worked up in foreign lands, by our own homesick artists, it is true, but bearing on them the servile mark of exile, set there by a borrowed, foreign brush. ”

“ In this manner the general public of a country learn for the first time that the art and poetry which they despise are regarded by whole races as the highest, while their own, which to them seem the finest in the world, are held in slight esteem by other nations; learn, moreover, that it is vain to take refuge in the thought that all other nations are mistaken in their judgment, seeing that each one of these other nations believes that all the rest are mistaken. ”

“ Little, however, was done, till near the close of the seventeenth century, towards making the western world acquainted with a country, with the name of which all that is most attractive, elegant, and tender, in oriental literature, romance, and poetry, is intimately associated. ”

“ I would assure your most gracious majesty that your reception here as an authoress will in no way suffer because you are an unnaturalized foreigner. Any alien who feels a fraternal interest in the international advancement of thought and the universal encouragement of the good, the true and the beautiful in literature, will be welcome on these shores.
This is a broad land, and we aim to be a broad and cosmopolitan people. Literature and free, willing genius are not hemmed in by State or national lines. ”

“ Books which imitate or represent the thoughts and life of Europe do not constitute an American literature. Before such can exist, an original idea must animate this nation, and fresh currents of life must call into life fresh thoughts along its shores. ”

“ All great nations in their childhood have their legends, their epics, written or unwritten, and their hero, one or many of them, upon whose exploits Fancy rings its changes at will during the ages when national language, literature, and character are in process of development. ”

“ She arouses the reader’s attention from the beginning, charms his imagination by choice extracts from the literary treasures of past ages, pleases his taste by drawing parallelisms between the myths of the past and the fables of the present, convinces him that one literature unites different nations and different centuries, and that each nation is a link in the great chain of development of the human mind. ”

“ And, after, all, what is this great boast of nationality in literature? Whatever is most excellent in the literature of every country is precisely that which belongs to humanity, and not to the nation. What is dearest and most prized at home is exactly that which has a world-wide celebrity and a world-wide interest—that which touches the sympathies of all men. ”

“ Still further, it may be observed, that as there are certain species of poetical composition, as, for example, the dramatic, which, though of the same general character in all nations, will take a strong tincture of difference from the manners of a country, or the peculiar genius of a people; so it will be found, that a poet, eminent as an original author in his own country, may fail remarkably in attempting to convey, by a translation, an idea of the merits of a foreign work which is tinctured by the national genius of the country which produced it. ”

“ But the art and literature expressed by the genius of the masters, reflected in the tastes of society, and to be taken by Europe as a model throughout a whole century, are no criterion of the social and political order of the day. ”

“ We should like to see our own writers confine their efforts to native subjects—to throw aside the trammels of foreign reading, and to select their themes from the copious materials which every where abound in our own magnificent country. ”

“ After you have become acquainted with their methods of interpreting their own nature, foreign attempts in the same line will seem to you strangely flat and soulless. The foreign artist will give you realistic reflections of what he sees ”

“ Though it cannot add to your merit, yet it will extend the knowledge of it, especially in our own country, where we are still influenced by foreign opinion, and more justly, perhaps, in regard to taste in the fine arts than in any other thing. ”

“ We are now to have a national literature, as well as a national existence. American writers of romance and the drama, will no longer seek the antiquated regions of Europe for scenes and heroes; America has supplied all that is necessary to the most vivid of pictures ”

“ We have seen that the relationship in which the original people of the modern world stood to the progress of modern culture was as follows: the former received from the incomplete, and never more than superficial, efforts of foreign countries the first stimulus to more profound creative acts, which were to be developed from its own midst. ”

“ Our philosophers, our poets, and our historians, are printed at foreign presses. This is a perpetual victory, and establishes the ascendancy of our genius, as much at least as the commerce and the prowess of England. ”

“ As a race they have devoted themselves to the cultivation of literature for a longer period by some thousands of years than any existing nation. To literature, and to it alone, they look for the rule to guide them in their conduct. ”

“ For the rest, one must, with the Muses, wait with such patience as one may for the appearance of National types of literature and art; types probably only to be formed when the National types of men and women have reached their fully distinct development out of existing cosmopolitan chaos. ”

“ The critical judgments of the authors may not always commend themselves to Europeans, but they have succeeded in setting forth the leading facts of the history of their literature in a clear, methodical manner. ”

“ It is to these that foreigners desirous of learning our language most naturally recur. They constitute our ordinary standard literature, and for models in English writing the tradition, not yet obsolete, of our fathers refers us imperatively hither. ”

“ If a knowledge of other countries and a study of the manners and customs of foreign nations teach us to appreciate what we have at home, they likewise form the best cure of that national conceit and want of sympathy with which we are too apt to look on all that is strange and foreign. ”

“ There can be no development of a nation's literature worth anything that is not on its own lines, out of its own native materials. We must not expect that the English will understand that literature that expresses our national life, character, conditions, any better than they understand that of the French or of the Germans. ”

“ On one occasion, when filled with admiration of the beauty and genius displayed in a piece of foreign mechanism, he exclaimed, *'How wonderful! how comes it that such inventions and discoveries are always foreign? It must be something different in the con- stitution of our minds that causes us to remain as we were. ”

“ A thorough grasp of our literature thus requires—and in scarcely less a degree than the mastery of one of the literatures of Europe—a survey of a long period, the search below the baffling or contradictory surface of national experience for the main drift of that experience, and the selection of the writers, of one generation after another, who have given the most fit and permanent and personalized expression to the underlying forces of the national life. ”

“ The national literature reveals the myriad shades and hues of private and public feeling, and the more truthful this literary record, the more delicate and noble become the harmonies of local and national thought or emotion with the universal instincts and passions of mankind. ”

“ Besides the influence of modern science, English fiction has latterly been much affected by foreign models, especially French and Russian. The tracing of these streams, however, would bring us to the consideration of men still writing, and involve us in a mass of production which cannot be characterized here, and on which we cannot hope to have as yet a proper perspective. ”

“ It is our object to produce a literature which shall demonstrate in what ways we are different from all other nations—those differences, peculiarities and so forth which our new and in all things unique country has evolved. ”

“ A deafening shout goes forth, as the huge fire-escape comes full swing upon the scene: a moment's pause, and all is still, save the beat, beat, of the great water pulses, whilst every eye is strained towards the fluttering garments flapping against the wall. Will the ladder reach, and not dislodge those weary hands clutching so convulsively to the hot stone? ”

“ The national spirit seems to be making a last effort to assert itself in literature and to overcome cosmopolitan influences and the art of writers who express a purely personal feeling. It is true that nationality may express itself in many ways: it may not be at all evident in the subject matter, but it may be very evident in the sentiment. ”

“ Hardly any country in Europe has a more valuable collection of popular poetry in the times of its military and intellectual greatness, or which more thoroughly illustrates its history or the characteristics of its national temperament. ”

“ It varies therefore, according to region, in mental temperament, tastes and emotions or modes of thought.
So because it is part of life and a living influence, literature has always consolidated the nation-forming power of language. Poetry, especially, is often an intensified reflection of national thought and life. In the words of Irving, “Poets always breathe the feeling of a nation.” The cultivation of literature serves national ends. ”

“ As regards English art it is certain that, partly from the influence of foreign queens, partly from foreign wars, and partly from the incessant intercourse with the rest of Europe kept up by religious houses, many of the accomplishments of other countries were known and practised here by foreign or native artists. ”

“ If there be any department of elegant literature in which we may hope to surpass our European ancestors and cotemporaries, it is in eloquence. It is the fairest and most hopeful field which now remains for literary distinction. ”

“ Our literature being derived from nations of a different race, who flourished at a time when our ancestors were in a state of barbarity, and consequently, when they were despised by those who had attained to the literary arts, has given rise to a humbling opinion, that we ourselves are the offspring of mean and contemptible nations, with whom the human imagination and sentiment had no effect, till the genius was in a manner inspired by examples, and directed by lessons that were brought from abroad. ”

“ He has proved that the history of our country's literature cannot be explained by English causes alone, any more than the origin of the English language or people can be so explained. He has proved that each national literature is a centre towards which not only national but also international forces gravitate. ”

“ The Life must come before the Thought. Nothing could be more absurd than the expectation that American literature should spring away into the air from the top of European performance. Our first literature was colonial,—that is, imitative, written for the approbation of European critics,—of course, having somewhat the empty correctness of good school-boy composition. Next followed what we may call fire-weed literature,—the first rank, raw product of new lands. ”