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Columbia Unibcnsitp 
 
 STUDIES IN ROMANCE PHILOLOGY AND 
 LITERATURE 
 
 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN 
 LITERATURE BEFORE 1850 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 SALES AGENTS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 LEMCKE A BUECHNER 
 30-32 WEST 27TH STREET 
 
 LONDON 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 AMEN CORNER, E.G. 
 
 
FEENCH CEITICISM OF 
 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 BEFORE 1850 
 
 BY 
 
 HAROLD ELMER MANTZ 
 
 SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 
 
 FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, IN THE 
 
 FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 gotk 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 1917 
 
Copyright, 1917 
 BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 Printed from type, March, 1917 
 
TO 
 
 MY GKANDFATHEB AND GRANDMOTHER 
 
 WARREN AND VIRGINIA WHITE ELMER 
 
 359035 
 
NOTE 
 
 Approved for publication, on behalf of the Department 
 of Romance Languages and Literatures in Columbia 
 
 University. 
 
 HENRY ALFRED TODD 
 
 NEW YORK 
 Jan. 31, 1917 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 IN the following study an attempt is made to 
 discover French opinion on the subject of 
 American literature, from about the beginning 
 of the nineteenth century to about the year 
 1850. While it is thus primarily a contribution 
 to the history of French criticism, it deals with 
 one of the least important of its aspects, both 
 because of the scarcity of American literary 
 works of excellence, and because but few French 
 critics of ability wrote about those that did 
 exist. Thus, in the first part of the investiga 
 tion, it will be necessary to depend in large 
 part on scanty notices of translations, or of 
 American books come into the hands of the 
 editors of French periodicals. Gradually, more 
 extended reviews will be made, and the merely 
 bibliographical details will lose the importance 
 they at first had as the only indications of 
 the knowledge of American literature possessed 
 by the French. It is not the purpose of this 
 study to furnish an indication of all notices 
 bearing on books by American authors; thus 
 indications of mere booksellers announcements, 
 when no criticism is offered in connection, are 
 generally omitted in the last two decades. On 
 
 vii 
 
Vlll FOREWORD 
 
 the other hand, all the criticism in the represen 
 tative French periodicals dealing with Ameri 
 can literature, and in the books written about 
 the United States, so far as indicated in the 
 bibliography, has been presented. 
 
 But these periodicals have been selected 
 merely as containing judgments fairly represen 
 tative of the general French idea of our litera 
 ture. Not only is no complete bibliography 
 intended although such a work would have 
 been much appreciated had it existed but 
 no analysis is attempted of many articles or 
 books touching the subject. It is probable that 
 no one will be tempted to compile and index 
 all that has been written in France on American 
 literature. The present volume, in any event, 
 is intended to supply a general view of its 
 department of French criticism until the bibli 
 ography shall have been made, and then utilized 
 from the standpoint from which this book has 
 been written. 
 
 I wish to thank Professor Adolphe Cohn, 
 Professor John L. Gerig, Dr. Carl Van Doren, 
 and very particularly Professor Henry A. Todd 
 for corrections and encouragement. To Pro 
 fessor Todd I am obliged, in addition, for a 
 patient reading of the proof. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FOREWORD vii 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY 1 
 
 II. 1800-1830 5 
 
 III. 1830-1835 49 
 
 IV. TOCQUEVILLE 85 
 
 V. PHILARETE CHASLES 118 
 
 VI. CONCLUSIONS 155 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY 161 
 
 INDEX . 163 
 
THE FRENCH CRITICISM OF 
 AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 FRENCH criticism of American literature began 
 approximately with the year 1825. Preceding 
 years had indeed seen a number of translations 
 of American works into French and certain 
 notices upon them or upon untranslated publi 
 cations. But the French interest in America 
 had hitherto been of a different nature from 
 literary; and very naturally. For although 
 national pride or a curiosity in the matter of 
 bibliography has prompted the bringing to 
 gether of enormous lists of titles in what may 
 be called American literature in the larger sense, 
 still the number of works among these possess 
 ing a degree of excellence apart from their his 
 torical interest remains small, almost nothing 
 indeed, relatively to those of Europe. To-day, 
 we may suppose, a colony or nation correspond 
 ing in importance to the America of the eigh 
 teenth century would receive more attention for 
 its literature. But, aside from the fact that 
 books travelled slowly and at more hazard in 
 
 i 
 
2 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 those days, there is the more important fact 
 that France had almost no general reviews 
 other than learned, before the end of the eigh 
 teenth century. But France had not been look 
 ing to America for literature. Since the days 
 when this hemisphere was El Dorado, a land 
 of mystery with somewhere in it the very foun- 
 t;tin of youth and happiness, a land where all 
 was different from the Europe where men 
 suffered want, and hate, and age; for France at 
 least this land had always continued to be in 
 some sort a Utopia, where the weary search 
 for the philosopher s stone was not requisite 
 to set one above the misery of his fellows in 
 the Old World, or where he should find brothers 
 and not enemies among men. Since the concep 
 tion was an ideal, no toil and disappointment 
 were of sufficient force to shake it; and we find 
 it growing still up to the time of our Revolu 
 tion in the enthusiastic interest in our cause. 
 And it expressed itself even more sincerely no 
 doubt, even into the following century, in the 
 charming conception, the "man of nature/ 
 the "good savage." 
 
 The interest in the American Revolution and 
 in the subsequent political system, is the turn 
 ing-point, however, where that old ideal, being 
 as it were attached to the American soil, must, 
 if it were not to be abandoned, find its way 
 henceforth among men and their works, and 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 3 
 
 no longer range unhindered where nature and 
 her unspoiled children were living out the Golden 
 Age. The "good savage " and the inspiring 
 world where he moved had disappeared, giving 
 way to European settlers who would soon make 
 it all over into the banal city and country 
 Europe knew too well. But this population 
 had devoted itself in the face of what was most 
 powerful in Europe to an ideal that bid fair to 
 bring another Golden Age, one of intelligence, 
 where the mind as well as the heart should have 
 a place. Would not this new people embody 
 the new ideal in a comely and novel and living 
 manner? And would not the American writers 
 express what was characteristic in the western 
 civilization that France had helped to preserve 
 and of which such high hopes were entertained? 
 We are able to see to-day, and indeed there 
 were those who witnessed the French and 
 American Revolutions who perceived the fun 
 damental difference between those movements, 
 the theoretic impulse of the one, the practical 
 character of the other. Gouverneur Morris, 
 smiling sceptically at the ardent theorizing in 
 Parisian salons, according to which everything 
 would soon be well in France, and without any 
 detail or contingency being of possible interest 
 meanwhile since the theory was good and 
 the result must therefore be sure Gouverneur 
 Morris furnishes us with the contrast between 
 
4 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 the one change and the other. How was it 
 possible, then, that when America proved in 
 dustrial, when literature that should express 
 the most worthy, the most human side of this 
 nation proved the least of its interests, when 
 what was produced indeed seemed modelled 
 closely upon that of Great Britain how was 
 it possible that the disappointment, the dis 
 gust of France should not be in proportion to 
 its former enthusiasm? But the ideal was too 
 deeply rooted to wither; its manifestations are 
 often to be met with in the study of the French 
 judgments upon our literature, if indeed it does 
 not constitute the touchstone for the right in 
 terpretation of those dicta that would otherwise 
 seem harsh or unintelligent. 1 
 
 1 Useful lists of the principal translations of American authors 
 into French, and of French works upon America are to be found 
 in Gustave Lanson s "Manuel bibliographique de la litte*rature 
 frangaise moderne." 
 
 G. D. Morris, in "Fenimore Cooper et Edgar Poe d apres la 
 critique frangaise du 19 e siecle" (Paris, Larose, 1912) has fur 
 nished a very complete treatment of the French criticism of 
 Cooper s novels and of Poe s tales. For those writers the work 
 is much more complete than the present one. 
 
 An interesting resume* of the part dealing with Poe was pub 
 lished by Dr. Morris in an article entitled "French Criticism of 
 Poe" in the "South Atlantic Quarterly" in 1915 (vol. XIV, 
 pp. 324-329). In this article he modifies the current opinion 
 that Poe s popularity was from the first greater in France than 
 in the United States, and that the French enthusiasm for his 
 writings caused a reaction in his favor at home. 
 
II 
 
 FROM 1800 TO 1830 
 
 HOWEVER, the reception given to him who 
 was probably the first of our great writers, to 
 Franklin, was openhearted and evidently gen 
 eral. The scientist whose researches were con 
 sidered of the first importance, the patriot and 
 legislator, the diplomat who had known how 
 to make himself popular at Paris as perhaps no 
 other had done, Poor Richard, finally, "le bon- 
 homme Richard " Franklin had many titles 
 to the esteem of France. But he was, of course, 
 as a literary man, the author of the " Autobiog 
 raphy," and of the " Almanac," " La Science du 
 bonhomme Richard." We may consider "Poor 
 Richard s Almanac" a work of literature in the 
 stricter sense, or we may not; at any rate we 
 shall see later on how it was looked upon as a 
 representative American work; but the fact 
 that it was well known in France seems very 
 evident. Franklin is constantly referred to as 
 Bonhomme Richard. The "Magasin encyclo- 
 p6dique" (2e ann., t. 5, p. 569) in 1797 an 
 nounces the "Opuscules de B. Franklin, en 
 anglais et en frangais ..." with the remark: 
 
 5 
 
6 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 Ce volume, tres-joliment imprim6, contient 
 le bon homme [sic] Richard en anglais et en 
 frangais. . . . 
 
 The same periodical for the following year an 
 nounces a French translation of works of Frank 
 lin, including the " Autobiography. M In the 
 review the " Almanac " is particularly spoken of: 
 
 Le citoyen Castra a jug6 & propos de traduire 
 de nouveau et de terminer ces (Euvres morales 
 par le "Chemin de la fortune, ou la Science du 
 bonhomme Richard. " On retrouve avec plaisir 
 ce petit ouvrage, qui en vaut bien de plus vo- 
 lumineux: c est Textrait du bon sens des siecles 
 et des nations. 
 
 And in the same reviewer s article on the 
 1 1 Autobiography : 
 
 Pendant le sjour que Benjamin Franklin fit 
 en France en qualit de ministre p!6nipotentiare 
 des Etats-Unis, parut la premiere partie des 
 confessions de J. J. Rousseau: cet ouvrage . . . 
 donna Pide*e aux personnes qui taient plus 
 intimement Ii6es avec Franklin, de Fengager 
 d 6crire aussi les m^moires de sa vie: il y con- 
 sentit. 
 
 Almost twenty years later two French edi 
 tions of his letters occasioned another expression 
 in his regard, this time from a notable editor, 
 A. L. Millin, of the " Annales encyclope*diques." 
 Speaking of the letters: 
 
 1 "Magasin encyclopdique," 4e ann6e (1798), vol. Ill, 
 pp. 372-97. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 7 
 
 On reconnait dans les unes le negotiateur 
 habile qui a e*minemment contribue* a fonder la 
 liberte de son pays; dans d autres, le savant 
 physicien qui a enleve la f oudre aux dieux comme 
 il avait ote le sceptre aux tyrans, et dans toutes 
 on retrouve le bon homme [sic] Richard, dont 
 la sagesse est toujours indulgente, rend Texercice 
 de la vertu facile, et sait joindre a ses preceptes 
 de fines et spirituelles plaisanteries. 2 
 
 And again in 1817, the reviewer for the lately 
 re-established " Journal des Savants/ Daunou, 
 a propos of these same translations of Frank 
 lin s correspondence, expresses the wish that 
 France might have a complete translation of his 
 works : 
 
 Par son caractere personnel et par celui de 
 ses ouvrages, Franklin serait du petit nombre 
 des ecrivains qui appartiennent a tout le globe: 
 mais il sera, du moins, reclame tout entier par 
 les trois pays ou il a fait les plus longs sejours, 
 rAme"rique, TAngleterre et la France. 3 
 
 2 "Annales ency elope" diques," 1817, vol. Ill, pp. 167 sqq. 
 The heading is: " Correspondance choisie de Benjamin Frank 
 lin, traduite de 1 anglais; Edition publie"e par W. T. Franklin, 
 son petit-fils . . . chez Treuttel et Wiirtz, Paris, Londres, 
 Strasbourg." 
 
 The reviewer, "A. L. M." (A. L. Millin?), remarks (p. 169): 
 "M. Janet a public une autre Edition de cette correspondance, 
 et les deux e"diteurs se font, a ce sujet, une petite guerre dont 
 nous ne devons pas nous meler." The citation is on p. 167. 
 
 3 "Journal des Savants," June, 1817, pp. 348-56. Citation, 
 p. 356. 
 
 For an appreciation of the French feeling for Franklin at the 
 
8 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 There is little enough in these notices that is 
 to the purpose in a purely literary sense, and 
 had the average French reader of the period 
 been questioned about Franklin, he would 
 probably have disposed of him something in 
 this manner: that he was pre-eminent as a 
 scientist, an accomplished and successful dip 
 lomat, and with all this, a charming personality. 
 That he would have classed him more naturally 
 with men of letters, is very doubtful indeed, 
 notwithstanding the popularity of the " Al 
 manac." Franklin, like Dr. Johnson, and like 
 many another whose works would justify a most 
 particular attention for their intrinsic worth, 
 was nevertheless over and above all else a 
 personality. We are more familiar with and 
 more interested in Boswell s "Life of Johnson" 
 
 end of the eighteenth century, v. Mignet, "Vie de Franklin," 
 published in 1848 as the seventh of the "Petits Traites public s 
 par 1 Academic des Sciences morales et politiques" (Paris, 
 Pagnerre, Paulin & Cie; and Firmin Didot Freres). It is sig 
 nificant that the rest of the title of Franklin s life is: ". . . a 
 1 usage de tout le monde." Mignet s language in reporting 
 Franklin s meeting with Voltaire is, as well, significant of the 
 feeling for Franklin about 1850: "C&lant eux-me mes a I irr&sis- 
 tible Emotion de 1 assemble e, ils s embrasscrent, au bruit pro 
 long^ des applaudissements universels. On dit alors, en faisant 
 allusion aux regents travaux le"gislatifs de Franklin et aux derniers 
 succes dramatiques de Voltaire, que c e* tait Solon qui embrassait 
 Sophocle ; c e"tait plutot le ge"nie brillant et re*novateur de 1 an- 
 cien monde qui embrassait le ge"nie simple et entreprenant du 
 nouveau." (p. 178) 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 9 
 
 than in "Rasselas" or the " Lives of the Poets/ 
 because Johnson has remained what he was for 
 his contemporaries, a personality overshadowing 
 his production, the result of his activity. That 
 the works of such an author must inevitably 
 contain the very essence of what constitutes a 
 literary work, was less evident in France in the 
 first quarter of the nineteenth century than it 
 became later on. And it is in the middle of the 
 century that we shall have an opportunity of 
 learning the detailed views of French criticism 
 on Franklin as a literary man. For the moment, 
 what has been noted will serve as a fair speci 
 men of the sort of notice given to most American 
 books, whether in the way of belles-lettres or 
 of works of a historical or scientific nature. 
 
 In general, what notices of our literature 
 appeared cannot be called critical; generally 
 they occur in the bibliographical notices of the 
 month, and as it were incidentally. The French 
 reviews of the time seem for the most part to 
 have considered it their special function to 
 inform readers of books that had recently 
 appeared, and to give accounts of the principal 
 matters debated in the academies. And their 
 interests were not what might be called local. 
 The "Magasin encyclopedique," for instance, 
 in the period from 1795 to 1800, mentions the 
 activities of " literary societies" from India to 
 Iceland, the establishment of a Lappish press in 
 
 
10 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 Nordland, Sweden, and so on in great variety, 
 together with notes of whatever publications 
 may have come to hand from any of these 
 localities. In this particular case, what is to 
 the purpose here is the lack of any mention of 
 the kind from the United States; that for a 
 period of five years one of the principal reviews 
 should have contained no literary mention of 
 America, is certainly a very noteworthy fact in 
 this connection. On the other hand, there is an 
 occasional notice of work in some branch of the 
 exact sciences, either in the academies or pub 
 lished independently of them. It is true that 
 under the caption of " Literary News" there 
 was frequently a section dealing with the 
 United States; but the term literary is here 
 used in the broadest possible sense; moreover, 
 the notices occurring there were more fre 
 quently than not in the wider field of science, 
 as when in the "Magasin ency elope* dique " in 
 1803 (vol. V, p. 522) an article bearing jbhe 
 promising title "Nouvelles litte*raires des Etats- 
 Unis de I Am^rique septentrionale," is found 
 upon examination to treat exclusively of such 
 questions as the theory of winds and cur 
 rents, shells, skeletons of mammoths. . . . The 
 "Journal des Savants" for the year 1816, 
 when it was re-established by the government, 
 contains no mention, even bibliographical, of 
 the United States. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 11 
 
 The " Melanges de literature" of J. B. A. 
 Suard (Paris, Dentu, 1803, t. Ill, p. 183) con 
 tain a brief paragraph on the subject of Ameri 
 can literature that is much like what will be 
 found a quarter-century later: 
 
 Vous voulez savoir quel est l 6tat de la lit 
 terature et des sciences dans les Etats-Unis? 
 de quelle consideration les gens de lettres et 
 les savants y jouissent? La litterature et les 
 sciences demandent du loisir, et personne ici 
 n en a ... En general on lit plus qu on n a 
 jamais fait; mais tout concourt a faire donner 
 la preference a la litterature anglaise. 
 
 From 1819 on, however, the " Revue encyclo- 
 pedique," which continued the "Annales ency- 
 clopediques," that had in 1817, in turn, been 
 the new title for the "Magasin encyclopedique " 
 several times cited from 1819 on the "Revue 
 encyclopedique" takes regular note of American 
 publications and academy proceedings. The 
 fact still remains that the chief interest is shown 
 to be in science rather than in belles-lettres. 
 The distinguished reputation of Franklin would 
 seem to have reflected a light upon American 
 science, and to have made it of perhaps undue 
 importance to France relatively, at least, to 
 the subject of this research. In 1820, there 
 is a note of the principal American literary or 
 philosophic societies, about ten in number if 
 we include those "pour Petablissement d une 
 
 
12 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 paix permanente et universelle," given as a 
 sort of index to the progress of learning here. 4 
 
 As an example of literary criticism, if it can 
 be called such, the following lines of a review 
 by Depping of Warden s " Description of the 
 United States" 5 will show the general attitude 
 
 4 "Revue encyclope*dique," vol. V (1820), p. 15. There are 
 noted seven American "Socle" ts scientifiques, litte raires, ou 
 philosophiques Stabiles dans les principales villes des Stats- 
 Unis." They are: The (Philadelphia) American Philosophical 
 Society, the first volume of whose proceedings was published 
 in 1771; The (Boston) American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 
 founded in 1780; The Academy of Arts and Sciences of the 
 State of Connecticut, founded in 1799; The Charlestown (S.C.) 
 Literary and Philosophical Society, founded in 1814; The 
 (New York) Literary and Philosophical Society, founded in 
 1815; The Columbian Institute (of Washington); The (New 
 Orleans) Medical Society. 
 
 The following year the same periodical (vol. X, 1821, p. 436) 
 contains another notice of the same nature: "Etats-Unis: 
 Nouvelle socie te savante Institut national ou Academic des 
 Belles-lettres. ..." On p. 623, an extract of several pages 
 from the constitution of the society is given in translation, and 
 the remark is made that the object of its work that of attempt 
 ing a standardization of English in the United States is laud 
 able, because of the fact that the population of the United 
 States is so scattered, and without some such central authority 
 usage in language here would become too loose. Certain mem 
 bers names are mentioned: J. Q. Adams, Brockholst Livingston, 
 Joseph Story, William Lowndes, William S. Cordell, Alexander 
 M Leod, and Joseph Stearns. 
 
 * "Revue encyclop&lique," vol. V (1820), p. 501: D. B. 
 Warden; Description statistique, historique, et politique des 
 Etats-Unis de I Ame rique septentrionale . . . traduite de 1 an- 
 glais. (Paris, 1820, Rey & Gravier, prix: 40 fr.) Warden is 
 mentioned as formerly an American consul in France. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 13 
 
 towards the American ideal as conceived in 
 France. 
 
 L auteur convient que la litte"rature et les 
 arts ne jettent encore aucun eclat en Amerique. 
 Faute de grands ecrivains nationaux, on reim- 
 prime les meilleurs ouvrages anglais; on copie 
 le theatre de Londres. Au premier apergu, on 
 pourrait croire que 1 energie des sentiments de 
 ce peuple, qu aucune mauvaise institution ne 
 comprime, devrait developper le genie, et Ton 
 pourrait s etonner de ne trouver chez lui aucun 
 ouvrage qui en porte le cachet. Peut-etre 
 aura-t-il des hommes de genie, quand il sera 
 dans la maturite de sa croissance; mais, dut-il 
 n en jamais avoir, il s en consolera aisement. 
 Pour quelques hommes eminents qui lui man- 
 quent, il possede generalement, ce qui est bien 
 plus utile a un peuple, le bon sens, Televation 
 des ide*es, la rectitude de Fesprit, et 1 amour 
 de la justice et de Fegalite. Ailleurs, on parle 
 aux passions, ailleurs, on a besoin d entrainer 
 et de s^duire. En Amerique on parle a la 
 raison; et pour ce langage le ge*nie n est pas 
 indispensable. 
 
 This is of course idealization, although it 
 seems certain that at least by contrast to the 
 political history of France in that generation, 
 there is a grain of truth in the generalization 
 all, no doubt, that can ever be expected of such. 
 At any rate, it is an opinion concurred in in 
 France, and one of the early passages illustrat 
 ing what was noted a few pages back about the 
 
14 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 tenacity of the Utopian conception of America 
 hitherto entertained there. The Utopia is no 
 longer the pastoral one of the eighteenth cen 
 tury, where the ideal of poetry was all-pervad 
 ing, but has become a political one, a little 
 tempered by inevitable reality, but not un 
 recognizable. 
 
 So much for those who would accord the 
 United States a part, at least, of the character 
 istics requisite for literary production. Not all 
 would grant so much: 6 
 
 La literature anglaise, si riche en chefs- 
 d oeuvre de tout genre, est 1& toute prete, et il 
 semble que les Am6ricains se croient dispenses 
 de s en occuper [with literary production] - 
 II serait difficile de citer un seul ouvrage, soit 
 en prose, soit en vers, produit du g6nie ame*ricain, 
 qu on puisse placer parmi ceux du second order 
 en Europe. 
 
 The " Revue ency elope* dique " was one of the 
 most serviceable channels for the communica 
 tion of this reality. That a very incomplete 
 idea of the United States was entertained in 
 France at this time, it is hardly necessary to 
 say, but that a conscientious effort began to be 
 made is at any rate the evidence of a conviction 
 that a better acquaintance would prove of 
 
 "Mercure Stranger," 1813, vol. I, pp. 65-6. An extract 
 from letters from America, signed "R * * *." 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 15 
 
 worth. In 1821 the above-mentioned period 
 ical has the following: 7 
 
 N. B. Comme nos relations avec les Etats- 
 Unis de TAmerique sont encore tres-irregulieres 
 et mal etablies, nous ne pouvons donner que de 
 loin en loin ceux des ouvrages periodiques ou 
 autres qui viennent a notre connaissance. Nous 
 invitons ... a ... nous transmettre, soit les 
 annonces des meilleurs ouvrages, publics recem- 
 ment dans leur pays, soit les nouvelles qui 
 peuvent interesser les sciences, les arts, et la 
 litterature. 
 
 Such is the following : 8 
 
 Boston. Manuscrits grecs. Des manu- 
 scrits grecs que le professeur Everett a achete*s, 
 dans le mois de juin dernier, d un prince grec 
 etabli a Constantinople, viennent d arriver a 
 Boston. En voici la note. . . . [They are 
 manuscripts of the Fathers, and of other ecclesi 
 astical literature, among others, of Saint Greg 
 ory of Nazianzus, etc.] 
 
 . . . ce sont les seuls manuscrits grecs de 
 Tantiquite que possedent les Etats-Unis. 
 
 Such periodicals as reached France were 
 generally reviewed, or at least announced. Of 
 especial interest among these was the " North 
 
 7 " Revue encyclope dique," vol. X, (1821), p. 144, in the sec 
 tion "Bulletin bibliographique des livres Strangers," where, it 
 should be mentioned, American books were likely to be noted. 
 They were not likely to be otherwise dealt with. 
 
 s "Revue encyclope dique," vol. VII (1820), pp. 367-8. In 
 the section "Nouvelles litte>aires." 
 
16 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 American Review," upon which there is the 
 following remark, suggested by the January 
 number of 1820: 9 
 
 Get ouvrage periodique, Tun des premiers de 
 ce genre qui ait 6t6 public* dans les fitats-Unis 
 d Am6rique, justifie les esp6rances qu en avaient 
 congues les amis de la saine literature et de 
 la vraie philosophic. 
 
 An article in it upon the program of literary 
 and scientific courses at the University of Vir 
 ginia is briefly summarized as being of particu 
 lar interest, and the table of contents given in 
 part. 
 
 . . . nous esp6rons pouvoir, dans le cours de 
 Tanne*e prochaine, tablir des relations plus 
 suivies avec TAm^rique du Nord, et rendre 
 compte du contenu des principaux recueils de 
 literature et de sciences publics dans ces 
 contr6es. 
 
 But for a few years more their efforts in this 
 way seem not to have been very fruitful, as 
 there appears only one notice besides those for 
 the " North American Review" in the following 
 year of 1821; it is upon a couple of numbers of 
 "The Western Review and Miscellaneous Maga 
 zine" for the year 1820, published at Lexington, 
 
 "Revue encyclop&iique," vol. VIII (1820), pp. 108-9. 
 Review of the "North American Review and Miscellaneous 
 Journal," No. XXVI, January, 1820. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 17 
 
 Kentucky. 10 The contents of these numbers as 
 reported in the " Revue encyclopedique " are 
 interesting; they include: "An Essay on Ambi 
 tion and Happiness/ 7 an article on Scott s 
 "Ivanhoe," a "dissertation" on "esprit," one 
 upon Oriental idylls, another on "Ohio River 
 Fishes," and finally, extracts from "un ouvrage 
 intitule Le Livre d esquisses de Geoffrey 
 Crayon 7 par M. Irvine [sic]." In literary mat 
 ters, it is often evident that the French awaited 
 British judgments upon American works before 
 pronouncing, and not only in the period under 
 consideration. The natural inference is, either 
 that French critics were not sufficiently ac 
 quainted with the field, or that they were timid 
 in expressing opinions that might later be 
 questioned in a country more able to furnish 
 valuable judgment in those subtle matters of 
 language and style that are determining in lit 
 erary criticism. Granted that there is reason to 
 suppose so much, still it would not do to stop 
 at that as sufficient explanation. Certainly an 
 effort was being made to appreciate the literary 
 America; but America, for France, was not 
 literary, it was political, just as it had been 
 the type of the revolutionary ideal. A notice 
 of half a dozen numbers of the "North American 
 
 10 " Revue ency elope" dique," vol. X (1821), p. 145. The copy 
 of the "Western Review" was, vol. II, No. 4, May, 1820; they 
 had also the number for August of that year. 
 
18 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 Review" of 1821, certain allowance being made 
 for pique, still represents very well that tone of 
 feeling in regard to the American literary sense. 11 
 
 Ce journal Iitt6raire, rdig6 sur le plan des 
 " Revues " anglaises . . . offre des especes d es- 
 sais, Merits la plupart avec beaucoup de talent, 
 sur les livres indiqu^s en tete de chaque 
 article. . . . 
 
 Si les vues des re*dacteurs de ce recueil sur 
 les affaires politiques sont presque tou jours 
 parfaitement justes, il n en est peut-etre pas de 
 meme de leurs jugements litteraires. Us nous 
 paraissent partager un peu les pre*juge*s des 
 Anglais contre la litte>ature des autres pays, et 
 surtout contre la literature frangaise. On lira 
 toutefois avec interet Panalyse de Touvrage de 
 madame Necker de Saussure sur la vie et les 
 Merits de madame de Stael; Particle sur les 
 observations historiques relatives a la Hollande, 
 par Louis Buonaparte; Fextrait de la vie prive*e 
 de Voltaire, par madame de Graffigny; ceux 
 de Thistoire de Tastronomie, par Bailly; et des 
 me*moires de Suard, par Garat; et enfin, Tarticle 
 sur rindiffe>ence en mature de religion, par 
 1 abbS de la Mennais. (Signed: "B n.") 
 
 One is somewhat at a loss to understand the 
 reproach that Americans made unfair distinc 
 tions to the prejudice of French literature. 
 
 A copy of the " American Annual Register" 
 for 1827 reaching the editors of the "Revue 
 
 11 " Revue encyclop&iique," vol. XII (1821), pp. 573-4. The 
 numbers of the "North American Review" mentioned are: 
 Nos. 1 to 6, of the New Series, 1821 . 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 19 
 
 encyclopedique " in that year suggests a note 
 calling attention to the rapid progress of peri 
 odical publication in the United States. 12 
 
 A number of the " Philadelphia Monthly 
 Magazine" for 1829 contains an article describ 
 ing the French criticism of American literature 
 as better than the dicta of the English; the 
 " Revue encyclopedique " 13 takes occasion to 
 thank the " Philadelphia Magazine " for help 
 ing them know in more detail a land as worthy 
 of attention as "la noble patrie de Franklin et 
 de Cooper. 7 
 
 Perhaps these notices of American periodicals 
 constitute after all the most valuable informa 
 tion that the general reading public in France 
 obtained of activity in letters in the United 
 States of that period. For the reviews of books 
 for the most part were so very inadequate 
 as to give a vague, but probably also a dis 
 torted, image of the status of American litera 
 ture. We find the preconceived idea constantly 
 intruding itself into those judgments which, to 
 
 12 Vol. XXXIV, p. 405. Other notices of American periodi 
 cals are to be found in the "Revue encyclopedique" as follows: 
 1826, v. XXIX, p. 132, on the "Atlantic Magazine"; 1825, v. 
 XXVII, pp. 755-6, on the "New York Review and Athenaeum 
 Magazine"; 1826, v. XXIX, pp. 133-4, on Louvet s "R6veil" 
 of New York. And in the same for 1827, v. XXXV, pp. 119-22, 
 there is an article by Isidore Lebrun on American "Ouvrages 
 pe*riodiques," where he says: "On porte a pres de 600 le nombre 
 des ouvrages pe"riodiques de FAme rique du nord." 
 
 13 1829, vol. XLIV, pp. 695-8. 
 
20 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 be valuable, should be unprejudiced, very much 
 as in the case of the opinion as to the literary 
 judgment of the editors of the " North American 
 Review/ cited above. ,And this is particularly 
 so of the poems that are criticised. There are 
 two mentions of that forgotten poem "Missis- 
 sippian Scenery," by Charles Mead, published 
 in 1819. 14 It suggested the following reflections 
 in the mind of the reviewer: 
 
 Nourris des chefs-d oeuvre de la literature 
 anglaise, pouvant puiser a la meme source 
 d heureuses inspirations, d oti vient que les 
 Amricains n ont encore rien produit de re- 
 marquable dans les lettres? Le g6nie du com 
 merce toufferait-il chez ce peuple le gotit des 
 beaux-arts et de la posie? On serait tent6 de 
 le croire, en voyant la m6diocrit6 de ses produc 
 tions po6tiques. Ce sont de pales et faibles 
 imitations des crivains anglais, tout y manque 
 de chaleur et de vie. Point de descriptions 
 anim6es; point d accents males et g6n6reux, tels 
 qu on doit en attendre d un peuple libre, cr^ateur 
 de son ind^pendance et n ob&ssant qu aux lois 
 qu il s est lui-meme imposes. Ces observations 
 se pr^sentent en foule a la lecture de 1 ouvrage 
 que nous annongons. 
 
 At this date it is not remarkable that no 
 mention of Irving should have been made to 
 temper the severity of the phrase "the Ameri- 
 
 14 "Revue encyclop&lique" for 1820, vol. VIII, p. 343, and 
 id., 1822, vol. XIII, p. 129. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 21 
 
 cans have not yet produced anything of note 
 in letters"; as living s " Sketch-Book " could 
 not be expected to have a wide circulation in 
 France upon its publication. But the wide 
 generalization, as contrasted with the universal 
 enthusiasm for the personality and works of 
 Franklin, will show how little he was consid 
 ered as distinctively a man of letters. But from 
 another point of view there is a special interest 
 attaching to the lines quoted, since one so sel 
 dom meets, in this period of French criticism, 
 with an admission of the fact that American 
 literature must naturally begin with the imita 
 tion or adaptation of English models. Generally, 
 the tone is almost querulous when this fact of 
 limitation is in question. 15 It would be diffi- 
 
 15 The following, both signed (Mme) L. Sw. B(elloc), although 
 somewhat later than the criticism last cited, are still sufficiently 
 similar in tone to the notices already cited to be considered 
 typical (comp. note 9): 
 
 "Revue encyclope"dique," vol. XLII (1829), pages 146-7: 
 Willis "Token" (Bost., Goodrich, & Lon., Kurnett, 1829) is 
 discussed as follows: " Voilt quatre ou cinq ans qu on public 
 re*gulierement en Angleterre des recueils de prose et de vers 
 e"le"gamment imprimis, et erne s de vignettes des meilleurs 
 artistes. Ces livres, faits & Finstar de nos Tablettes roman- 
 tiques , de nos Almanach des Muses , etc., se composent de 
 morceaux de"tache"s, de fragments, de contes, de poesies; les 
 noms des auteurs, et surtout des peintres et des graveurs qui y 
 ont contribue* en assurent la vogue. Cette mode a passe* en 
 Ame"rique . . . On y de"sirerait plus d originalite* : une empreinte 
 plus marquee du pays et des mceurs nationales. Partout se 
 fait sentir une imitation servile de la litte>ature anglaise. On 
 
22 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 cult, and no doubt in this place fruitless, to 
 attempt a proof that American literature was 
 in no way like the characterization of the 
 French reviewers. Certainly it was better, in 
 every respect more worthy than they conceived 
 it; but whatever is unreservedly condemned is 
 likely to be better than its reputation. 
 
 It was noted above that France appears to 
 have suffered a disillusion in regard to the 
 United States: in proportion as the principles 
 of the American Revolution had seemed noble, 
 the results of that effort had been awaited with 
 
 ne comprend pas que des esprits divers semblent jete*s dans le 
 meme moule. Parmi les contes les plus remarquables nous 
 citerons, Le Fils d un Gentilhomme , La Ruse , les Emi 
 grants . La, du moins, on n est plus en Europe . . ." 
 
 (Id., vol. XLIII, pp. 393-4): Samuel KettelPs collection 
 "Specimens of American Poetry" is thus dealt with: "Toujours 
 me" me de*faut dans ces sortes de recueils, et toujours m6me 
 plainte de notre part . . . une de"sespe*rante monotonie dans la 
 pense"e et dans 1 expression trahit une imitation perse"ve*rante 
 des Anglais. II y a dix ans, c e"tait Pope et son e*cole; aujour- 
 d hui c est Byron et Moore. Comment expliquer cette 
 aridite* . . . ? II y a ... une grande somme de talent, mais 
 nous parlions du ge*nie, qui est rare partout, et qui, en Ame*rique, 
 ne s est encore montre" que dans les vives et poe*tiques inspira 
 tions de 1 auteur du Dernier des Mohicans , du Corsaire 
 rouge , etc. Ici, il y a de la grace, des vers habilement faits, 
 d assez jolies images, mais qu on a vues partout. Peut-e"tre y 
 aurait-il de 1 injustice a ne pas excepter les compositions de 
 Halleck, od I originalit^ se montre de loin en loin. Dans son 
 Chdteau d Alnwick il y a de la verve et de 1 avenir. II est 
 jeune, qu il s affranchisse des traditions litte>aires, qu il se confie 
 a ses propres forces, et il aura donne* a son pays un poete de plus." 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 23 
 
 anxiety and the results, so far as literature 
 was concerned seemed lacking. But may we 
 not suppose that the feelings of Frenchmen 
 were rather more complicated in this regard 
 than they would have had us realize? They 
 felt, and rightly, that, with whatever differences 
 in the mode of dealing with the political 
 questions confronting the two countries, the 
 general principles contended for in both were 
 identical. And the enemy of both was England. 
 Jefferson is somewhere reported to have said 
 that if he could not live in America, he should 
 find France the most congenial to his mode of 
 thought of all nations; Franklin certainly gave 
 no different impresson to the land that so 
 highly honored him. The Englishman Thomas 
 Paine, rejected by his country and adopted by 
 America and by France, as it were in concerted 
 protest against the ideas of the common enemy, 
 is only a striking example of the trend of inter 
 national opinion. Is it not easily comprehen 
 sible that the ordinary French reader of the 
 20 s should have been a little disconcerted and 
 a little piqued at the anglophile tendency of 
 the American literature of that day? It is a 
 noteworthy fact that the critics of this litera 
 ture were as yet to come in France; the strag 
 gling notes so far encountered were for the most 
 part written, excepting Daunou s, by hands that 
 have left no work by which they may be judged 
 
24 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 more trustworthy than the most casual reviewer 
 for periodicals; and such indeed they seem to 
 have been. But as such, incidentally, they 
 doubtless represent with considerable exacti 
 tude the prevalent opinions. 
 
 One misapprehension in criticism appears, 
 however, in all this: that the political affiliations 
 of a nation, even its political theories and ideals, 
 may be expected to react upon and direct the 
 form of its literature. In their criticism of 
 American literature the French reviewers tacitly 
 disavowed what they would fervently have 
 maintained had they been discussing the out 
 put of French Switzerland or of French Belgium : 
 that the great determining factor in literature 
 is language. Nor were they consistent in those 
 special criteria applied to American literature: 
 it is only at a later period that the name of 
 Jefferson became significant in a literary sense, 
 and we have seen how little "Poor Richard s 
 Almanac " and the " Autobiography " of Frank 
 lin were considered in that light. All this was 
 extra-literary, and yet, all that is to be produced 
 in America smacking of the old traditions, the 
 "goftt de terroir" of that legitimate and genu 
 ine source of cultivated literary expression, 
 English literature, will be decried, as were 
 Irving s books, because they bear the " cachet " 
 of that land that was, after all, America s past. 
 It was felt, and expressed, that because the 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 25 
 
 United States were separated from " old Europe " 
 by an ocean, because they had disengaged their 
 destinies from the intricacies of European poli 
 tics, that their spiritual and intellectual tradi 
 tion must lie with a perpetually resounding 
 Declaration of Independence, or else all this 
 was not the clearer for being maintained as 
 self-evident in France or else with those true 
 children of the American soil, Hurons, Algon- 
 quins, Mohicans. . . . America was a new, free 
 land: it must express its newness, its freedom, 
 in letters that should be the very opposite of 
 that which in fact was the trunk of which they 
 could only be the branch English literature. 
 No allowance was made for the immense process 
 of assimilation that must be gone through with 
 in the United States before any work at once 
 finished and national could appear. 
 
 There are two modern literatures that began 
 to receive attention in France at almost the 
 same time, and the destinies of which seem to 
 have been, from similar beginnings, as different 
 as possible. From the tenth century to the 
 eighteenth, Russian literature got almost never 
 outside the bounds of that substratum of lit 
 erature that we call folk-song and proverb, 
 and then, at the end of the period, only to fall 
 into an excess of imitation of Western European 
 letters that finds no parallel even in America. 
 Yet nineteenth-century criticism is at one in 
 
26 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 finding the modern output of Russia the very 
 type of national expression. The reason is, of 
 course, that Russia was able to build out of the 
 traditions of a race, without being taxed with 
 treason to the spirit of nationality: Saltykoff 
 (Shtchedrin), Ostrovsky, and even Turgenief, 
 were able to be modern, and national, and yet 
 throw into their works that ancient color of 
 phrase and reference that is the soul of a litera 
 ture. Images hallowed by generations of use 
 until they had become the type of moods and 
 ideas for the readers who in this modern age 
 are frequently the writers, became for Ameri 
 cans almost a sort of taboo: Irving s affection 
 ate reinvocation of a breath of eighteenth- 
 century English atmosphere, Longfellow s 
 middle ages, were indiscriminately condemned 
 in their time, as will be seen. The nightingale 
 must not sing across the verse of any poet who 
 happens to be American for the nightingale 
 does not sing in America, although it had always 
 sung for him from the pages of the poets who 
 had formed him. 
 
 It is not, as was said, possible to deny that 
 there was a misuse of these forms and images 
 in our literature; it is not to be denied that for 
 the most part, so far as verse was concerned, 
 there was the coin-mark of convention over all. 
 That American poetry was too often cold, is 
 true. But it is the purpose to comment here 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 27 
 
 rather upon the state of French criticism in 
 respect to it. And it does not appear to have 
 been merely the overuse of means and modes of 
 expression; it is rather and above all the legiti 
 macy of such at all in American literature that 
 is brought in question. 
 
 Such was the general tendency as to the point 
 of view regarding the United States. Yet a part 
 of the facts as we now understand them may be 
 found scattered here and there in the judgments 
 of the reviewers. Noting the Southern Review 
 and the " American Quarterly Review " in 1829, 
 this judgment was offered in an unsigned article 
 in the " Revue encyclopedique : " 16 
 
 Ces Revues traitent de tout, hors de TAme- 
 rique et des ouvrages americains . . . d ou vient 
 ce dedain? Serait-ce que les hommes, plus 
 vieux que le sol fecond sur lequel le hasard les a 
 fait naitre, ne sont pas en harmonie avec cette 
 nature riche et grandiose ou nous autres Euro- 
 peens nous allons retremper nos ames amollies? 
 Serait-ce qu en depit le leurs meilleurs institu 
 tions, les Americains tournent parfois un ceil 
 d envie et d amour, vers ce vieux r continent 
 d ou leurs peres s exilerent? . . . Les Etats-Unis 
 n ont point de passe, et contents du present, a 
 peine se permettent-ils des reves d avenir. . . . 
 La critique n y est pas non plus a la hauteur de 
 celle d Angleterre, ni progressive et en marche 
 comme parmi nous: savante et consciencieuse, 
 elle s appesantit trop sur les details, et manque 
 
 16 Vol. XLII, pp. 408-9. 
 
28 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 de cet attrait qui fait lire un livre ou un article 
 jusqu au bout. 
 
 It is unfortunate that such opinions regarding 
 American criticism are not documented, at 
 least by reference to those works from which 
 the reviewer drew his conclusions. But in the 
 case of American historical and critical writing, 
 there will be ample attention given to it in 
 France in later years. We can, however, sup 
 pose that copies of the "New York Evening 
 Post" (est. 1801), of Benjamin Silliman s "Amer 
 ican Journal of Science" (est. 1818), as well 
 as the reviews mentioned, may have been among 
 the materials easily accessible in France. And 
 in the way of books, in 1802 appeared Noah 
 Webster s "Rights of Neutral Nations in Time 
 of War" and Count Rumford s fourth volume 
 of "Philosophical Papers," and must have 
 been known in France; later, probably, Tick- 
 nor s "Outlines of the Life of Lafayette" 
 (1825), and possibly also Edward Everett s 
 "Progress of Literature in America" (1824). 
 But of this last it is to be regretted that there 
 is no mention, not to say analysis and discussion; 
 it would have furnished an excuse to a critic 
 to formulate those ideas in regard to a new lit 
 erature which we can now only attempt to 
 reconstitute from these scattered notes. How 
 ever, we may conclude that at this time a 
 thorough discussion of the subject was not 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 29 
 
 considered worth the making: here at least is 
 an illuminating fact. 
 
 However, there is a very desultory but still 
 approximately complete notice of the poetical 
 production of the United States from 1824 to 
 1830, especially when we consider the light in 
 which this production was regarded in France. 
 It was customary to say that poetry was here 
 only the diversion of dilettanti and frequently 
 of very youthful ones. 17 Nevertheless, it seems 
 to have been thought a duty to mention as 
 many of these efforts as came to hand, and 
 if the poetic merits could not be discussed, 
 to make some criticism at least of the merits 
 of the argument or of the poet in other respects 
 than as to his verse. 18 
 
 17 Summer-Lincoln Fairfield s "Poems" are thus reviewed 
 by Louise Belloc in the "Revue encyclope dique " in 1824, vol. 
 XXI, p. 355: ". . . Tous leurs poetes sont jeunes, et leurs 
 oeuvres tellement imparfaites que ce ne sont guere que des 
 promesses pour Favenir qui se re"alisent rarement . . . En ne 
 conside"rant le volume que nous annongons que comme le de"but 
 d un auteur de dix-neuf ans, on peut a peine encore y trouver 
 quelque me*rite. II renferme des vers heureux mais il y en a 
 beaucoup qui sont fort mauvais, et partout 1 emphase y occupe 
 la place de la raison et de la veritable poe"sie." 
 
 18 For instance, Solomon South wick s "Pleasures of Poverty" 
 (reviewed in the "Revue encyclope dique," 1824, vol. XXII, 
 p. 375) could evoke only a rather spirited denial of the poet s 
 thesis, that poverty is an unmixed blessing. 
 
 Daniel Bryan s "Lay of Gratitude" "recueil de poemes 
 Merits a 1 occasion de la visite du ge"ne"ral Lafayette aux fitatft- 
 Unis" (reviewed in the "Revue encyclope dique," 1826, vol. 
 
30 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 Solomon Southwick and Daniel Bryan and 
 " Monsieur Coffin " are forgotten, perhaps un 
 justly. Who, excepting Franklin, and Cooper, 
 and Irving, remains to-day much more than a 
 name, even in America? Yet certain poets of 
 the period are still mentioned, if not much 
 read, among us, and in a general way it may be 
 said that they did not pass unnoticed in their 
 day in France. The praise of them was rarely 
 
 XXXII, pp. 389-90) could hardly, by its very nature, be passed 
 over: "Tout n est point e"galement bon dans le recueil du poete 
 ame>icain; mais les amis des vers y distingueront plusieurs 
 morceaux pleins de verve et d imagination, tels que le Salut 
 ( The Greeting ) . . . et le Conge* ( The Valedictory ). . ." 
 
 Bryan had, however, attracted sufficient notice by this tribute 
 to France in the person of Lafayette, to make himself heard 
 upon a later occasion and a very different one. In 1826 appeared 
 in Washington his "Appeal for Suffering Genius; a Poetical 
 Address for the Benefit of the Boston Bard." The following 
 year, evidently at the earliest possible opportunity, the "Revue 
 encyclope"dique" (1827, vol. XXXIV, pp. 666-8) has this: 
 Ce petit poeme est un appel plein de chaleur a la pitie* et a la 
 charite" publiques: un poete demande pour un autre poete un 
 lit et du pain. Ce n est pas avec la froide indifference d un 
 critique qu on peut lire ce cri de de"tresse. M. Bryan, dans des 
 vers empreints d une tremblante anxi^te", met a nu la misere 
 de 1 homme qui a ce le bre les gloires de l Ame"rique ..." (and 
 in a footnote to page 667) "La Direction de la Revue encyclo- 
 pe"dique aime a payer un tribut a l homme de ge"nie malheureux, 
 en ouvrant une souscription au profit de M. Coffin, et en sou- 
 scrivant elle-m6me pour une somme de 20 fr. Les personnes 
 qui voudraient prendre part a cette souscription, pourront de"- 
 poser leurs offrandes a notre bureau, rue d Enfer Saint-Michel, 
 No. 18." There is no other criticism of a literary nature in this 
 notice, which is signed by Mme Belloc. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 31 
 
 unqualified; generally, on the other hand, the 
 sum total of the praise seems hardly to balance 
 the strictures, more or less justified, that were 
 passed upon them. And so far as that is con 
 cerned, can we wonder, or can we complain, 
 that this was so? It was not in the day of 
 Lamartine, of Vigny, of Hugo, of Musset, that 
 France needed to search for poetry abroad. We 
 should be wrong, no doubt, even in the case of 
 a lingering preference for one or other of these 
 American poets, to criticise with harshness or 
 resentment the somewhat condescending or dis 
 paraging attitude toward us. Rather, the 
 profit of such a study must come out of a scrupu 
 lously impersonal unravelling of the real thread 
 of literary theory from all the waste of snobbism 
 and of prejudice. 
 
 So far as poetry is concerned, the standard 
 set in France was a very high one, or perhaps 
 rather a very severe one, not only as regards 
 verse-structure, but also the very materials and 
 mood of poetry. Whether the English tradition 
 permits a wider range in this latter element, 
 would be a question perhaps worth study; at 
 any rate it constantly presents itself in the 
 reading of French opinions of English poetry 
 and particularly of American poetry, about 
 which it is not unfair to suppose that the 
 French allowed themselves a somewhat fuller 
 liberty of censure than might be ventured upon 
 
32 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 by them in the case of England, where poet or 
 critic found a solid breastwork in unquestioned 
 literary tradition: 
 
 La "Clio," melanges de poesies, par M. 
 James Percival, annonce du talent; mais on 
 y trouve toujours cette teinte philosophique 
 qui s accorde rarement avec Pinspiration. 19 
 
 The premise might be questioned, or a defini 
 tion required, before such a dictum need be 
 accepted; it must have been supposed, however, 
 that no defender of the opposite side would pre 
 sent himself. 
 
 L analyse M d une nouvelle production que les 
 muses ame*ricaines ont inspire & M. Hillhouse 
 parait fort indulgente: la structure Strange de 
 "Hadad," poeme dramatique, sera juge*e en 
 Europe avec plus de seVerite*. 
 
 And this notwithstanding a more favorable re 
 view that had appeared the year before in the 
 same periodical: 21 
 
 19 "Revue encyclop&iique," 1823, vol. XVIII, pp. 541-2, 
 upon poems of Percival appearing in "The North American 
 Review" for January, 1823. 
 
 20 In the "North American Review" for January, 1826, new 
 Mriflf, No. 25. The passage is from the "Revue encyclop&lique " 
 of 1826, vol. XXIX, p. 740. 
 
 21 "Hadad, a Dramatic Poem," by James A. Hillhouse. The 
 "Revue encyclop&lique" (1825, vol. XXVIII, p. 423) gave a 
 complete outline of the plot. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 33 
 
 II y a dans ce poeme beaucoup d imagination, 
 des situations tres-dramatiques, de 1 interet, et 
 souvent un grand charme de poesie. La pre 
 miere scene . . . est remplie de beautes du pre 
 mier ordre. . . . Quant a Intervention d un agent 
 sur naturel, c estune licence justifiee par plu- 
 sieurs passages des saintes-Ecritures. J ai cru 
 remarquer dans les discours de Hadad quelques 
 reminiscences du second ange de Moore, dans 
 son poeme des " Amours des Anges." II y a 
 aussi ga et la des mots empruntes sans doute 
 aux coutumes et aux mceurs des Hebreux, mais 
 dont le sens est obscur . . . il faut une 
 couleur generale qui se retrouve partout. Une 
 peinture historique a son harmonie comme un 
 tableau. 
 
 There appears to be little enough here that is 
 distinctively criticism of American literature; 
 except and the point indicates the general 
 opinion as it had already been formed except 
 that suspicion of the reviewer of a resemblance 
 between Hadad and the second angel of Moore s 
 " Loves of the Angels" . . . ; also excepting, 
 perhaps, the tone of the feeling as to borrowed 
 words betokening a certain crudity in the com 
 position. Borrowed words marched by bat^tal- 
 ions into French poetry after Victor Hugo, and 
 after Leconte de Lisle some thirty years later; 22 
 yet they have not generally been thought in 
 
 22 V. Nyrop: " Grammaire historique de la langue frangaise" 
 (2 me eU, 1904), vol. I, pp. 105-6. 
 
34 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 themselves jarring or disparate; it is only their 
 overuse or their misuse that constitutes a 
 fault. Here again, as always, the reviewer does 
 not express himself at sufficient length, and all 
 that one can be sure of is that there was a feeling 
 that such questions in American poetry de 
 manded only mention, not analysis. 
 
 But the tendency to discover worth in Ameri- 4 
 can literature only in so far as it was in some 
 way distinctively American may have had some 
 thing to do with the tone of opinion upon an 
 oriental poem like "Hadad," or upon any other 
 exotic inspiration for exoticism in America w r as 
 not distinguished from imitation in the cold and 
 heartless sense that admits of no inspiration. 
 Richard Dana s poems 23 got a review in point: 
 
 Si Ton suppose que la literature americaine 
 est fille de Pinde*pendance, on admettra sans 
 peine que les pays affranchis ne manquerent 
 point de bardes, que la poe*sie prit part & toutes 
 les solennit6s nationales, ce*le"bra les 6ve"ne- 
 ments glorieux pour la patrie, d^plora ses in- 
 fortunes, exprima, dans toutes les circonstances, 
 les affections et les vceux des citoyens. Le 
 
 23 "Poems," Boston, 1827, reviewed in the "Revue ency- 
 clop&lique," 1828, vol. XXXVIII, p. 686, by "Y." This sig 
 nature does not appear under any review of poetry of special 
 interest except this one. Like most of the writers of these 
 short notice*, the full name is a little hard to come at, and 
 probably it is not worth while to search it out; that the opinion 
 is printed in the fewest possible words, and found its circula 
 tion in that form, is the fact, and a sufficient one. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 35 
 
 recueil des poemes historiques d un peuple fait 
 partie de ses annales aussi bien que de sa lit- 
 terature. M. Dana n a pas consacre ses chants 
 a des sujets nationaux, quoiqu il ait orne de ses 
 vers quelques traditions ou contes populaires 
 dans Tune des pieces de ce recueil, intitulee: 
 "Le Boucanier." II choisit des sujets tristes et 
 touchants; il se plait a depeindre les souff ranees 
 de deux amants aux prises avec Fadversite, 
 se*pares un moment par la mort, reunis enfin 
 dans le meme tombeau. II semble que son 
 talent serait mieux place en Europe qu en Ame*- 
 rique, que ses accents y trouveraient plus 
 d echos: et, si cette observation est juste, on ne 
 devra pas la negliger, lorsque Ton comparera 
 Fancien monde au nouveau, quant a la situation 
 morale des habitants. 
 
 What could there be in the American char 
 acter that could make sorrow and melan 
 choly, always two of the strongest motives of 
 poetic expression, strange and dissonant ele 
 ments in life? "II semble que son talent serait 
 mieux place en Europe qu en Amerique . . . ," 
 yet Richard Dana was certainly American. In 
 deed it would seem that the nation that would 
 pass such opinions upon another could hardly be 
 trusted to judge. Yet it is, after all, only an 
 example of the careless classification method 
 that is the first step toward right judgment of 
 imperfectly known facts; and the United States 
 after all, were, relatively so unimportant in 
 
36 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 letters, and so hard to know intimately. But 
 although relatively unimportant in letters, they 
 were almost supremely important in theoreti 
 cal politics. Surely the Americans themselves 
 must appreciate and revere even more than 
 Europe those principles they had upheld and 
 with which they were in continual, invigorat 
 ing contact. This great ideal would permeate 
 and inspire them in their best expression: 
 "If one supposes American literature to be 
 the daughter of independence . . . ," says the 
 French reviewer. . . . 
 
 However, there is the possibility, as was 
 suggested, that the French were wide of the 
 mark in setting up their standards for estimat 
 ing American poetry; seeking where there was 
 little to be found, and neglecting those char 
 acteristics such as Dana s that might have 
 furnished an index to the real manner of 
 thought and feeling in the United States 
 they misunderstood. 
 
 In spite of their misconception, they do not 
 often fall into an excess of praise: Willis s col 
 lection of American poetry upon local tradi 
 tions and legends, published in 1828, although 
 not of the lineage of political poems, is of that 
 other hardly less popular one of nature and 
 Indian lore. 24 Willis s method seems to have 
 
 24 "Revue encyclopSdique," 1829, vol. XLI, pp. 169-70, 
 review signed "Lamst." 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 37 
 
 been rather the promotion of new production 
 than the gathering together of poems already 
 written; his volume is thus described: 
 
 . . . une collection de quarante nouvelles ou 
 legendes, fondees sur des traditions et embellie 
 par la description pittoresque des vallees, des 
 forets immenses, des lacs majestueux de 
 1 Amerique du Nord. . . . 
 
 With such a beginning, it was almost inevi 
 table that the collection should be designated a 
 little later on as "ce charmant volume/ How 
 ever, a certain very constant criticism reappears: 
 
 . . . les pieces de vers sont assez bien tour- 
 n6es, mais elles manquent pour la plupart 
 d originalite. 
 
 And then follows a rather cavalierly introduced : 
 
 Comme chantillon du prix que Ton offre 
 aux auteurs americains, nous ajouterons que 
 M. Willis previent qu il paiera un dollar (six 
 francs) par page de prose; ou vingt-quatre 
 dollars par feuille d impression. 
 
 The " Token," of 1830 25 received an ultra- 
 complimentary mention that will hardly fit in 
 with anything else to be found in this period. 
 Probably there is no one who would give it 
 
 26 The "Token," edited by S. G. Goodrich, 1830, published 
 in Boston by Carter & Hendee, and sold by Hector Bossange 
 in Paris, (prix 10 fr.); notice in "Revue encyclope*dique," vol. 
 XLV (1830), p. 104. 
 
38 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 the name of criticism at all, and yet for com 
 pleteness it may be as well to cite it: 
 
 ... la lecture de plusieurs pieces nous per- 
 met de decider que les productions litte>aires 
 du Massachusetts et du Connecticut ne seraient 
 pas tout a fait indignes de figurer & cot6 des 
 pieces du meme genre que publient les Cole 
 ridge, les Rogers, les Campbell, les Southey, 
 les Walter Scott, les Hemans, et les Landon. . . . 
 
 Ultra-complimentary is hardly the term that 
 one would apply to "not absolutely unworthy 
 to be placed with the poems of the same kind" 
 of the chief English writers of the day an almost 
 doubtful compliment, indeed, were we not fa 
 miliar with w r hat was generally expressed about 
 American poetry. 26 
 
 26 "Amer Khan, and other Poems," by Lucretia Maria 
 Davidson, collected by Samuel F. B. Morf, [sic] are noted in 
 the list of new books in the "Journal des Savants" for June, 
 1830, p. 384. And Mme Belloc wrote a few appreciative lines 
 in the "Revue encyclop&lique" (1830, vol. XLVI, pp. 130-3) 
 upon the same collection. 
 
 "The Life and Letters, together with Poetical and Miscella 
 neous Pieces" of Wm. Person, reviewed in the "Revue encyclo- 
 p&lique," 1822, vol. XIV, p. 109, had likewise received a notice 
 as appreciative, no doubt, as the work deserved: "Ses vers 
 harmonieux et faciles respirent quelquefois une me"lancolie 
 touchante; mais on y retrouve toujours le sentiment de la 
 divinite*, une confiance inalterable dans sa bonte* et sa mise*ri- 
 corde." Remembering the remarks upon Richard Dana s 
 poems in 1828, it is not hard to understand that it did not occur 
 to the reviewer to consider Person in any way as an American 
 poet. The sincere opinion would not frame with any current 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 39 
 
 Little as there was in France about American 
 literature up to the year 1830, upon the side of 
 poetry, there was even less upon prose. Cer 
 tainly, if American literature has earned a 
 name in Europe so far, it has hardly been for 
 its poetic production; on the contrary, in prose, 
 particularly in the short story and in the novel, 
 the reputation of this country has been very 
 high abroad; and of all our prose- writers few 
 have been more popular than Cooper and 
 Irving. 
 
 Of Cooper there are the following notices: 
 
 M. Cooper est le Walter-Scott de FAme rique: 
 ses romans, inspires par ceux du celebre Ecos- 
 sais, se rattachent toujours a Phistoire de son 
 pays. (Follows an outline of the plot of "The 
 Last of the Mohicans.") On trouve trop 
 souvent peut-etre dans ce roman des scenes de 
 combats et de batailles; le denoument est 
 peut-etre aussi trop tragique . . . mais Finteret 
 y est vivement excite, et 1 auteur a su peindre 
 avec un art admirable la nature inculte de ce 
 pays, et les mceurs sauvages de ses habitants. 27 
 
 theory about American characteristics. Lucretia Maria David 
 son and Person are exceptions; generally what was produced 
 here was considered particularly in its national, or supposedly 
 national, significance. 
 
 27 "The Last of the Mohicans," New York, 1825; noted in 
 the "Revue encyclopeMique," 1826, vol. XXX, pp. 703-4. The 
 reviewer indicates the edition probably used by him: "Get 
 ouvrage a e"te" reimprime* a Londres, 1826, J. Miller, 3 vol. in-8; 
 puis traduit et publiS en francais, Paris, 1826, Gosselin, 3 vol. 
 
40 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 Defauconpret s translation of Cooper, in 1827, 
 received a longer notice the following year, and 
 one of the few of the period under treatment 
 that really merits in some respects the name of 
 review, in that there is an attempt made at 
 some sort of analysis and that historical fact 
 and not individual taste is made the basis for 
 the judgment rendered; the article is signed 
 "B. J." (probably Bernard Jullien): 
 
 Lorsque les premiers ouvrages de M. Cooper 
 parurent a Paris, les romans historiques de 
 Walter Scott 6taient de*ja connus en France 
 depuis plusieurs ann6es; et telle tait 1 avidite* 
 du public pour ce genre d crits, telle tait 
 1 admiration que Fauteur cossais avait g6ne*- 
 ralement excite*e, que Ton crut devoir lui faire 
 honneur & la fois de Tinvention et de la per 
 fection du genre oil il excellait. On ne voulait 
 admettre ni concurrence ni comparaison avec 
 lui. ... La v^rite* se faisait jour n6anmoins 
 . . . il arrivait de cette polemique . . . que le 
 gotit du public, fortement prononce* pour tout 
 ce qui rappelait des souvenirs historiques, fit 
 naitre une multitude d autres ouvrages du meme 
 genre. . . . 
 
 ... les qualite*s du c61ebre romancier am6ri- 
 cain lui sont propres, tandis que ses d^fauts 
 appartiennent en grande partie & celui qu il 
 imite. . . . (Outlines of Cooper s novels fol 
 low.) 
 
 Les qualite*s qui distinguent gn6ralement les 
 romans de M. Cooper sont les suivantes: un 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 41 
 
 interet toujours croissant et gal a celui que 
 Walter Scott et Wander Velde ont su repandre 
 dans leurs ouvrages; F observation exacte des 
 localites, et une verite constamment soutenue 
 dans les caracteres; enfin, une peinture des 
 passions tellement vive qu il fait toujours 
 partager au lecteur celles qu il prete a ses 
 personnages. . . . (But Cooper has certain 
 faults:) 
 
 Je mets au premier rang la manje de faire 
 son roman en quatre volumes. On est force, 
 pour arriver a ce nombre^d avoir recours a un 
 usage immodere des dialogues . . . Walter 
 Scott a mis a -la mode ce moyen d allonger un 
 livre. . . . 
 
 Un autre caractere de tous les auteurs qui 
 appartiennent a 1 ecole de Walter Scott, c est 
 Femploi de personnages en quelque sorte sur- 
 naturels et qui exercent sur les autres acteurs 
 une influence merveilleuse, qui trop souvent 
 n est pas expliquee: TEspion, le Pilote, Lincoln 
 le pere, sont des etres de ce genre. Sous le 
 rapport de Tinteret, on aurait tort de s en 
 plaindre; car nous sommes tous tellement amis 
 du merveilleux, que nous ne pouvons nous en 
 detacher, sous quelque forme qu il se presente 
 . . . mais . . . dans un roman destine a peindre 
 la societe au sein de laquelle nous vivons, 
 j aimerais mieux qu on ne presentat pas de ces 
 etres fantastiques. . . . 
 
 . . . un peu de monotonie, car il oppose 
 presque toujours deux sceurs ou deux cousines 
 ou deux amies, dont Tune est la sensibilite meme, 
 et Taut re la gaiete personnifiee. . . . 
 
 M. Cooper est Tun des hommes que son beau 
 
42 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 talent et son noble caractere doivent le plus 
 faire estimer. . . . M 
 
 Of Irving there is less: beside a few incidental 
 mentions in connection with other American 
 writers, the following lines by Depping, in a 
 long review dealing almost exclusively with 
 the historical questions brought out in the 
 "Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus/ 7 
 are all that it is of interest to cite from the 
 literary point of view: 
 
 Le style annonce une plume exerce*e; il a 
 peu de vigueur et de nerf; mais il abonde en 
 tableaux interessants, et partout oil il a fallu de 
 Pe le gance et du naturel, 1 auteur a de ploye 
 beaucoup de talent. Sa narration marche par- 
 faitement, tout y est bien expose*, sans con 
 fusion, sans effort; il y a des passages pleins 
 de charmes. . . . L auteur a seme* sa narration 
 de reflexions judicieuses qui naissent du sujet 
 et arrivent toujours & propos. 29 
 
 After these disappointing notices disap 
 pointing when one reflects that the works were 
 
 28 Cooper: "(Euvres completes" traduites de 1 anglais par 
 A. J. B. Defauconpret, Paris, 1827, Gosselin; 28 vol. in-12; 
 prix 84 fr. The notice quoted appeared in the " Revue ency- 
 clop&Iique," 1827, vol. XXXVI, pp. 346-360. 
 
 29 Irving: "History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher 
 Columbus," Paris, 1828, Baudry, 4 vol. (&) Le meme ouvrage, 
 traduit de 1 anglais par C. A. Defauconpret fils, traducteur de 
 l f "Histoire d ficosse" par sir Walter Scott; Paris, 1828, Ch. 
 Gosselin, 4 vol. The review cited is in the "Revue encyclo- 
 p&lique," 1828, vol. XXXIX, pp. 95-109. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 43 
 
 considered sufficiently interesting to merit trans 
 lation is it worth while to call attention to 
 the banal indications of Miss Sedgwick s " Red 
 wood/ 30 of her " Travelers/ 31 of the anony 
 mous "Redfield, a Tale of the Seventeenth 
 Century, " 32 of the novel " What is Gentility?" 33 
 Two notices, however, furnish a certain in 
 terest, the one by naming the principal American 
 authors as the French judged them, the other 
 because it illustrates the British ascendancy 
 over French criticism of American literature at 
 this time. 
 
 30 H. D. Sedgwick, brother of the authoress, sends the "Revue 
 encyclope"dique" a " Reclamation au sujet de la traduction 
 frangaise de Redwood (Paris, Boulland, 1824, 4 vol.)," id. t 
 1825, vol. XXVI, p. 889. He informs the editors that "Red 
 wood" is not, as the translator stated, by Cooper, but by Miss 
 Sedgwick; taking occasion to explain, apropos of the novel, 
 the difference between the Shakers and the Quakers. . . . 
 
 31 Notice in "Revue encyclope"dique," 1825, vol. XXVII, 
 p. 132. The work is simply referred to as a good child s book of 
 travel. 
 
 32 Reviewed in "Rev. ency.," 1825, vol. XXVIII, pp. 445-6. 
 "... Mais 1 ouvrage offre d ailleurs une sorte de me rite . . . 
 il retrace les lieux, les temps, les moeurs . . . le lieu de la scene 
 est Long-Island ... on y retrouve en action les re"cits de 
 Charlevoix et de Creve-Cceur; on y reconnait les scenes plus 
 re*cemment et si bien esquisse*es par le colonel Timberlake et 
 M. Perrin-Dulac. C est 1& selon moi, le me rite de cet opuscule, 
 et ce me rite n est pas commun." 
 
 33 Reviewed by Lamst in the "Rev. ency," 1829, vol. XLI, 
 pp. 147-8: An outline of the plot, and then: "Ce joli roman est 
 rempli d inte"ret, le dialogue est vif et spirituel, les scenes bien 
 amene"es, les Episodes lie s avec gout au sujet principal. Le but 
 de 1 auteur a e"te" de prouver la ne"cessite" d une bonne Education." 
 
44 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 Depuis un an ou deux, says Madame Belloc, 34 
 apropos of Paulding s anonymously published 
 " Koningsmarke, the Long Finne," TAm^rique 
 a produit plusieurs auteurs distingu6s. M. 
 Washington Irving a e*t6 le premier a s lancer 
 dans la carriere romantique; plusieurs de ses 
 contemporains Py ont suivi. M. Cooper, dans 
 "L/Espion" et "Les Pionniers," s est montr6 
 r&eve d un grand maitre, sir Walter Scott, mais 
 il rappelle trop souvent qu il n est qu imitateur. 
 Cependant, il faut f&iciter PAm6rique de ces 
 conquetes. ... Si elle n est pas riche en tradi 
 tions anciennes, elle offre a ses historiens des 
 sites sublimes, les traits 6nergiques d un peuple 
 fondateur. . . . Ce n est point ce qu a voulu 
 peindre Pauteur du roman que nous annongons 
 ... la plupart . . . du genre comique. II y 
 a dans son ouvrage des v6rite*s d ensemble, 
 mais peu de ces nuances dlicates qui annoncent 
 une observation de la nature. 
 
 Always the same feeling evident on the part 
 of France: America was the land of nature; 
 the American should depict nature, and Ameri 
 can nature. . . . 
 
 Of "The Humours of Eutopia" 35 there is 
 
 (The title is translated as "Qu est-ce que les gens comme il 
 faut?" In a note, the following:) "Ce charmant ouvrage, 
 qu on lira toujours avec plaisir, vient d 6tre traduit en frangais, 
 et parattra incessamment chez M. Se*dillot, libraire, rue d Enfer, 
 no. 18." 
 
 M Reviewed in the "Rev. ency.," 1824, vol. XXI, p. 136. 
 
 36 "The Humours of Eutopia" . . . par un Eutopien. Phila 
 delphia, 1828, Carey, 2 vok, reviewed in "Rev. ency.," 1828, 
 vol. XL, pp. 651-2, by "Y." 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 45 
 
 practically nothing, but apropos of that novel 
 a great deal about the critic: 
 
 "L auteur de ce roman a cesse de vivre; 
 c etait un jeune homme de grande espe"- 
 rance. . . ." 
 
 Get avertissement des editeurs a sans doute 
 procure a 1 ouvrage de nombreux lecteurs en 
 Amerique: en Europe, on fera plus d attention 
 au merite litteraire, a 1 originalite. . . . 
 
 Avant de juger V "Eutopie" eu France, et 
 de la faire passer dans notre langue, on fera bien 
 de consulter nos voisins d outre-mer. Us ont 
 conserve* plus que nous la connaissance des 
 mceurs des tribus indigenes de PAmerique. . . . 
 Si les Anglais font a ce roman un accueil em- 
 presse, nos traducteurs pourront se mettre a 
 1 ceuvre, mais si le public de Londres neglige la 
 nouvelle production americaine, les Parisiens 
 la recevraient plus froidement encore. . . . 
 
 Such frank, one might well say such cynical 
 admissions, are very rare; but the evidence is 
 none the less manifold that they would have 
 been appropriate for much of the criticism before 
 1830 relative to this subject. 
 
 However the originality of criticism upon 
 what was known may impress us, whatever we 
 may think of the interesting fact that American 
 works were translated into French and pub 
 lished in Paris without receiving more than a 
 few cursory lines of notice in the most liberal 
 reviews, it remains certain that but little, in 
 sum total, was known of American literature. 
 
46 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 Little got through to France, and with that 
 little acquaintance was but slowly made: it 
 will be noticed that the French reviews gener 
 ally appeared from one to two or three years 
 after the first publication in America of the 
 works considered not infrequently, however, 
 on the very eve of any London reprint. . . . 
 
 Had it not been for one publicist, Marc- 
 Antoine Jullien, "celui qu on appelait Jullien 
 de Paris/ 7 says Sainte-Beuve, 36 qui, jeune, s 6tait 
 fait tristement connaitre par son fanatisme 
 r6volutionnaire, et qui, vieux, tachait de faire 
 oublier ses anciens exces par son zele honorable 
 de fondateur de la " Revue encyclop^dique 
 . . . " - had it not been for the interest of 
 Jullien, it is probable that not a dozen critical 
 notices of our literature could have been found 
 from the pens of French critics before 1830. 
 That America realized the fact, is evidenced in 
 a sort of semi-official recognition on the part of 
 the Columbian Institute of Washington (founded 
 1816). The "Revue encyclop6dique " 37 says: 
 
 L Institut Colombien vient d adresser un di- 
 plome de membre correspondant a M. Marc- 
 Antoine Jullien, de Paris, auteur de T "Essai 
 sur Temploi du temps, " et fondateur-directeur 
 de la "Revue encyclop6dique," en lui t6moi- 
 
 86 "Nouveaux Lundis" (Calmann-L6vy), t. X, p. 245, 4 
 septembre, 1865, in the article on Ch. Duveyrier s lectures on 
 "La Civilisation et la Democratic francaise." 
 
 17 "Rev. ency.," 1828, vol. XXXVIII, pp. 228-9. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 47 
 
 gnant combien les Americains sont reconnais- 
 sants du soin avec lequel, depuis dix ans qu il 
 est fonde, ce recueil s est attache constamment 
 a mieux faire connaitre a TEurope les travaux 
 et les progres de FAmerique du nord en tout 
 genre, et a presenter en meme temps aux 
 Americains un tableau curieux et instructif des 
 travaux et des progres des differents etats de 
 FEurope et des autres contrees. 
 
 The recognition was indeed well accorded; 
 one searches in the other French periodicals of 
 the time in vain for critical remarks; at most 
 one meets now and then with a bare notice of 
 publication of an American work, either in 
 English or in French translation. 38 
 
 38 The following are for the most part merely announcements 
 of American books or periodicals, or brief extracts in translation. 
 They add nothing of interest to the idea of the French criticism 
 of American literature as it has been found up to this point: 
 
 John Eliot s " Biographical Dictionary" announced in the 
 "Mercure Stranger," vol. II, 1813, p. 189. 
 
 Joel Barlow s "Columbiad" noted in the same year^ vol. I, 
 pp. 384-6. Barlow s contention that modern warfare is very 
 apt to inspire the poet, is given in a translated extract from his 
 preface to that epic, where he enlarges on the impressive nature 
 of modern battles. 
 
 The same periodical (vol. II, 1813, pp. 74 and 75) publishes 
 prose translations signed "S . . . " of Mrs. Hunter s "Death- 
 Song of an Indian Cherokee Warrior" and of the Rev. James 
 Whartoix s " Dying Peruvian Cacique." The taste for senti 
 mental reflections upon the "good savage" has been noticed. 
 James Montgomery s "Wanderer in Switzerland" was announced 
 without criticism in the same periodical, in 1814 (vol. Ill, 
 p. 360). 
 
48 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 The "Mercure de France" published, in 1817 (vol. II, p. 
 605), the translation of an article by A. Jay on M. de la Pom- 
 meraie, with this note: "M. Benjamin Russell, e"diteur du 
 journal ame>icain The Columbian Centinel , publia Tarticle 
 suivant, le 26 aout, 1805." The article was entitled "The 
 Quaker." The notice is, of course, of interest merely because it 
 shows that "The Columbian Centinel" was in the hands of the 
 editors of the "Mercure de France." The following is given 
 for a similar reason; it is taken from the "Mercure Stranger" 
 (vol. Ill, 1814, p. 434): The (New York) "Analectic Maga 
 zine" . . . "qui contient la critique des journaux d Angleterre" 
 is announced, and this brief estimate of Irving appended: 
 "L auteur . . . est M. Izving [sic] de New- York, jeune homme 
 plein de talents, ainsi que 1 ont reconnu les Anglais mcmes dans 
 I ouvrage pe"riodique qui a paru pendant quelque temps a New- 
 York, intitule": Salmagundi. " 
 
Ill 
 
 1830-1835 
 
 THE period of notices padded with a cer 
 tain subjective criticism that, indeed, hardly 
 deserves the name, draws to a close with the 
 year 1830 approximately. At least, so much 
 may be said, as compared with the later period, 
 that following 1835. 
 
 In making this contrast, however, two consid 
 erations present themselves, and should doubt 
 less be stressed somewhat, as serving to give a 
 more exact idea of the nature of this change. 
 Exploration is, after all, but the preliminary to 
 the map: each fact, as it is discerned, is taken 
 for its own sake. It is of primary importance, 
 but until its place with relation to its sur 
 roundings is known, it is misunderstood: if a 
 generalization is attempted upon the basis of 
 this fact, or of scattered facts not yet corre 
 lated, the generalization will be worthless, or if 
 fairly enduring, then only so by chance. Cer 
 tainly the French were explorers in our litera 
 ture during the period just studied; and on the 
 whole, with this important fact well realized, 
 should we not, after all, accord to the brevity 
 of their notices a certain appropriateness, and 
 admit that, for whatever reason, they felt that 
 
 49 
 
50 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 the time for criticism properly speaking was not 
 yet come, and consequently refrained from its 
 practice? The second fact is, possibly, less 
 creditable from the critical point of view, but 
 represents a clinging to an ideal the one 
 noticed at the beginning of this study. The 
 year 1835, although it seems to be the starting 
 point of the body of properly critical study of 
 American literature, is however far from putting 
 a term to the sort of opinions which have been 
 seen thus far. In fact, the ideal, the foregone 
 conclusion consequently, of what America should 
 be, will tinge the conception of all French 
 writers far into the century, if not, indeed 
 throughout and up to the present time. The 
 ideal will be manifest in two ways; for in exact 
 proportion as men had the traditional faith in 
 the land, the contrast between that faith and 
 the fact that men seemed really unchanged by 
 its influence will be clear-cut and disappointing. 
 Enter here the " Yankee," as the term is under 
 stood abroad, and the American wanderer in 
 Europe taken as the type either of snobbism or 
 of discontent with a purely material ideal and 
 all the rest of the reverse of the medal. 
 
 So far there seems to have been but an im 
 perfect distinction between the ideal of the 
 potency of the unspoiled wilderness, and the 
 influence of the democratic ideal upon men. In 
 a sense, to be sure, the two conceptions are 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 51 
 
 identical in their conclusions: the type of man 
 representing either will be an individual un 
 hampered by tradition, with its prejudice and 
 its tyranny. But the man communing with 
 nature will develop in his freedom ideal impres 
 sions and instincts; he who represents the per 
 fect civil arrangement will be the creature of a 
 community of thought. The former will be 
 the poet, the latter the philosopher. The op 
 posite of the man of nature is the degenerate; 
 the opposite of the democrat is the tyrant. It is 
 a little hard to say which of these negative con 
 ceptions more nearly approximates the unfav 
 orable estimate that we shall have sometimes 
 to encounter; but it is only reasonable to sup 
 pose, in view of the respect entertained abroad 
 for certain American scientists and historians, 
 and the comparatively doubtful acceptance of 
 our poets, that France felt that Americans had 
 proved themselves rather as citizens, as emi 
 nently reasoning and reasonable; that on the 
 other hand they had failed in their opportunity 
 to become the poets of mankind. 
 
 Such generalizations are bound to be a little 
 thin-drawn, yet they are not necessarily alto 
 gether intangible. Adelaide Montgolfier, bas 
 ing a review of the question upon the works of 
 James M Henry, Emma Willard, and the anthol 
 ogy of George Cheever entitled the " American 
 Commonplace Book of Poetry," and writing in 
 
52 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 1831, indicates certain parts of what has just 
 been said: 1 
 
 C est vainement que les critiques de New- 
 York prtendent que le ge*nie de la poesie, en 
 de*sertant 1 Angleterre, va se rfugier sur leurs 
 rivages; que la vie positive est Te le ment dans 
 lequel les Muses vivent et se meuvent. . . . 
 ( North American Review " October, 1831, pp. 
 298-9) Bref, c est en vain que la " Revue am6ri- 
 caine" assure que la doctrine rtrecie d int6ret 
 et de bien-etre individuel qui font la prosp^rite* 
 actuelle de I Am^rique favorisent 1 essor de la 
 poesie ef des arts. Loin de 1&, les luttes de 
 r^go isme mercantile leur sont antipath^tiques. 
 
 Les pr6c6dents font les sciences et tuent la 
 poesie: car, plus Thomme est pres de la nature, 
 plus il est poete; les Americains ont derriere 
 eux pour faner la fraicheur de leurs images, pour 
 user et puiser leur langue, tout la literature 
 anglaise. Aussi c est chez les Natchez, les 
 Wampanoags, les Iroquois, les Mohicans, les 
 mille tribus des bois, des prairies, des lacs et 
 des rives des fleuves qu il faut chercher les 
 po&tes du Nouveau-Monde. . . . Cooper Ta 
 senti, et c est au matelot qui s identifie avec son 
 vaisseau et dort a la musique des vagues; c est 
 & PIndien dont Tesprit erre dans les bois avec 
 les brises, dont les regards plongent dans les 
 savannes, qu il a demande* des inspirations et 
 
 1 Jas. M Henry: "The Pleasures of Friendship"; Emma 
 Willard: "The Fulfillment of a Promise"; Geo. B. Cheever: 
 "The American Commonplace Book of Poetry," Boston, 1831. 
 The review, signed "Ade. M.," appeared in the "Revue ency- 
 clop6dique," 1831, vol. LII, pp. 432-9. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 53 
 
 une literature que 1 Amerique policee n avait 
 pas; mais ces tribus sauvages meurent, car elles 
 n etaient que poesie, et la civilisation epaisse 
 et positive d un peuple de commergants les 
 touffe. Cooper a rafraichi un moment limita 
 tion de Walter Scott dans ces sources de vie, de 
 telle sorte que nos premiers journaux litteraires 
 n ont pas craint de le mettre au niveau et meme 
 au-dessus du romancier historien. . . . Nean- 
 moins le son natif que la lyre americaine, j usque 
 la faible echo du concert de la mere patrie, a 
 rendu sous les doigts de Cooper, est isole, et la 
 longue liste des poetes et des poesies que nous 
 presente M. Cheever, bien qu on le loue de 
 n avoir rien oublie de saillant, n enrichira pas 
 beaucoup la litterature. Ce n est pas un nou- 
 veau ton ajoute a rharmonie du monde, c est 
 un lointain retentissement. 
 
 What the "new note" that was expected 
 might have been, how the author of the notice 
 would have described its characteristics, we can 
 surmise; yet the America of the twentieth 
 century is witness that "the native note of the 
 American lyre" so far as this can be said to 
 be in any way the expression of vast wildernesses 
 and unspoiled men must indeed be but "iso 
 lated/ 7 very temporary indeed, and in fact, the 
 voice of nature only, and not the voice of 
 America. The wildernesses disappear, and men 
 gradually become subject to the European 
 conditions of life. If anything is typical of 
 American literature as of course something 
 
54 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 must be it must be traced rather to those 
 permanent political peculiarities that distinguish 
 the nation from others. Nowadays, we are 
 beginning to feel that another factor, not em 
 phasized if realized at that time in France, 
 the mingling of races here, is possibly supremely 
 important. But, in passing, there arises the 
 question as to how real, in fact, the humanity 
 of Cooper s novels was, even in the day of 
 immense forests and virgin prairie. " Cooper s 
 noble Indians, in fact/ says Professor Barrett 
 Wendell, 2 "are rather more like the dreams of 
 eighteenth-century France concerning aboriginal 
 human nature than anything critically observed 
 by ethnology; and Natty Bumppo himself is a 
 creature rather of romantic fancy than of 
 creative sympathy with human nature." 
 
 A few particular notices follow in the review 
 last cited, and they are worth reproducing since 
 they concern certain names not yet forgotten, 
 and moreover definitely state a few of the facts 
 of the English influence upon American writing, 
 as then understood: 
 
 Dans ce nombreux essaim de poStes (in 
 Cheever s collection), je distinguerai cependant 
 Bryant et Dana: tous deux suivent le mouve- 
 ment littraire que Byron, Scott, Wordsworth 
 
 2 "A Literary History of America," 7th edit., N.Y. 4 Scrib- 
 ner, 1914, p. 186; ibid., p. 183, for a remark upon the stylistic 
 superiority of Cooper in translation. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 55 
 
 et Crabbe ont imprime a PAngleterre, et qui 
 s eteint dans les voix affaiblies de Coleridge et 
 de Southey. Mais ils ont mele aux impressions 
 des poetes anglais quelque chose de leur propre 
 fonds: il y a de Temotion religieuse dans les 
 chants eleves de Dana. Wordsworth qu il imite 
 sou vent, est certes plus harmonieux; il a la 
 marche bien autrement souple, ondoyante et 
 capricieuse; mais on aurait peine a trouver 
 dans les morceaux les mieux inspires du poete 
 du lac un enthousiasme plus profondement senti 
 qui celui qui s exhale dans quelques pieces de 
 Dana, entre autres dans ces vers sur Fimmor- 
 talite: 
 
 Ce saint mot est ecrit sur le rayon limpide 
 Que la lune argentee epanche dans le vide; 
 II flotte sous 1 eclat du couchant . . . 
 
 Bryant imite assez souvent les coupes des 
 stances de Byron, dans "Don Juan" et "Childe 
 Harold." Cependant il s essaie vainement & 
 narrer en vers. . . . Et si le nom du poete du 19 e 
 siecle vient un moment a 1 esprit en lisant les 
 poesies descriptives de Bryant, c est a des inspira 
 tions pleines de fraicheur et d un sentiment de 
 jouissance au sein d une nature neuve et feconde 
 qu il le doit. . . . 
 
 ... "La Musique sentimentale " de Halleck, 
 est une gracieuse chose; quant a Wilcox . . . 
 il nous deplait justement a cause de la monotone 
 langueur de ses descriptions. . . . Les vers de 
 M. Peabody . . . sont extremement tou- 
 chants. ... . 
 
 Une hymne de Long-Fellow attire une atten 
 tion particuliere, non par des vers qui rappelent, 
 
56 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 sans l galer, la belle ode sur le g6n6ral Moore, 
 cite par Byron, mais a cause du sujet. 3 Elle 
 fut faite en Phonneur du comte Pulawski, noble 
 Polonais, mort a Tattaque de Savannah, dans 
 la guerre de PInd6pendance. . . . 
 
 (Speaking of Emma Willard :) II y a une verve 
 bien touchante, une po&ie bien haute dans 
 cette ame qui se consume comme de Tencens en 
 presence de la Divinit6, parfumant, clairant 
 tout autour. En commengant cet article je ne 
 voulais voir de source d inspirations que dans 
 les relations de rhomme avec la nature. II y 
 en a une plus abondante, plus belle encore: 
 c est dans les relations d amour et de d^vodment 
 des hommes entre eux. C est la que nous autres 
 peuples civilises nous pouvons vivifier notre 
 literature, miroir toujours si fidele de la soci6t6. 
 
 The advance over the sort of review written 
 heretofore is evident : it begins to be thought 
 worth while to go into some detail. A quarter- 
 century of desultory reading of American books 
 had given the background that made the detail 
 of interest. And certainly the author attempted 
 comparisons and criticisms that were meant to 
 illustrate the American writers. What is perhaps 
 of the greatest importance to emphasize here, is 
 not the subjective character of the first part 
 the characteristic is constant in the body of 
 criticism to be studied but rather the fact that 
 the article is, after all, short and summary, and 
 
 8 "The Hymn of the Moravian Nuns of Bethlehem," by 
 Longfellow. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 57 
 
 that it is of the nature of a notice, not an article 
 purporting to deal at all exhaustively with the 
 subject. Had it been so, the author would have 
 explained to our greater satisfaction the grounds 
 for coupling Byron and Scott with Wordsworth 
 and Crabbe as leaders in a single movement, and 
 making Bryant a disciple of them all. Nowa 
 days, such juggling with names would perhaps 
 seem akin to legerdemain in France. In any 
 case, granted that Bryant resembled these four 
 poets, he was a more protean genius than we 
 now imagine, and the innately imitative char 
 acter of Americans will be readily allowed. 
 
 It is fortunate that the same reviewer has 
 left another rather extended notice, this time 
 of a prose writer, thus giving an insight into 
 the varying preconceptions of American authors 
 in the two forms. 4 Incidentally, these pages 
 contain a note of dissent in regard to Irving and 
 Cooper. We are at first reminded that for the 
 French these two names have represented the 
 best in American literature, but at the same 
 time Irving is described as having gotten the 
 utmost possible from a " petit talent et d un 
 petit esprit, " and Cooper receives the doubtful 
 
 4 Charles Brockden Brown s Works. The review, signed 
 A. M. (Adelaide Montgolfier), appeared in the "Revue encyclo- 
 pSdique," 1831, vol. XLIX, pp. 625-7. She says: "il y a pres 
 de trente ans qu un roman de Brown, traduit en frangais, je 
 crois par M. Pigault de Mont-Baillard, sous le titre de La 
 Famille Wieland , re*ve"la un talent original et profond." 
 
58 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 compliment: ". . . peu ont t6 plus que lui 
 tour-a-tour sublimes et bizarres." They are 
 the representatives of classicism and of roman 
 ticism in the New World. Those who preceded 
 these two writers are considered " unimpor 
 tant. " 5 Not that the reviewer is of the opinion 
 that they were. The name of Charles Brockden 
 Brown is brought forward in a manner calcu 
 lated to leave one in some doubt as to whether 
 he was not judged more worthy of fame than 
 the other two. For us, in spite of the fact 
 that Brown s works have been several times 
 reprinted during the last century, 6 he is hardly 
 more than a name the first professional 
 author, some have said, in the United States. 
 There has been protest all along, on the part 
 of those who have studied his w r orks, against 
 indifference toward him: he is credited with 
 genuine penetration as an analyst of certain of 
 those workings of the mind that impel we 
 may say the powerless victim of an initial 
 conviction to the logical acted conclusion that 
 may be contrary to all the instincts of the doer; 
 and many have felt, in the description of those 
 sombre undercurrents of thought, a master s 
 talent in the conduct of the elements of mystery 
 
 6 "Sont non avenus" is perhaps even a stronger expression 
 than the one used to translate it. 
 
 6 Boston in 1827, Philadelphia in 1857, and, in a limited edi 
 tion, at Philadelphia in 1887. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 59 
 
 and of terror. Our reviewer voices this admira 
 tion: " Wieland/ she says, revealed an original 
 and profound talent. It was not a reproduction 
 of exterior things, but the conscientious study 
 of the heart of man, of its mysterious raging 
 (frenesies), its resistless flights. . . ." How 
 original Brown was is a delicate problem, as 
 always, when it is question of a model improved 
 upon: for it is not called doubtful that a great 
 element in Brown s work was suggested by the 
 works of the English novelist Godwin. The 
 fact is even admitted in the review, but not 
 insisted upon, in view of the worth of the later 
 writer, that set him near enough his original 
 model to make it evident that he, too, had 
 power and talent. It is in that sense a sort of 
 parallel to the case of Walter Scott and Cooper,, 
 except that in the present case the pupil is; 
 generally acknowledged to have equalled, if 
 not surpassed, the master. 
 
 In any event, and whatever degree of truth 
 we may happen to find in the verdicts rendered,, 
 one fact is evident enough in all this : both prose 
 writers and poets in America were found to imi 
 tate English models; but whereas no real merit 
 was to be found consistently evidenced in the 
 American poets, elsewhere it was found to a 
 greater degree: "an original and profound tal 
 ent, " says the reviewer of Brown; but in the 
 same writer s judgment, the American poets 
 
60 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 had added "no new note in the world-harmony/ 
 only "a distant echo." The French idea of 
 Irving as a litterateur hardly frames with this 
 general rule, it is true, but for all that the gen 
 eral rule does seem to exist. How much of this 
 sort of criticism is due to the commonly ac 
 knowledged superiority of the prose-writers 
 over the poets, how much to the preconception 
 regarding America that grew up in France with 
 the nineteenth century? It would be very 
 interesting to know. But since absolute demon 
 stration is impossible in such matters, the sug 
 gestion only is thrown out: that there was such 
 a preconception does seem to be the case 
 may in fact be an important element in the 
 history of the idea studied here. 7 
 
 7 (Rev.) Ed. O. Griffin: "Remains," edited by Francis 
 Griffin and by John M. Vickar, D.D., "professeur de philoso 
 phic et de morale au college de Columbia, New- York," 1831; 
 reviewed likewise by Adelaide Montgolfier in the "Revue en- 
 cyclop&Iique," 1832, vol. LIV, pp. 99-100. She says: "Ses 
 observations dans sa tour-ne e en Italic n ont presque, comme 
 c est Pusage des voyageurs en ce pays, rapport qu aux arts, 
 jug6s avec le gout en peinture d un litterateur et d un Americain, 
 c est-a-dire d un homme de"pourvu de 1 instinct, et de cette 
 culture des sens ne*cessaires pour jouir re"ellement des arts, et 
 quiconque n en jouit pas ne les peut juger. . . . Les vers de 
 M. Griffin sont ceux d un jeune homme qui a fait d excellentes 
 Etudes, et qui puise ses inspirations poe"tiques dans les Emotions 
 qu il a dues a la lecture des grands auteurs classiques grecs et 
 romains." One feels, in reading these remarks, that those 
 expressions and judgments that depend upon the mind, were 
 felt to be more sure than such as are prompted by the emotions. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 61 
 
 The American theatre had heretofore received 
 but little attention, and was to receive little for 
 some time to come. In 1832 William Dunlap s 
 " History of the American Theatre" was pub 
 lished by Bentley, in London, in two volumes; 
 possibly the place of publication of the edition 
 that reached the editors of the " Journal des Sa 
 vants" was the fact that persuaded them to an 
 nounce the work the following year. 8 We may 
 at least infer from the brevity of the notice that 
 the subject was not considered one of living in 
 terest: "The introduction of plays in the United 
 States of America, in the last century, suffered 
 obstacles that were recurrent with the year 
 1811, when a theatre-fire broke out during a 
 performance." That is all that the "Journal 
 des Savants" found worth while mentioning. 
 Certainly the particular domain of that publi 
 cation was not precisely the modern theatre of 
 any country, much less of America; therefore 
 the brevity of the notice has nothing in it to 
 surprise one. What, however, makes it inter 
 esting is the evidently general lack of information 
 on the subject among the well-read public of 
 France that could give such a remark, calcu 
 lated only to arouse a certain superficial curi 
 osity, the currency of a notice in the "Journal 
 des Savants." For the "Journal des Savants," 
 America was as yet no literary nation; for the 
 
 8 June number, 1833, p. 382. 
 
62 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 " Revue encyclop&iique," whether it was or not, 
 American writings and intellectual activity of 
 all kinds were of the most lively interest. 
 
 Three years before the above notice of Dun- 
 lap s history, and two before the actual publi 
 cation of that work had suggested to Europe 
 that there was an American drama, the " Revue 
 encyclopeMique " had published a fairly lengthy 
 consideration of the subject, by Madame Belloc. 9 
 The notice is unreservedly unfavorable: 
 
 Aux Etats-Unis oft rien ne gene le d6veloppe- 
 ment libre de la pens6e, oil les theories les plus 
 audacieuses, les reveries les plus chim^riques, 
 peuvent chercher et trouver auditeurs, Tart 
 dramatique est au moins aussi nul qu en Angle- 
 terre: de pales reproductions de nos vaudevilles 
 de la rue de Chartres, des drames de PAmbigu- 
 Comique et de la Gait, traduits litt^ralement, 
 charment les loisirs des habitants du Nouveau- 
 Monde. Un auteur ambitieux hasarde de loin 
 en loin une imitation froidement classique du 
 "Caton" d Addison, la plus glaciale des ceuvres 
 classiques. Mais de ces compositions chaleu- 
 reuses qui mettent en jeu une foule demotions, 
 de ces puissants appels & la sympathie, de ces 
 
 9 1830, vol. XLVIII, pp. 693-5. Heading: "Richard Perm 
 Smith: The Eighth of January , drame en 3 actes, Phila- 
 delphie (Mackensie), 1829." The review is signed L. Sw. B. 
 Reviews over this signature are frequently referred to by the 
 editors in other notices as by Madame Belloc. Sometimes the 
 first two initials are given with the entire last name. Adelaide 
 Montgolfier and others are similarly identified. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 63 
 
 cris delirants et passiones qui vous enlevent de 
 force a vous-meme, il n en est point. . . . 
 
 Which suggests to the writer to remind the 
 Americans once more, that until the shackles of 
 Europe, and above all of Great Britain, are 
 cast off in matters literary, there will be no 
 hope of an American literature. But once 
 more, there is no enlightening suggestion 
 thrown out 
 
 to guide 
 
 Her little children stumbling in the dark. 
 
 It is admitted that Americans had " fallen 
 into barbarism 77 when they wished to be quite 
 original; evidently, a literature of barbarism 
 was not to be considered precisely the normal 
 intellectual and emotional expression of the 
 United States. What, then, was expected? 
 Madame Belloc, who has insisted more than 
 most French critics upon this desideratum of 
 originality in American letters, does not explain 
 herself clearly upon this point. 
 
 But the question of the American theatre is a 
 special question, certainly, for it would appear 
 that there are reasons which hindered the 
 development of that particular form as a national 
 expression. Indeed, its relative obscurity in the 
 earlier period of our history would seem to be, 
 if negatively, a national expression. The United 
 States of 1830 and the same is of course true 
 
64 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 of a far more recent period as well were too 
 permeated with the puritan idea to give much 
 play to dramatic art. The restriction was per 
 haps largely incidental to the religious tradition, 
 but it is none the less true that the theatre was 
 not here, as in France, the natural field that a 
 serious mind would choose for the expression of 
 the best that was in him. We must admit that 
 the drama as a whole occupied a place in public 
 consideration somewhat analagous to that of 
 comic opera to-day; by no means unrespect- 
 able, but essentially for amusement. Later, we 
 shall find this fact realized in France. In 1830 
 it was not emphasized at its just value, if 
 expressed. 
 
 An article on Irving not a review merely 
 this time, although "The Alhambra" is the 
 occasion of it in the "Revue des deux 
 Mondes" in 1832 10 restates very much the 
 same ideas upon American literature as a whole 
 that we have seen but with perhaps greater 
 frankness in respect to what the French sought 
 there. The writer repeats the opinion that 
 American literature is known only through 
 Cooper and Irving. Certain other names are 
 known, it is true; among them those of Miss 
 Sedgwick and of Paulding; but Miss Sedg- 
 wick is of no importance, Paulding of but little; 
 
 10 A. Fontaney: "La Literature ame*ricaine: Washington 
 Irving The Alhambra/" vol. VI, pp. 515 sqq. 
 
X 
 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 65 
 
 and as for the others less known, whatever 
 currency their names may have, it is entirely at 
 second hand, for they are known only to the 
 " industrious readers of the Revues etrangeres." 
 And as for Cooper and Irving, they owe their 
 reputation much less to the originality of the 
 form in their works than to the "nouveaute" 
 of the customs they at first depicted: 
 
 Leurs livres nous plaisaient, surtout parce 
 que nous y trouvions ce que nous cherchions si 
 laborieusement, et ce que nous rencontrons si 
 peu sur notre sol use: a-savoir, quelque coin 
 inexplore de Tart: quelque chose de neuf et 
 d inedit. 
 
 No doubt this is all true, so far as it goes, but 
 perhaps it is well to note here that there is a 
 discrepancy in the statement. Supposing true 
 what is said in the statement transcribed, how 
 are we to explain that other opinion, that 
 Paulding, for example, does not count? For 
 Paulding, too, sought his characters and his 
 scenes in the American territory; moreover, 
 there is a certain human truth about the char 
 acters in "The Dutchman s Fireside/ to choose 
 the most popular of his novels, that one may 
 almost state to be lacking in the idealized beings 
 of Cooper s novels, and that was certainly a 
 secondary consideration with Irving, so far as 
 his American sketches are concerned: there are 
 real people in "Bracebridge Hall"; "Knicker- 
 
66 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 bocker s History " is a portfolio of caricatures. 
 One could not carry this thesis very far, it is 
 true, in connection with Irving, but it is at 
 least true that there is a contrast between his 
 intention and Paulding s that should entitle 
 the latter to consideration as a sincere writer 
 upon, or about, his native country. Why, then, 
 is it stated that Paulding " hardly counts"? 
 Evidently, not for the reason adduced: that 
 Europeans, searching for "nouveaut6," could 
 not have recognized it in Paulding, as well as in 
 many others. . . . Paulding certainly lacks the 
 sure and delicate touch that distinguishes Irv 
 ing that is always the criterion of a literary 
 work. To suppose that a French public would 
 not instinctively feel that difference between 
 Irving and Paulding, would probably be sup 
 posing too much. However much Frenchmen 
 may have desired to see American works freed, 
 to a degree, of European literary traditions, we 
 have no evidence, as was remarked before, that 
 they sought here, any more than anywhere else, 
 for clumsily constructed work as being some 
 thing to be desired. This would seem to explain 
 the apparent discrepancy in the article here 
 being studied. 
 
 But in 1832 Cooper s "Bravo" had been out 
 a year; his " Heidenmauer " (which is not men 
 tioned, however, in M. Fontaney s article) was 
 being published. Irving s " Conquest of Gran- 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 67 
 
 ada" appeared in 1829, and in 1832 "The 
 Alhambra." 
 
 Voici cependant [says our writer] qu aujour- 
 d hui, comme s ils avaient completement exploite 
 les mines fecondes de leur jeune continent, ils 
 viennent nous disputer les filons epuises de 
 celles de not re vieille Europe. 
 
 And therefore loss of interest. Loss in 
 interest for Europeans, to whom Europe was 
 familiar, to whom America was a matter to 
 awaken curiosity, that was an inevitable result. 
 But for the Americans, for whom, after all, 
 Cooper and Irving were writing, and from whom 
 they must expect the deciding voice in regard 
 to their work, for Americans, probably, the 
 interest in their books would not be lessened by 
 reason of the change of scene. Fontaney finds 
 Cooper s "Bravo" less original than his Ameri 
 can novels; the fact is, that it never has had 
 any popularity. But of Irving the same is 
 hardly true; as for the type of composition of 
 the "Alhambra," as for that of the "Conquest 
 of Granada," neither of which can expect the 
 popularity of a comic history or of a work of 
 pure fiction, those books have surely been among 
 the greatest successes in American publication; 
 indeed, they almost constitute an exception to 
 the general rule. The reason has been, that to 
 Americans they have been of the greatest inter 
 est; and they have stood the test of time very 
 
68 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 well, which goes a long way to prove their real 
 literary worth, the question of originality 
 included. 
 
 . . . Jamais Washington Irving n a fait un 
 aussi heureux emploi de son talent et de son 
 habilet6 que dans ses esquisses de mceurs amri- 
 caines. Son histoire satirique de New- York est 
 encore, sans contredit, le plus spirituel, et le plus 
 piquant de ses ouvrages. . . . " La Conquete de 
 Grenade " et surtout la "Vie et . . . Voyages 
 de Christophe Colomb," sont des ouvrages fort 
 estimables, et qui ne seraient point passes 
 inapergus, fussent-ils sortis de la plume d un 
 auteur moins connu. Les deux derniers 6taient 
 meme tout-a-fait de son ressort, et se ratta- 
 chaient particulierement a Thistoire de son Ame*- 
 rique: aussi nous semblent-ils fort superieurs & 
 "La Conquete de Grenade. " 
 
 So we have, once more, an expression that is 
 only that of a personal opinion, untempered by 
 sincere effort to understand the facts as they 
 were; in short, hardly criticism, as we now 
 understand the word. 
 
 In the same year with the article just cited, 
 appeared another in the "Revue de Paris, " 
 based upon the "Alhambra" and Cooper s 
 "Heidenmauer." 11 Here the reviewer is naif 
 in his resentment at the choice of scene: 
 
 11 "Revue de Paris," vol. XL (1832), p. 263. The article - 
 or rather notice is with reference to French translations of 
 these works: "Contcs de 1 Alhambra," Paris, Fournier, 2 vols., 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 69 
 
 Les deux auteurs les plus en vogue des Etats- 
 Unis semblent d accord pour oublier leur pays 
 dans leurs compositions recentes, et il y a de 
 leur part une veritable ingratitude d ecrivains, 
 en meme temps qu un faux calcul, lorsqu ils 
 empruntent leurs sujets a la vieille Europe. 
 
 Three years later there will be less resent 
 ment on account of the "Monikins." 12 
 
 Le nouvel ouvrage de Fenimore Cooper, "Les 
 Monikins," traduit par M. Benjamin Laroche, 
 vient de paraitre a la librairie Charpentier. 
 L auteur des " Mohicans/ de F "Espion," a 
 ouvert, dans cette production, une voie toute 
 nouvelle a son talent. "Les Monikins" sont a 
 la fois un roman amusant et une satire philoso- 
 phique de la societe actuelle. Cooper, dans ce 
 livre, jette le ridicule non-seulement sur 
 FAngleterre, mais encore sur son propre 
 pays. . . . 
 
 Not all critics have found the satiric vein of 
 Cooper as "philosophic 77 as did this writer. 
 
 The "Journal des Savants " notes, in 1832, a 
 recently published work of a general nature 
 upon America, that the reviewer characterizes, 
 with the brevity usual in that periodical in 
 speaking of what regarded the United States, 
 simply as containing "many notions that had 
 not been found as yet (que nous n avions pas 
 
 and " L Heidenmauer, ou le Camp des Paiens," Paris, Ch. 
 Gosselin, 4 vols. An English text of the "Heidenmauer/ 
 published by Baudry, is also noted. 
 
 12 "Revue de Paris," vol. XXI (1835), p. 136. 
 
70 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 encore rencontre*es) in books published or cur 
 rent in France." 13 
 
 As might be supposed from the circumstances 
 of his life, the interests of Achille Murat were 
 above all political; incidentally, he was a man 
 of business. 14 The questions discussed by him 
 are principally such as relate to the working of 
 the American government. The last of the ten 
 letters, however, that compose the book, pur 
 ports to deal with manners, fine arts, and litera 
 ture. Really, it is nothing but an account of 
 American aristocratic society, as he had found 
 it in the decade of his residence in the United 
 States: the status of women particularly of 
 society women, American hospitality, the char 
 acteristics of North and South, the bustle 
 and extravagance of New York, the society of 
 Philadelphia "much more enlightened than 
 that of New York," he says, that of Rich- 
 
 13 "Journal des Savants," March, 1832, pp. 186-7: Achille 
 Murat, citoyen des fitats-Unis, colonel honoraire dans I arm4e 
 beige, ci-devant prince royal des Deux-Siciles "Esquisse 
 morale et politique des fitats-Unis de I Amerique du nord"; 
 Paris, imprimerie Vve Thuau, librairie Crochard, 1832. . . . 
 
 There was an English translation, entitled "The United 
 States of North America." The 2d edition of it appeared in 
 1833 in London (publisher: Effingham Wilson). This transla 
 tion was used in writing of Murat. 
 
 14 There is a discussion of this personage in the "Revue 
 historique," vol. XCIV, pp. 71-90, written by Georges Weill 
 and entitled, "Les Lettres d Achille Murat." There are to be 
 found a number of biographical details. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 71 
 
 mond, and above all, of Charleston, where he 
 found Americans at their best; New Orleans, 
 Saratoga, and the centre of all, Washington. . . . 
 All this, treated in thirty pages, will leave the 
 writer but little opportunity for a serious dis 
 cussion of the fine arts and literature, one would 
 presume. He attempts none. He names no 
 representative of either; he can hardly be said 
 to have either a favorable or an unfavorable 
 opinion about them, as they exist in the United 
 States. Certainly, he supposed both to be, rela 
 tively to their status in Europe, of minor im 
 portance. 
 
 He is not partisan, neither is he particularly 
 interested in the phase of the subject he is 
 treating. Yet he has the advantage that goes 
 with those somewhat negative qualities: he can 
 be really critical. Moreover, his residence in 
 America had given him a first-hand knowledge 
 of many details. He is able correctly to estimate 
 certain facts which we already have very fre 
 quently seen misinterpreted. 
 
 " Everybody is literary in the United States/ 
 he says, "for everybody has received a good 
 education." " Literature, at the present mo 
 ment, is almost entirely oral, oratory being that 
 branch of it which is the most advanced." "I 
 am aware that we number among us authors 
 distinguished in those kinds of literature which 
 require lightness of style, and grace and fresh- 
 
72 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 ness in the coloring; but these are exceptions 
 to the general rule; these are the isolated fore 
 runners of a generation of literary men yet to 
 
 come." 
 
 Which was, of course, probably relatively 
 true only we must accept his definition of 
 "literary" as meaning simply " literate"; that 
 Americans were generally capable of adequate 
 self-expression in their political and social life. 
 He goes on to explain the condition; and it is 
 in this explanation, such as it is, that the worth 
 of his criticism lies. And he approaches the 
 question through the fine arts and the theatre, 
 which he seems to conceive as the most typical 
 expressions, along with music, of "art for art s 
 sake," to use an expression not employed by 
 Murat. There seem to be two causes, to his 
 mind, for the tardy development of those inter 
 ests in the United States. The first is the fact 
 that here, owing to the necessity of self-support 
 on the part of almost everybody, few have the 
 leisure necessary for such production. He states 
 explicitly that in his opinion there is no lack 
 of genius or of taste in the United States - 
 only men are forced, out of self-protection, into 
 those pursuits that are the most remunerative: 
 " ... as long as the work of the poet or the 
 painter is less remunerated, he says, than that 
 of the lawyer or the preacher, people will speak, 
 and not write." And his observation about the 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 73 
 
 fine arts, although he does not state it precisely 
 in support of this theory, nevertheless confirms 
 it to a certain extent. Of these arts, architecture 
 is that most perfected here: he speaks of the 
 public buildings, churches, town mansions, as 
 being appropriate to their uses, and designed 
 with elegance and solidly built. Of those less 
 commercial arts, painting and sculpture apart 
 from architecture he does not speak as 
 having arrived at any degree of perfection. 
 
 This fact of the direction of the talents into 
 the best remunerated line of effort, is, however, 
 not a fundamental fact : it is but the manifesta 
 tion of a sentiment that must have created the 
 scale of remuneration. Murat does not say 
 this in so many words, but it is evident that it 
 was his feeling in the matter, for he goes on to 
 develop what he conceives to be the prime reason 
 of all this. His manner is unusual: 
 
 Take Phidias or Apelles, he says, drop them 
 into one of our towns in the midst of a public 
 ceremony, the 4th of July, for instance, the 
 anniversary of the declaration of independence, 
 one of the most courageous and most rational 
 acts that a nation has ever performed. First 
 of all they will hear the cannon roaring on all 
 sides, the ships will have all their flags hoisted, 
 all the militia will be under arms, the different 
 societies, the different professions and trades, 
 will form themselves into a body to join the 
 procession formed by the magistrates and the 
 
74 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 militia. It will repair to some church, where a 
 very grave man, dressed in a black gown, with 
 melancholy air, bilious complexion, and length 
 ened figure, will announce to them, in a doleful 
 tone, that although their ancestors may have 
 signed that immortal declaration, they are not 
 the less damned if they have continued to swear 
 or to dance on Sundays; and that it is not merely 
 being free, but that it is necessary also to be 
 Christians and elected in order to be saved. . . . 
 Do you sincerely think that, if our Greek 
 artists had never seen popular rejoicings in any 
 other way, they could ever have produced their 
 great works? It was with the soul still full of the 
 games of the Palaestra ... it was ... on 
 quitting the arms of Lais, of Phryne, and Aspa- 
 sia; and it was by following their advice, and 
 even that of Alcibiades, that the marble became 
 animated, that the canvas spoke. As long as 
 we have different manners, it is impossible to 
 rival the productions of the Greeks. 
 
 It would not do to quibble about the exact 
 ness of Murat s contrast; he certainly had no 
 intention of making a carefully reasoned study 
 of American characteristics. What is certain 
 is, that if French readers got from this vivid 
 generalization some conception of the puritan 
 ideal of seriousness and of restraint that, as 
 compared with French customs at any rate, 
 governed American society, then they got a 
 more true and serviceable criterion for a judg 
 ment of the United States of that day than they 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 75 
 
 appear hitherto in possession of. The exaggera 
 tion of the American commercial spirit had been 
 too much emphasized as a contrast to the po 
 tency of nature and of the democratic ideal over 
 the thoughts of men. Here at last appears a 
 little indeed, much indispensable informa 
 tion about conditions as they were, and, inci 
 dentally, perhaps the most genuine, if the 
 most unostentatious, criticism of our literature. 
 One can only regret that Murat gave no more 
 attention than he did to a detailed study of the 
 literature of his adopted country; he could not 
 have failed to make for a more thorough under 
 standing and sympathy between the French 
 and the Americans. The bilious carping of 
 Fenimore Cooper, the uninformed criticism that 
 had been seen thus far in France, are in dis 
 tressing contrast to the sincerity of this cosmo 
 politan prince-democrat. 
 
 It was natural that the somewhat scornful 
 tone of a great deal of the French criticism 
 should arouse some feeling in any American 
 who was able to follow it in the years that have 
 just been studied. Unfortunately, the only 
 answer to such remarks is to produce works 
 of such unquestionable merit that the spirit of 
 stricture will find no further place. And it is 
 generally true that the journalistic instinct that 
 prompts such criticisms and their answers is 
 not present in the minds that will produce the 
 
76 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 masterpieces of original genius. Philarete 
 Chasles, who is soon to be noticed, certainly 
 justified the American literature, but he did 
 not have its defence in mind when he began to 
 write upon the subject; he was intent only 
 upon finding out the truth in regard to it. 
 Cooper, when he enters into this stupid quarrel 
 of nations who had no quarrel, who simply 
 were not acquainted, only adds fuel to the 
 flames. It does not appear that the writer who 
 is about to be mentioned had any particular 
 effect one way or the other; for his exposition 
 of American literature is not competent, or 
 else it is too prepossessed; on the other hand, 
 he had the negative quality of not wishing 
 to create ill feeling. 15 His is only the natural 
 sentiment that an American familiar with 
 French would experience, provided he were not 
 rather more reasonable than most people, upon 
 reading the inadequate and somewhat patroniz 
 ing notices that were usual in the French 
 periodicals. Vail s "Reponse," which is only a 
 thin pamphlet, is almost entirely concerned with 
 other questions than literary ones, just as might 
 be expected considering the relative scarceness 
 of any opinion whatsoever in France upon the 
 United States as a literary nation. 
 
 15 I refer to the " Re"ponse a quelques imputations centre lea 
 Etats-Unis, e"noncees dans des Merits et journaux re*cens," par 
 Eugene A. Vail, citoyen des Etats-Unis . . . Paris, 1837. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 77 
 
 . . . n y aurait-il pas mauvaise grace a re 
 fuser tout essor de 1 imagination . . . quand 
 dans toutes les bibliotheques, dans tous les 
 boudoirs, on recontre des noms comme ceux 
 des Paulding, des Cooper, et des Irving? 
 
 And he says little more in the couple of pages 
 that he devotes to that side of the question. 
 
 Several years after, when Philarete Chasles 
 had written his important article on American 
 literature in the " Revue des deux Mondes," in 
 1835 this article had already appeared, by 
 the way, before VaiPs pamphlet and the 
 year following the second part of Tocqueville s 
 "Democratic en Amerique," of 1840, Vail 
 published a second work, a book this time, 
 devoted entirely to the study or it would 
 be more exact to say, to the justification of 
 American literature in the eyes of French 
 readers. 16 
 
 It is very unfortunate indeed that so much 
 effort should have been given, where so little 
 critical ability was present to make it of per 
 manent worth. Not that it had none: its pages 
 are crammed with names of American writers 
 in every possible division of literature. As a 
 catalogue for a prospective student, Vail s book 
 would have merit. But as criticism it is negli- 
 
 16 "De la litte>ature, et des Hommes de lettres aux fitats- 
 Unis d Ame*rique" par Eugene A. Vail, Citoyen des fitats-Unis. 
 Paris, Ch. Gosselin, 1841. 
 
78 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 gible. He gives a general classification of re 
 cently published books the classification of the 
 publications of a year (pp. xiv-xvi), in support 
 of a remark that the American taste in litera 
 ture is toward utility, and toward the serious - 
 thus confirming the general impression in France. 
 But where statistics fail him, as practically 
 everywhere in his volume, his remarks are on a 
 par, for critical acumen, with the worst of those 
 that have come to our notice in the French peri 
 odicals, a constant repetition of the theme 
 that Americans have been too much neglected 
 from the literary standpoint, and that all their 
 productions have a certain merit, always a 
 justification. There is no variety in his esti 
 mates, except the inevitable one of a relative 
 degree of excellence when mentioning one Ameri 
 can writer in connection with another. An 
 analysis of his book would be profitless here, on 
 that account as well as because, as was men 
 tioned, it had no great influence in any way. 
 The fact of his American nationality he was 
 the son of an American consul and born in 
 Lorient would perhaps not have been a suffi 
 cient reason for not giving him more space, since 
 his book was written in French and published 
 in Paris. 
 
 That year 17 an article, signed P. Dillon, based 
 
 17 "Revue des deux Mondes," 4es4r., vol. XXVII, pp. 953- 
 68 (1841). 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 79 
 
 upon VaiFs book, appeared in the " Revue des 
 deux Mondes." It was hardly to be expected 
 that the periodical that had published, and was 
 to continue for a number of years to publish, 
 the articles of Philarete Chasles, would find 
 the ideas of Mr. Vail in themselves extremely 
 enlightening. But the subject was becoming 
 one of great interest, and any consideration of it 
 at such a length was bound to get notice and 
 criticism. The article in question, it is needless 
 to say, corrects the overenthusiastic remarks of 
 Vail, but would seem to most to-day, no doubt, 
 somewhat too sweeping in a division that is 
 made of American literature. The reader can 
 judge. 
 
 Vail had emphasized the utilitarian and the 
 serious sides of American literature : his analysis 
 of recent publications with regard to a classi 
 fication under different heads showed a great 
 preponderance of manuals of religious and 
 philosophic books over those of poetry and 
 drama. Dillon goes a little further: 
 
 Le travail, rien que le travail, voila en quoi 
 se resume toute existence americaine. On ne 
 saurait s attendre a trouver au sein d une 
 societe ainsi organisee une litterature riche en 
 poetes, en dramaturges, en romanciers. 
 
 We shall find that, among other causes, 
 democracy and puritanical protestantism have 
 
80 FREN.CH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 been adduced as reasons why the theatre and 
 poetry had not flourished in the United States. 
 The unavoidable fact of the existence of a 
 creditable production in the way of sketches 
 and novels had made the exclusion of the divi 
 sion of prose fiction rather impossible to most 
 critics; in this Dillon is original if we should 
 not say inexact in his views. 
 
 Probably he was forced to a certain degree 
 into his extreme view, out of a desire to correct 
 the eulogistic tone of VaiPs book. 
 
 . . . l 6tranger n est pas mediocrement sur- 
 pris de voir des esprits graves mettre les noms, 
 fort estimables sans doute, d un Joel Barlow 
 ou d un Bryant a cot6 de ceux de Corneille 
 et de Racine, sans se douter de P6normit6 du 
 sacrilege. 
 
 We are hardly less surprised at the sacrilege, 
 as he calls lack of judgment or ignorance, of 
 setting the name of Joel Barlow beside that of 
 Bryant. . . . Dillon is not at his best in those 
 moments when he traffics in the cheap commodity 
 of great names. There is more interesting matter 
 in his article. 
 
 He makes a new division of American litera 
 ture into two epochs: that before the year 1800, 
 approximately, and the following years. But 
 he does not make this arbitrary division in 
 date. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 81 
 
 Dans la premiere, nous rencontrons une eleva 
 tion veritable, tous les indices d un vrai talent. 
 Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, Jay, tous les 
 signataires de la declaration d independance, 
 esprits nobles et eclaires, appartiennent a cette 
 premiere epoque. Lisez leurs ouvrages im- 
 mortels, et comparez-les a ceux de la generation 
 actuelle. Quelle difference. 
 
 In the next chapter it may appear that Dillon 
 has enlarged in this classification upon an obser 
 vation of Tocqueville. Dillon finds that in the 
 second epoch the spirit of the literature has, as 
 it were, suddenly weakened and faded; "on 
 dirait que les intelligences s y sont soudaine- 
 ment affaissees." And the cause? Literary 
 expression is no longer founded, as in the days 
 of the Signers, to a great degree upon the 
 "political and literary traditions of monarchical 
 Europe" that helped to produce these "great 
 writers and bold thinkers"; to-day, not an 
 aristocracy of intelligence, but the uncultured 
 mass, will judge of an American work, and it is 
 to the mass that the writer must pledge his pro 
 duction. We could have wished that Dillon 
 had gone into the question of Bryant, of Emer 
 son, of Longfellow although in the two latter 
 cases he need not, since their production was 
 to come later in many of the parts of it that 
 seem to us the most important, and since he 
 had particularly mentioned Bryant as represent- 
 
82 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 ing rather the weak side of American literature 
 we may wish that he had tried to demonstrate 
 a little more fully the truth of the theory 
 he advances; would he have found that these 
 three writers did, as a matter of fact, address 
 their thoughts to pleasing the larger public? 
 One may admit that Longfellow is in the most 
 of his productions attractive to the greater 
 number or was in his day but, whether he 
 wished to be or not, can as much be said of 
 Bryant and of Emerson? There is perhaps as 
 much to be said against as for such a thesis. 
 Other aspects of American literature, such as 
 its journalistic manifestations, might have been 
 adduced; but the proof of one point of view 
 does not demonstrate truth. 
 
 And so it is with the rest of Dillon, as with 
 Vail. The merit of Dillon s article was, of 
 course, to correct VaiFs statements, but neither 
 is thoroughly critical ;-- Vail not at all so. The 
 article in the " Revue des deux Mondes" had 
 another merit, although it would not appear 
 from the extracts that have been given as hav 
 ing a special interest for their content. This 
 merit is the tone of the article, which is reserved 
 in spite of its strictures, and rather kindly and 
 appreciative in tone than carping; it must have 
 helped, after all, to make for an interest, and a 
 fairly suitable initial outlook on the subject for 
 French readers. And the fact of the publica- 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 83 
 
 tion of so large a book as Vail s, and its criticism 
 in the " Revue des deux Mondes" shows a con 
 siderable interest in the subject. 
 
 There remain to be noticed in this connection, 
 not for any other reason than to show that with 
 the publication of Tocqueville s work from 1835 
 to 1840 there was a considerable body of French 
 studies upon one aspect or the other of the 
 United States, two works, which, however, do 
 not deal at all with the particular matter in 
 hand. The first is M. Chevalier s "Lettres 
 sur 1 Amerique du Nord," published in two 
 volumes at Brussels, in 1837; it deals with the 
 industrial and commercial aspect of the nation. 
 The second is Guizot s French translation of 
 Jared Sparks collection of "The Writings of 
 George Washington" 18 which appeared in six 
 volumes in Paris. Guizot s translation is a selec 
 tion from Sparks collection, and is preceded by 
 an " Introduction sur 1 influence et le caractere 
 de Washington dans la revolution des Etats-Unis 
 d Amerique." In this introductory essay Guizot 
 confined himself strictly to the political side of 
 Washington s career, and one searches in vain for 
 any idea that could be applied to the American 
 literature as such. The appreciation of Wash 
 ington is, however, of so elevated a nature, that 
 one feels in reading it that if, as was probable, 
 Dillon was acquainted with it when he wrote 
 
 18 Gosselin, 1839-1840. 
 
84 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 his appreciation of Vail in the " Revue des deux 
 Mondes," we may have the genesis of his idea 
 of the division of American literature into the 
 exalted period of the Signers, and the charac 
 terless one that followed. 
 
IV 
 
 ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE 
 
 OUR concern with Alexis de Tocqueville 
 begins with the year 1840, when the second 
 part of his work "De la Democratic en Ameri- 
 que" was published. 1 This second part is sub 
 divided into four sections, entitled, respectively, 
 " Influence de la democratic sur le mouvement 
 intellectuel aux Etats-Unis," " Influence de la 
 democratie sur les sentiments des Amerieains," 
 " Influence de la democratie sur les mceurs prop- 
 rement dites," and "De Tinfluence qu exercent 
 les idees et les sentiments democratiques sur 
 la societe politique." It is principally with the 
 first two sections that the present study will 
 have to deal. 
 
 The very general interest felt for the first 
 part of the work is well known, and is attested 
 
 1 The first part, dealing with the political institutions, had 
 come out in 1835. The edition of this work used, and referred 
 to here, is that contained in the "GEuvres completes d Alexis 
 de Tocqueville publie"es par Madame de Tocqueville/ 7 17e 
 Edition, Paris, Calmann LeVy. The "Democratic en Ame"rique" 
 comprises the first three volumes of this edition, and is dated 
 1888. The first two volumes contain the first part of the work 
 as originally published in 1835 that part dealing with the 
 political institutions; the third volume contains the second 
 part, published in 1840. 
 
 85 
 
86 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 by the many articles based upon it appearing 
 in the French and English reviews. The 
 phrase " articles based upon it" is used ad 
 visedly; for the distinguishing characteristic 
 of this work is its suggestiveness. One feels 
 that on this account it is in a sense above criti 
 cism. Certainly it is not a work that can be 
 resumed; on the contrary, any exhaustive 
 study of it would be bound to exceed the origi 
 nal in length, so condensed is it. There have 
 been numerous considerations of this aspect or 
 of the other, but the commentary has not been 
 written. And it seems unfortunate that this is 
 so, for it is one of those works that require 
 constant elucidation; and whatever conclusion 
 might be arrived at as to the validity of the 
 opinions set forth, the whole is too suggestive 
 to be profitless. 
 
 Of the second part, Madame de Tocqueville 
 has this to say in her introduction : 2 
 
 Cette seconde partie de "la Democratic en 
 Amrique" a eu, il faut le reconnaitre, un 
 moindre succ&s que la premiere. Elle n a pas 
 sans doute t6 moins achet^e, mais je crois 
 qu elle a e*t6 moins lue. Beaucoup moins de 
 feuilles p6riodiques en ont rendu compte. Elle 
 renferme une si grande quantite* d id6es con- 
 dens6es dans un troit espace et toutes rigoureu- 
 sement enchain^es les unes aux autres, que plus 
 
 2 "(Euvres completes d Alexis dc Tocqueville". . . vol. I, 
 pp. xiv-xv. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 87 
 
 (Tun lecteur recule, avant de s engager dans un 
 labyrinthe dont il craint de perdre le fil. Je ne 
 sais plus quel ecrivain a fait la remarque que, 
 toutes les fois qu on veut lire cet ouvrage d un 
 bout a 1 autre et d une seule traite, on eprouve 
 quelque fatigue, et que, si on se borne a en lire 
 une page prise au hasard, on ne ressent que le 
 charme d une -ceuvre superieure. . . . Les meil- 
 leurs esprits et les meilleurs juges persistent 
 cependant a regarder cette seconde partie de 
 "la Democratic" comme Pceuvre de Tocque- 
 ville qui atteste le plus de puissance intellec- 
 tuelle. . . . 
 
 I think that the fact that the first part dealt 
 with the more purely political aspects of the 
 United States had something to do with the 
 relative indifference that was the fate of the sec 
 ond part, for, as has been seen, the American 
 theory and practice of government was a matter 
 of paramount interest in the restless Europe 
 of the first half of the nineteenth century. 
 
 It does not appear that any more serious 
 criticisms were ever made of the work criti 
 cisms, I mean, that have proved valid than 
 those minor ones of style and sentiment. The 
 method was too original, too well sustained, to 
 be condemned in the eyes of thoughtful men. 
 And the attitude was too broad to offend even 
 those who would be little inclined to find great 
 good in the democratic constitution of the 
 United States. For, when we have stated that 
 
88 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 Tocqueville believed in the democratic prin 
 ciple, we can admit that in the rest he was non- 
 partisan. His study is indeed centered upon 
 the American aspect of democracy. But this 
 is probably the case only because he had at 
 hand no other good example of the democratic 
 theory applied and more or less successfully 
 worked out in a large modern state. His inter 
 est, after all, is not in the democracy of the 
 United States, except as in an example: cer 
 tainly he does not consider it a model to be 
 followed elsewhere, nor even as in all aspects the 
 criterion for the land where it was developed. 
 There is no proselytizing intention anywhere. 
 One does not find that he unconditionally con 
 demns the monarchical form of government; 
 so long as the majority is able to express itself, 
 so long as all have equal rights to that expression, 
 the form of bureaucracy, since there must be a 
 head in every state, is a matter of minor im 
 portance, and may have various solutions, (cf. 
 p. 107, note 35.) There is none of the warmth 
 of the thoroughgoing partisan in Tocqueville; 
 on the contrary, one feels that he is, as we say, 
 "all mind"; and this mind goes on unswerv 
 ingly in the development of its idea, very oblivi 
 ous and very careless of traditional connotations 
 of words and of the thoughtlessly preconceived 
 ideas that have spoiled so much of the effort 
 made in France to understand America. What- 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 89 
 
 ever we may decide as to his method, he is 
 scientific in his attitude; incidentally, he is a 
 great relief in that respect from what we have 
 seen, and from the most of what is to be studied. 
 In the passage cited, Madame de Tocqueville 
 mentions the extremely close texture of his 
 argument in the second part of his work, and 
 advances that as one reason why the book was 
 found difficult to read. Another reason was 
 that mentioned, that the matter was of some 
 what less interest. A third difference in the 
 two parts presents itself upon the reading of 
 the work. "La Democratic en Amerique" is 
 not a history, but neither is it strictly a com 
 mentary, as one is inclined at first to classify 
 it and in this sense, that it is but sparingly 
 documented. This is a superficial distinction, 
 one may say, since he has treated his subject 
 with such completeness. Nevertheless, it is the 
 reason why his work has rather the character of 
 an essay than that of a minute study. The third 
 difference between the two parts that was re 
 ferred to is this: that in the second part this 
 lack of documentation makes itself more felt 
 than in the first. In the section dealing with 
 the political questions he is able, without speci 
 fically naming certain laws, to treat of them 
 under their general headings in relation to the 
 democratic spirit. Literary tendencies are less 
 tangible, and the fact that in all the considera- 
 
90 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 tion of literature he does not mention a single 
 American name upon which one can base the 
 conclusions that he draws, is confusing and un 
 satisfactory in a sense. Granted Madame de 
 Tocqueville s statement as to the closeness of 
 the reasoning in this second part, it is not hard 
 to understand why it was little read why 
 there are relatively few articles upon it in 
 periodicals. 
 
 It was mentioned that in the first part, his 
 idea is very evidently to develop the workings 
 of the democratic state; one constantly feels 
 reminded in the second part that his interest 
 lies in developing what he conceived to be the 
 normal working of the democratic principles 
 upon men and consequently upon literature. 
 
 It will frequently be noticed that his con 
 clusions are singularly like those of other French 
 critics as to the characteristics of American 
 literature; but these conclusions are not the 
 result of preconception of the kind that was so 
 very common in France. There are times when 
 the statements made by him do not seem be 
 yond question, but one does at least feel that, 
 even when this is the case, Tocqueville arrived 
 at them by an unprejudiced acceptance of what 
 he considered the truth about democracies, and 
 that his developments of his opinions are logical 
 rather than simply dictated by his wishes with 
 regard to the final conclusion. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 91 
 
 "The truth about democracies" has just been 
 referred to as being Tocqueville s concern; this 
 is strictly correct, and to the extent that, as was 
 mentioned before, his concern for the United 
 States is really only that for the medium through 
 which the study of the larger question is to be 
 made. When Tocqueville reaches a conclusion 
 about American literature, it is likely thus to 
 be made to serve as one about the literature of 
 democracies in general. He has been called, 
 and it is unquestionable that he indeed was, a 
 " generalizing historian." 3 And there is no 
 better example of his attitude toward this view 
 than in his discussion of the methods of his 
 torians. Incidentally, it will be noticed that 
 here, as elsewhere, he seems rather to be writing 
 simply upon democracies in general than upon 
 the United States. 
 
 M. de la Fayette dit quelque part dans ses 
 Memoires que le systeme exagere des causes 
 generales procurait de merveilleuses consola 
 tions aux hommes publics m6diocres. J ajoute 
 qu il en donne d admirables aux historiens 
 mediocres. II leur fournit tou jours quelques 
 grandes raisons qui les tirent promptement 
 d affaire a Fendroit le plus difficile de leur livre, 
 et favorisent la faiblesse ou la paresse de leur 
 esprit, tout en faisant honneur a sa profondeur. 
 
 Pour moi, je pense qu il n y a pas d epoque ou 
 
 3 V. Gabriel Monod in his article on Albert Sorel in the 
 11 Revue historique," vol. XCIV, p. 91 (Sept.-Dec., 1906). 
 
92 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 il ne faille attribuer une partie des e*ve*nements 
 de ce monde des fails tres ge*ne*raux, et une 
 autre & des influences tres particulieres. 4 
 
 This remark is introduced into his discussion 
 of the writing of history in aristocracies and in 
 democracies, the whole treatment in this sec 
 ond part is conducted through such compari 
 son -- of which he has this to say: that in the 
 aristocracy, where certain individuals are very 
 important, historians attach much importance 
 to them in explaining the development of affairs, 
 and are thus likely to seek minutely into their 
 lives to find the explanation for this or for that. 
 On the other hand, in democracies, where the 
 individual is of little account, the actions of all 
 are consulted, which is only saying that general 
 causes are sought out. 5 And even the rank and 
 file of historians adopt this generalizing method, 
 with the results that he suggested above (note 
 4). And in parenthesis, there never was a more 
 generalizing book than this very " Democratic 
 en Ame>ique," a fact that Tocqueville would 
 doubtless have been the first to acknowledge; 
 what saves it is the fact that its author hap 
 pened not to be mediocre. 
 
 This disposition toward generalization seems, 
 indeed, to be his conception of the distinguishing 
 
 4 DA, vol. Ill, p. 145 (DA will be used to designate "De la 
 Democratic en Ame rique"). 
 6 DA, vol. Ill, p. 143. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 93 
 
 characteristic of democratic thought, and that 
 of America incidentally. 
 
 It is, however, far from being the introduc 
 tory process that one would expect, perhaps, to 
 find in a people with small instruction or little 
 culture. On the contrary, he considers it to 
 be a very late development in the history of 
 thought. It is, in fact, impossible to generalize 
 before one has a considerable acquaintance 
 with particular facts. And one must, inevitably, 
 find general relationships existing between cer 
 tain of the facts of the knowledge that has been 
 acquired during centuries of thought and inves 
 tigation. 6 It is to be noticed here, incidentally, 
 that Tocqueville does not fall into the seem 
 ingly current idea that the Americans are a 
 new people: 
 
 Les Americains sont un peuple tres ancien et 
 tres eclair^, qui a recontre un pays nou- 
 veau. . . . 7 
 
 But he finds that of the two branches of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race, the American is the one that 
 indulges more in this method of generalization. 
 The reason for this lies in the status of men in 
 the two nations. For in an aristocracy, where 
 permanent distinctions of caste and of wealth 
 exist, the members of each become thoroughly 
 unlike those of the others, and to the extent that 
 "on dirait qu il y a autant d humanites distinctes 
 
 6 DA, vol. Ill, pp. 23-5. 7 Ibid., p. 59. 
 
94 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 qu il y a de classes/ 7 What would apply to one 
 caste would not be true of another; generaliza 
 tion would become impossible. In a democracy 
 like the United States, on the other hand, where 
 all men are approximately equal in condition, 
 or become so after a time, what applies to one 
 must be true of a very great number. Generali 
 zation becomes as natural there as it is im 
 possible in many cases in an aristocracy. 8 
 
 This tendency to generalization is reflected, 
 first of all, in matters of language. 9 In an 
 
 8 In his studies upon the United States, Tocqueville was 
 assisted by Professor Jared Sparks of Harvard, who gave him 
 information, or obtained it for him. V. Herbert Baxter Adams 
 "Jared Sparks and Tocqueville," published in the "Johns 
 Hopkins University Studies," in 1898. One therefore naturally 
 thinks of Sparks as one of the American historians with whom 
 Tocqueville must have been most familiar. Sparks could hardly 
 be used as an illustration in point to support Tocqueville s 
 contention as to the characteristics of democratic historians; 
 and indeed it is not necessary that he should be. This circum 
 stance is cited here simply to show how desirable a documenta 
 tion of the "Democratic en AmeYique" would be, even now, as 
 a sort of test for Tocqueville s intensely interesting theory or 
 what sometimes appears, for all its plausibility, as little else. 
 
 9 V. Chapter XVI of the first division of this second part 
 (vol. Ill, pp. 108-119), entitled "Comment la democratic 
 ame*ricaine a modifie" la langue anglaise." It is one of the chap 
 ters that deal definitely with the United States; in the greater 
 number of those of this second part, Tocqueville, it must be 
 repeated, seems not to be considering the United States much 
 more than any other modern state with democratic ideals as 
 his particular example. It will be noticed, in his treatment of 
 poetry, for example, that the only names he mentions in support 
 of certain ideas are those of European poets. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 95 
 
 aristocracy, it is the educated caste, the smaller 
 number, that sets the pace in matters of lan 
 guage. It is not possible to maintain that 
 Tocqueville really supposed that the educated 
 class governed the language of the people at 
 large; but it would be easy to show that in this 
 place his words are somewhat ambiguous, and 
 that they lend themselves to a misunderstanding 
 a misunderstanding that would not, however, 
 be at all unfavorable to the thesis that he de 
 velops. It is not necessary to go so far: reading 
 him in good faith, and trying rather to appreciate 
 his point of view and to reconcile it with the 
 facts as we understand them, we can simply 
 suppose that here he is speaking rather of the 
 written language that, ipso facto, impresses 
 itself for a longer period than the spoken upon 
 those who can get into contact with it; that 
 it is, in short, the language of the smaller 
 number in an aristocracy, but of the number 
 that, nevertheless, is powerful over the greater 
 in all matters where they come into contact, 
 and that consequently does, after all, have a 
 very considerable influence over the trend of 
 language. This is doubtless what Tocqueville 
 meant to say, and it is a long way from being 
 equivalent to the simple statement of which 
 he might be accused that in an aristocracy 
 the educated minority, and in a democracy the 
 people at large, more or less uneducated, con- 
 
96 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 trol the progress of a language. But the pas 
 sage that deals with this question should be 
 given, at least in part: 
 
 Dans les aristocraties, la langue doit naturelle- 
 ment se participer au repos ou se tiennent toutes 
 choses. On fait peu de mots nouveaux, parce 
 qu il se fait peu de choses nouvelles; et, fit- 
 on des choses nouvelles, on s efforcerait de les 
 peindre avec les mots connus et dont la tradi 
 tion a fixe* le sens. 
 
 S il arrive que Tesprit humain s y agite enfin 
 de lui-meme, ou que la lumiere, pentrant du 
 dehors, le reveille, les expressions nouvelles qu on 
 cre*e ont un caractere savant, intellectuel et 
 philosophique qui indique qu elles ne doivent 
 pas la naissance & une democratic. Lorsque la 
 chute de Constantinople eut fait refluer les 
 sciences et les lettres vers TOccident, la langue 
 frangaise se trouva presque tout a coup envahie 
 par une multitude de mots nouve^ux, qui tous 
 avaient leur racine dans le grec et le latin. On 
 vit alors en France un n6ologisme e>udit, qui 
 n etait & 1 usage que des classes 6claire*es, et 
 dont les effets ne se firent jamais sentir ou ne 
 parvinrent qu & la longue jusqu au peuple. 
 
 Toutes les nations de TEurope donnerent 
 success! vement le meme spectacle. Le seul 
 Milton a introduit dans la langue anglaise plus 
 de six cents mots, presque tous tire s du latin, 
 du grec, ou de Th^breu. . . . 
 
 Le mouvement perp6tuel qui regne au sein 
 d une democratic tend, au contraire, & y renou- 
 veler sans cesse la face de la langue, comme 
 celle des affaires. . . . Alors qu elles (demo- 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 97 
 
 cratic nations) n ont pas le besoin de changer 
 les mots, elles en sentent quelquefois le desir. . . . 
 Chez ces peuples, c est la majorit qui fait la 
 loi en matiere de langue, ainsi qu en tout le 
 reste. ... La plupart des mots crees ou admis 
 par elle . . . serviront principalement a ex- 
 primer les besoins de Pindustrie, les passions 
 des partis ou les details de T administration 
 publique. . . . 10 
 
 And these new words, inasmuch as the people 
 who create them are not educated in the classics, 
 will not be of Latin or of Greek type, but chosen 
 from the modern languages. Greek or Latin 
 words will, indeed, be adapted, and they will 
 be used, strange to say, above all by the 
 ignorant: 
 
 "Le desir tout democratique de sortir de 
 sa sphere les porte souvent a vouloir rehausser 
 une profession tres grossiere par un nom grec 
 ou latin. Plus le metier est bas et eloigne de 
 la science, plus le nom est pompeux et erudit. 
 C est ainsi que nos danseurs de corde se sont 
 transformes en acrobates et en funambules." 11 
 
 To return to the adapting of words to new 
 needs; it was noted that Tocqueville finds that 
 they are generally chosen from the modern 
 languages. And of the modern languages, it is 
 naturally the one native to the people in ques 
 tion that will furnish the most of these. 
 
 10 DA, vol. Ill, pp. 109-11. Ibid., p. 112. 
 
98 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 And here we arrive at the generalizing ten 
 dency which was already noticed in another 
 connection. The very use of native words in 
 new senses gradually takes from them the 
 definiteness that was originally theirs, and 
 tends to leave them finally with as many sig 
 nifications as there are contexts. 
 
 Cela fait que les e*crivains n ont presque 
 jamais 1 air de s attacher & une seule pense*e, 
 mais qu ils semblent toujours viser au milieu 
 d un groupe d ide*es, laissant au lecteur le soin 
 de juger celle qui est atteinte. 
 
 Ceci est une consequence facheuse de la 
 democratic. J aimerais mieux qu on he*rissat la 
 langue de mots chinois, tartares ou hurons, que 
 de rendre incertain le sens des mots frangais. 12 
 
 Expressions that seemed common or vulgar 
 originally thus come to be used with a better 
 connotation, and the reverse, too, might take 
 place. For, he says, there are but few expres 
 sions that are inherently vulgar or distinguished : 
 usage generally makes them the one or the 
 other; and usage becoming flexible on account 
 
 11 DA, vol. Ill, p. 113. Here, again, although Tocqueville 
 gave the impression, up to the last phrase, of having the United 
 States in mind since his chapter is on the English language as 
 found in the United States nevertheless, it is easy to see 
 that his mind was running at least as much upon French. 
 Therefore, the data upon which he bases his conclusions we may 
 suppose to be, here as elsewhere in the second part, quite as 
 probably French as American. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 99 
 
 of the mingling of classes, their original sense 
 is lost. 13 The constant change that takes place 
 in a democracy is of a nature to break down one 
 conviction after another, and to leave the greater 
 number of men with this in common, that they 
 have general rather than definite ideas about 
 most matters: the flexible general formula is 
 thus the only one that they can maintain for 
 any length of time. The words of the language 
 and the beliefs of the nation are thus mutually 
 responsive. 14 
 
 Man in a democracy has but two sorts of 
 ideas: 
 
 II n a que des idees tres particulieres et tres 
 claires, ou des notions tres generates et tres 
 vagues: Pespace interm6diare est vide. 
 
 There is, therefore, a very great probability 
 that, in ceasing to deal with matters of definite 
 knowledge, the man in a democracy will fall 
 at once into the region of large generalities and 
 become bombastic "boursoufle." And this, 
 Tocqueville says, is precisely the case of Ameri 
 can writers and speakers. Poets in a democ 
 racy, for instance, seek to express the colossal 
 "le gigantesque" in the pursuit of which 
 they are likely to lose sight of the really im 
 portant "le grand/ 15 
 
 13 DA, vol. Ill, p. 115. 14 Ibid., p. 118. 
 
 15 Ibid., pp. 131-2; ch. xviii: "Pourquoi les e"crivains et les 
 orateurs am^ricains sont souvent boursouftes." 
 
100 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 And this naturally introduces here his ideas 
 about American poetry although it is not 
 in the same chapter, nor under the head of 
 what is inflated or bombastic that he treats the 
 subject. 
 
 But he does not think that democratic nations 
 will be likely to produce poetry with that re 
 straint in imagination or inspiration, or control 
 over them, that is essential to the highest 
 expression. It will not be a prosaic one; he 
 seems rather to fear that in respect to imagina 
 tion it may be incoherent and far too unreal. 18 
 
 For poetry, to Tocqueville, could not be con 
 sistent with any distortion: 
 
 La poe*sie, a mes yeux, est la recherche et 
 la peinture de Tid6al. 17 
 
 Not, however, that it is simply the repre 
 sentation of the world in so many aspects 
 accurately described. A certain degree of ideal 
 ization in this representation is, to him, the very 
 function of the poet; only, the imagination, 
 in leading the poet too far afield, will completely 
 estrange him from that degree of reality which 
 is, as it were, the foundation of the ideal. 
 
 This is an excess that American poetry might 
 fall into, if it is developed to a degree. A men 
 ace that seems to appear to him more real is a 
 probable lack of effort on the part of Americans 
 
 16 DA, vol. Ill, p. 133. 17 Ibid., p. 120. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 101 
 
 in those lines. His reasons lie again in the 
 characteristics of the democratic form of gov 
 ernment in its effect upon men. 
 
 Chez les nations aristocratiques, il arrive 
 quelquefois que le corps agit comme de lui- 
 meme, tandis que Fame est plongee dans un 
 repos qui lui pese. Chez ces nations le peuple 
 lui-meme fait souvent voir des gouts poetiques, 
 et son esprit s elance parfois au dela et au- 
 dessus de ce qui Fenvironne. 
 
 Mais dans les democraties, F amour des jouis- 
 sances materielles, Fidee du mieux, la concur 
 rence, le charme prochain du succes, sont comme 
 autant d aiguillons qui precipitent les pas de 
 chaque homme dans la carriere qu il a embrassee, 
 et lui defendent de s en ecarter un seul moment. 
 Le principal effort de Fame va de ce cote. 
 L imagination n est point eteinte; mais elle 
 s adonne presque exclusivement a concevoir 
 Futile et a representer le reel. 18 
 
 So much for the reasons that might keep 
 Americans, even with a considerable talent, 
 from giving attention to the writing of poetry. 
 
 There are more serious causes why, even 
 granting a certain liberation among some from 
 the bonds that attach men too closely to the 
 details of their daily life, poetry may not be 
 produced. There are two that have to do with 
 its subject-matter. 
 
 The practical trend of democratic education, 
 
 18 DA, vol. Ill, p. 121. 
 
102 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 together with the new faith in the future of 
 humanity that equality in opportunity brings 
 about, diverts attention from the past: old 
 legends and old history will not furnish demo 
 cratic poets with the characters around whose 
 actions they will write. Their interest is rather 
 in the future than in the past. He does not 
 deny that the present may also present a certain 
 interest in democratic nations, only it is not 
 possible that it should be so to the same degree 
 as in aristocracies. 
 
 Apres avoir enlev6 a la posie le pass6, 
 I 6galit6 lui enleve en partie le present. 
 
 Chez les peuples aristocratiques, il existe un 
 certain nombre d individus privilgis. ... La 
 foule ne les voit jamais de fort pres ... on a 
 peu a faire pour rendre potique la peinture de 
 ces hommes. 
 
 D une autre part . . . des classes ignorantes, 
 humbles et asservies; et celles-ci pretent a la 
 posie par Pexces meme de leur grossieret6 et 
 de leur misere, comme les autres par leur raffine- 
 ment et leur grandeur. . . . 
 
 Dans les soci6ts d6mocratiques, oil les 
 hommes sont tous tres petits et fort semblables, 
 chacun en s envisageant soi-meme, voit a Fin- 
 stant tous les autres . . . un objet d une gran 
 deur mediocre, et qu on apergoit distinctement 
 de tous les cot6s, ne pretera jamais a l ide*al. 19 
 
 What, then, is the nature of the poetry of a 
 19 DA, vol. Ill, p. 123. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 103 
 
 democracy? He is ready to admit that, so far 
 as the United States is concerned, it has, as 
 yet, no poets. 20 But it has ideas that lend 
 themselves to poetry, and that will some day 
 be developed in that form. The intimate resem 
 blance that he supposes to exist among all the 
 members of a democracy, and that precludes 
 the poetry of the court or of the peasant, will 
 some day direct attention to the destinies of 
 humanity as a whole. Poetry will cease to deal 
 with the particular: the characters that it will 
 present will be types, not individuals: 
 
 Les ecrivains qui, de nos jours, ont si admi- 
 rablement reproduit les traits de Childe-Harold, 
 de Ren6 et de Jocelyn n ont pas pretendu 
 raconter les actions d un homme; ils ont voulu 
 illuminer et agrandir certains cotes encore ob- 
 scurs du cceur humain. 
 
 Ce sont la les poemes de la democratic. 
 
 L egalite ne d6truit done pa^ tous les objets 
 de la poesie; elle les rend moins nombreux et 
 plus vastes. 21 
 
 Is the poetry of nature, which almost all the 
 French critics we have encountered in this study 
 feel to be the key-note all too seldom sounded 
 of the true poetry of America; is this poetry 
 of nature, inspired by the solitude of plain 
 and forest and mountain, indeed the true 
 expression of American poets? He says: 
 
 20 DA, vol. Ill, p. 125. 21 Ibid., p. 130. 
 
104 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 Je suis convaincu qu a la longue la de*mo- 
 cratie de*tourne Timagination de tout ce qui est 
 extrieur a Thomme, pour ne la fixer que sur 
 1 homme. 22 
 
 On s occupe beaucoup en Europe des deserts 
 de FAme rique; mais les Ame>icains eux-memes 
 n y songent guere. . . . Le peuple ame*ricain se 
 voit marcher lui-meme a travers ces deserts, 
 desse*chant les marais, redressant les fleuves. . . . 
 Cette image magnifique . . . suit chacun d eux 
 dans les moindres de ses actions. 23 
 
 One is probably likely to feel that here, in 
 one respect at least, French criticism of our 
 literature was beginning to find a right direc 
 tion. One can only be surprised that the very 
 facts of the case should not, before 1840, have 
 begun to change the opinions of those interested 
 in America as to the destinies of its poetry. 
 
 It has already been noticed that Tocqueville 
 felt that literature, from the productive side, 
 could be only a secondary interest with Ameri 
 cans for some time to come. The reading public 
 would not, in any case, be very likely to appre 
 ciate works more than usually thoughtful or in 
 any way excellent. On the contrary: 
 
 N ay ant qu un temps fort court a donner aux 
 lettres, il veulent le mettre a profit tout en- 
 tier. Ils aiment les livres qu on se procure sans 
 peine, qui se lisent vite, qui n exigent point de 
 recherches savantes pour etre compris. . . . 
 
 DA, vol. Ill, p. 124. Ibid, pp., 125-6. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 105 
 
 Les petits ecrits y seront plus frequents que 
 les gros livres, Fesprit que l rudition, Tima- 
 gination que la profondeur. . . . On tachera 
 d etonner plutot que de plaire, et Ton s efforcera 
 d entrainer les passions plus que de charmer le 
 gout. 24 
 
 For such a people, what would be the most 
 natural preference in literary matters? Tocque- 
 ville thinks that without any doubt it is not in 
 reading itself, so much as in the theatre, that 
 this will be found. 
 
 The theatre is, indeed, he says, the popular 
 form of literature, and was so, to a degree, even 
 in the aristocratic nations. There the people 
 gained entrance as well as the privileged classes, 
 and its opinion was of more import than in 
 judgments upon other forms of expression that 
 may be called literary. 
 
 This being so, it will follow that in a democ 
 racy the theatre will be the child of popular 
 opinion in the very widest sense; it will be the 
 exact expression of the ideas of its spectators, 
 and the aesthetic or moral ideal of the more 
 cultured class will have to find its expression 
 elsewhere, or only to a small degree upon the 
 stage. 25 
 
 This is what may be expected in democracies 
 at large, and in the United States among the 
 others, ultimately. But for the present, the 
 
 24 DA, vol. Ill, pp. 99-100. M Ibid., p. 135. 
 
106 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 theatre had not made any considerable progress 
 in America. 
 
 The explanation of this temporary condition 
 he finds principally in the nature of the origin 
 of the nation. The Puritan ideal could not be 
 expected to foster a kind of literature that was 
 popular because above all it diverts; and besides, 
 he says, the theatre was singled out by the 
 Puritans as an especially evil form of amuse 
 ment. 26 Not only that, but because of the very- 
 regularity of life, the sobriety with which the 
 Puritan ideal had tinged all American customs, 
 the theatre could hardly be expected to 
 thrive. 
 
 Two other reasons: the fact that the United 
 States had had no great political disasters, and 
 that the lives of individuals were less likely 
 to be rendered tragic here than in lands 
 where marriage is not always possible for those 
 who love the possibility, in short, as we may 
 infer, for men to lead a normal and happy 
 existence both in their national and in their 
 individual consciousness, is not likely to pro 
 duce either tragedy or comedy. 27 
 
 26 DA, vol. Ill, pp. 140-1. 
 
 27 II n y a point de sujet dc drame dans un pays qui n a pas 
 e te te*moin de grandes catastrophes politiques, et ou Tamour 
 mene toujours par un chemin direct et facile ail manage. Des 
 gens qui emploient tous les jours de la semaine & faire for 
 tune et le dimanche & prier Dieu, ne pretent point & la muse 
 comique. (id.) 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 107 
 
 Certain of the characteristics of democratic 
 literatures, and of the American incidentally, 
 as Tocqueville understood them, have already 
 been noticed. He goes further. 
 
 Literature as an industry, first of all, he thinks 
 will be a very common manifestation: 28 " sellers 
 of ideas " will be legion. And their wares will 
 naturally be at once what the public desires, and 
 what can be rapidly enough produced to bring 
 the seller his fortune. If he does not write the 
 sort of thing that we have already found indi 
 cated the somewhat flimsy tinsel work that 
 is likely to please for a moment and then fall 
 into nothing with the passing of a few years 
 if he does not write this, he will write of what 
 is in one way or another useful, 29 or of what is of 
 interest in connection with religion, or politics, 
 for example. 
 
 In short, the interest will be entirely away 
 from art for its own sake, entirely away from 
 the forms that will no longer be understood. 
 
 J ai fait voir a-propos de la me"thode phi- 
 losophique des Americains, que rien ne revolte 
 plus 1 esprit humain dans les temps d egalite 
 
 28 DA, vol. Ill, p. 103. 
 
 29 Ibid., p. 80, where he discusses the arts more particularly; 
 yet this is a statement that supplements the passage where he 
 discusses the reading of Americans as he infers it to be from 
 an examination of the American book-shops in Ch. XIII: 
 "Physionomie litte*raire des siecles de"mocratiques," DA, vol. 
 Ill, pp. 92-3. 
 
108 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 que l ide*e de se soumettre & des formes. Les 
 hommes qui vivent dans ces temps supportent 
 impati eminent les figures; les symboles leur 
 paraissent des artifices pu6riles. . . .* 
 
 The theoretical character of these passages 
 their prophetic rather than their really descrip 
 tive trend is evident. Tocqueville, too, would 
 not have us think that he means all that he 
 says to apply to the American literature of his 
 day. 
 
 As a matter of fact, he goes so far as to declare, 
 with many others whose writings have been 
 noticed here, that literary America was really 
 English in its traditions. He seems to make the 
 distinction between what we are accustomed to 
 call a " pseudo-literature " -one imperfectly, 
 if at all, representing general contemporary 
 opinion and the real literature of the United 
 States. After stating that the American read 
 ing public generally waits for English judg 
 ments upon an American work before pro 
 nouncing for or against it, he introduces his 
 distinction with the following rather caustic 
 remark, and develops his idea briefly. 
 
 C est ainsi, qu en fait de tableaux on laisse 
 volontiers & Tauteur de Poriginal le droit de 
 juger la copie. , 
 
 Les habitants des Etats-Unis n ont done point 
 encore, & proprement parler, de litterature. Les 
 
 30 DA, vol. Ill, pp. 42-3. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 109 
 
 seuls auteurs que je reconnaisse pour Ameri- 
 cains sont des journalistes. Ceux-ci ne sont pas 
 de grands ecrivains, mais ils parlent la langue 
 du pays et s en font entendre. Je ne vois dans 
 les autres que des etrangers. Ils sont pour les 
 Americains ce que furent pour nous les imita- 
 teurs des Grecs et des Romains a Tepoque de la 
 renaissance des lettres, un objet de curiosite, 
 non de generale sympathie. Ils amusent 1 es- 
 prit, et n agissent point sur les mceurs. 31 
 
 31 DA, vol. Ill, p. 94. As was stated at the beginning of 
 this chapter upon Tocqueville, any commentary upon him with 
 a view to arriving at a fairly definite idea of his sources would 
 be bound to be far longer than the original. And this study is 
 rather an attempt to present in its general lines the French 
 criticism upon our literature, without giving any one critic undue 
 space. It is possible here merely to note in reference to the 
 citation above that Tocqueville, too, believed a literature to 
 be representative only in so far as it was representative of the 
 tendencies that he believed most typical of the nation; the rest 
 was for him a pseudo-literature. Democracies are impatient of 
 forms, therefore the writing according to the model of the 
 English classics was not typical of democracies, but only a 
 temporary phenomenon in American literature. Democracies 
 are above all anxious to express themselves with particular 
 concern for the future; therefore those American writers who 
 chose their scenes in the Europe of long ago, are imitators of 
 British writers who did so, and not typical of America. It 
 would be hard to contest with Tocqueville his position that 
 democracies look to their own future for their best inspiration; 
 nevertheless, one feels that he disposes too summarily of the 
 important fact that past European history made a very strong 
 appeal to the writers of the United States. It might plausibly 
 be maintained that democracy is an impossibility, that men 
 living under that system look back with longing to an age when 
 life was made more simple by an iron-bound division into castes, 
 
110 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 Tocqueville does not think enough has 
 already been said to make this evident that 
 this tardy progress of the United States in 
 literature is due to the equality that was some 
 times given as the cause why Americans did 
 not produce more in that way. He thinks that 
 those who maintain this are only confusing 
 the results of democracy with the results of the 
 conditions that are characteristic of the United 
 States: 
 
 Je ne puis consentir a se*parer TAm^rique de 
 1 Europe, malgr P0ce*an x qui les divise. Je 
 considere le peuple des Etats-Unis comme la 
 portion du peuple anglais charge*e d exploiter 
 les forets du nouveau monde; tandis que le 
 reste de la nation, pourvu de plus de loisirs et 
 moins pre*occupe" des soins mate>iels de la vie, 
 peut se livrer & la pens6e et deVelopper en tous 
 sens Pesprit humain. 32 
 
 This seems to him the natural solution, under 
 the circumstances, whereby the race could best 
 work along the two paths leading to intellectual 
 progress and to material prosperity. 
 
 But the very fact that the United States and 
 England, in the sense especially of having the 
 same language, were only one race divided, was 
 
 and that, democracy being impossible to reconcile with content 
 ment, this will always be characteristic of democratic litera 
 tures. . . . Tocqueville here evidences his predilection in favor 
 of democracy, possibly drawing unjust conclusions. 
 DA, vol. Ill, pp. 60-1. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 111 
 
 an important reason why the United States 
 should be little occupied with literature. The 
 tradition of the language was so intimately 
 identified with literary tradition that it was most 
 natural that the trend of literature should be 
 very slowly diverted so long as the vehicle in 
 the two lands remained the same. 33 
 
 Si les Americains, tout en conservant leur 
 etat social et leurs lois, avaient une autre origine 
 et se trouvaient transporters dans un autre pays, 
 je ne doute point qu ils n eussent une litterature. 
 Tels qu ils sont, je suis assure qu ils finiront par 
 en avoir une. 
 
 Tocqueville s constant comparison of the effect 
 of the democratic form of government upon men, 
 as distinguished from that of the aristocracy, 
 would naturally incline one to think that he 
 puts a very large emphasis upon the political 
 conditions as an influence in forming men. He 
 does; but he realizes that his method of parallel- 
 isni might lead his readers to the opinion that he 
 considered that one influence all-important. It 
 would be an inexact opinion, he says; for 
 although he has almost constantly adduced 
 this as explaining conditions, he recognizes 
 that other elements come into play as well. 
 However, he maintains that the influence of 
 the political constitution is of paramount im 
 portance. 34 
 
 33 DA, vol. Ill, p. 94. 34 Ibid., p. 101. 
 
112 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 He recognizes, too, the impossibility of find 
 ing in reality a democratic state or an aristo 
 cratic state; or even, if found, conditions are 
 always changing, and what would be true of the 
 United States, for example, in one generation, 
 - considering that as the democratic state in 
 its most important manifestation, would be 
 otherwise in the next. In fact, the progress 
 from an aristocracy to a democracy is slow and 
 made by steps that are almost imperceptible. 85 
 
 Dans le passage qui conduit un peuple Iettr6 
 de Tun (e*tat) & Tautre, il survient presque 
 tou jours un moment ou, le ge*nie litte*raire des 
 nations de*mocratiques se recontrant avec celui 
 des aristocraties, tous deux semblent vouloir 
 regner d accord sur Tesprit humain. 
 
 Ce sont la des 6poques passag&res, mais trs 
 brillantes: on a alors la fecondit6 sans exube*- 
 rance, et le mouvement sans confusion. Telle 
 fut la litterature frangaise du dix-huitieme 
 
 It seems from the above, although it would 
 not be safe to infer it, that he did not consider 
 
 88 Here is as good an example as any in proof of Tocqueville s 
 conception of an aristocracy as distinguished from a democracy, 
 and that has already been referred to. (v. p. 84) Although only 
 by inference from the tone of the following passage, it is a sort 
 of proof, as well if particular proofs were needed when the 
 whole " Democratic" may be considered one that he felt that 
 aristocracies were bound to become democracies sooner or later. 
 For the passage of which the following is a part, v. DA, vol. 
 Ill, pp. 100-1. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 113 
 
 the typically democratic state as the one where 
 literature would attain its most complete 
 development. His remarks upon the poetry 
 of a democracy, that have been cited, where 
 he says that its subjects are less numerous, 
 but greater or more comprehensive ("plus 
 vastes," v. p. 98), should perhaps be taken into 
 consideration here to temper such a possible 
 conclusion. 
 
 The excessive tendency toward generaliza 
 tion, the rapidity and consequent carelessness 
 of construction, the contempt for form and for 
 forms that Tocqueville finds typical of demo 
 cratic literatures are thus to be corrected by the 
 contrary influence that he found evident in 
 eighteenth-century French literature. 
 
 But it is only at very rare intervals that such 
 a condition of mutually corrective influences will 
 be found naturally to occur. In a democracy 
 
 . . . je dois m attendre a ne rencontrer . . . 
 qu un petit nombre de . . . conventions rigou- 
 reuses. . . . S il arrivait que les hommes d une 
 poque tombassent d accord sur quelques-unes, 
 cela ne prouverait rien pour 1 epoque suivante; 
 car, chez les nations democratiques, chaque 
 generation nouvelle est un nouveau peuple. 36 
 
 There is, to his mind, an important corrective 
 that it would be well to keep constantly in 
 mind; it is the study of the classical literatures. 
 36 DA, vol. Ill, p. 98. 
 
114 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 For if those writers were lacking in some re 
 spects, they were in others, and precisely in 
 those that American authors would be ex 
 pected to understand the least, most excellent 
 models. 
 
 As early as 1827 the question of the advisa 
 bility of classical studies for a particular pur 
 pose in the United States had been raised in 
 France. In 1827 Asher Ware s " Discourse 
 before the Phi Beta Kappa Society " had been 
 published in Portland. In 1830 it found its 
 way into the hands of a French reviewer. 37 
 
 Le sujet trait par M. Ware est celui-ci: 
 l^tude des orateurs de la Grece et de Rome 
 convient-elle aux citoyens des Etats-Unis? Les 
 rpublicains modernes du Nouveau-Monde trou- 
 veront-ils des modules dans Cic6ron et D6mos- 
 thne? 
 
 The reviewer feels that political conviction 
 should furnish sufficient guidance to the Ameri 
 can orator, and he continues: 
 
 Dans les temps ordinaires, Tart oratoire est 
 fort inutile a une r^publique; il ne doit y etre 
 question que de bons raisonnements. . . . 
 
 It would be difficult to show that eloquence 
 has not in fact given place in some degree to 
 exposition. But the passage was not cited here 
 
 37 "Revue encyclop&lique," vol. XLV (1830), p. 645. Re 
 view signed "N." 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 115 
 
 to be defended or disproved. It is only intended 
 to show the difference between what has the 
 ring of a popular idea and Tocqueville s rather 
 more observant conclusion. For him a democ 
 racy would have defects as well as virtues; the 
 reviewer of 1830 seems to feel, on the contrary, 
 that the consciousness of freedom and, we 
 may suppose, the reasonableness and the dignity 
 of that condition would of itself dictate 
 irrefutable arguments. This is the idealism 
 of inexperience. Tocqueville s language upon 
 this matter it will be the last citation here 
 is worth giving: 38 
 
 ... si les ecrivains y (in antiquity) ont quel- 
 quefois manque de variete et de fecondite dans 
 les sujets, de hardiesse, de mouvement et de 
 generalisation dans la pensee, ils ont toujours 
 fait voir un art et un soin admirables dans les 
 details; . . . tout y est ecrit pour les connais- 
 seurs, et la recherche de la beaute ideale s y 
 moritre sans cesse. . . . 
 
 Le grec et le latin ne doivent pas etre enseignes 
 dans toutes les ecoles; mais il importe que ceux 
 que leur naturel ou leur fortune destine a cultiver 
 les lettres ou predispose a les gouter trouvent des 
 ecoles ou Ton puisse se rendre parfaitement 
 maitre de la litterature antique et de se penetrer 
 de son esprit. . . . Ce n est pas que je considere 
 les productions litteraires des anciens comme 
 irreprochables. . . . Elles nous soutiennent par 
 le bord ou nous penchons. 
 
 38 DA, vol. Ill, p. 105. 
 
116 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 "Par le bord oft nous penchons." ... It is 
 impossible to forget that Tocqueville was speak 
 ing of democracies as he understood the term, 
 and not of America merely. Indeed, giving as 
 he does the impression that he felt the modern 
 world at least France, specifically, among the 
 nations of Europe to be gradually progres 
 sing in the direction of democratic institutions, 
 it is sometimes naturally deduced that his 
 treatment of literature might be intended to 
 apply to nineteenth century literature in 
 general. 
 
 No matter: for whatever his real aim, he 
 was manifestly interested in the United States 
 as the particular basis for the most of his data; 
 and it was doubtless for the sake of understand 
 ing the United States that the greater number 
 of his readers took up the work. And, making 
 all allowance for Madame de Tocqueville s 
 suspicion of the minor popularity of the second 
 part, which has been the subject of the present 
 study, still it is certain that no other work 
 dealing with American literature has had such 
 circulation in France. And, admitting here 
 and applying the thesis of Tocqueville that 
 in democracies (if not everywhere) there is the 
 love of generalization, of arriving immediately, 
 without verification through careful detailed 
 study, at certain broad and therefore always 
 handy opinions, one may suppose that his book 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 117 
 
 served more than any other criticism I should 
 be tempted to say, more than the reading of 
 American works themselves to form French 
 opinion about American letters. Whether it did 
 or not, may perhaps appear to some degree in 
 the pages to follow. 
 
V 
 
 PHILARETE CHASLES 
 
 THE year that saw the publication of the 
 first part of Tocqueville s "Democratic en 
 Ame rique" produced another work, shorter and 
 of another order of merit, but more closely 
 related than Tocqueville s considerations upon 
 the political aspects of democracy to the sub 
 ject in hand to literature. The work re 
 ferred to is Philarete Chasles article in the 
 "Revue des deux Mondes." 1 "De la Litte*ra- 
 ture dans l Ame*rique du Nord," an essay that 
 was to be followed very frequently by others 
 upon the same subject during practically the 
 whole life of the author. His last work, "De la 
 Psychologic sociale des nouveaux peuples," was 
 published in 1875, two years after his death. 
 
 It would be unfair to both, and it is unneces 
 sary, to compare Chasles with Tocqueville. 
 And indeed it is of only incidental concern 
 here to determine their relative permanent 
 worth; what is more immediately important 
 is to learn their influence in directing contem 
 porary thought upon American literature. And 
 
 1 4e s4rie, vol. 3, 1835, pp. 169-202. 
 118 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 119 
 
 it may be said at once that the question is one 
 of the most complicated, and, on account of 
 lack of documents, not possible to determine 
 fully. Such questions are never very tangible, 
 but in this case what appears a surprising lack 
 of criticism upon Tocqueville, and the fact that 
 Chasles work generally appeared in reviews, is 
 a circumstance that leaves the matter insoluble 
 except in connection with a general outline of 
 what afterward developed in this particular field 
 of criticism. 
 
 In this study Tocqueville was considered 
 before Chasles; but as a matter of fact, so far 
 as special consideration of literature is con 
 cerned, Chasles preceded Tocqueville, since 
 the study in the " Revue des deux Mondes" is 
 of 1835, and the second part of the "Democratic 
 en Amerique" that containing the chapters 
 on the intellectual life did not appear until 
 1840. But Tocqueville lives as the author of 
 the "Democratic en Amrique," and Chasles 
 as a general literary critic whose activity con 
 tinued for a quarter-century after Tocqueville s 
 masterpiece was concluded. 
 
 Although, as was mentioned, the two writers 
 are unlike, and not to be judged by the same 
 criteria; although the close, logical trend of 
 Tocqueville s deductions, founded upon an 
 understanding of principles that seems some 
 times like instinct; although his restrained 
 
120 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 manner all contrast strongly with Chasles 
 exuberance and somewhat hasarded conclusions, 
 still there is often in Chasles a kind of enthu 
 siasm in the logical handling of his material that 
 makes one feel that, as in the case of Tocque- 
 ville, it is not mere knowledge, but rather the 
 interpretation of facts, that he feels to be the 
 chief end in literary studies. 2 
 
 Facts, however, for Tocqueville, were generali 
 zations, from which he deduced, by applying 
 his conception of the action of the democratic 
 principle, still other generalizations; facts are 
 in no case or rarely separately considered. 
 Chasles, on the contrary, is not only well in 
 formed upon matters of detail, he is said, 
 during a stay in England, to have acquired a 
 thorough knowledge of English, but he uses 
 these particulars of information constantly. 
 The distinction between Tocqueville and Chasles 
 is thus, after all, fundamental; "La Democratic 
 en Am6rique" bears much the relation to 
 Chasles studies that the abstract does to the 
 
 2 Gabriel Monod, writing of Albert Sorel in the "Revue 
 historique," in 1906 (vol. 94, sept.-dSc., p. 91), says: "Albert 
 Sorel e"tait le dernier des grands historiens ge ne ralisateurs, 
 narrateurs, peintres et psychologues du XIXe siecle. II elait 
 de la ligne*e d Augustin Thierry, Thiers, Mignet, Michelet, 
 Guizot, Tocqueville, Renan, Taine, Fustel de Coulanges. ..." 
 Chasles was certainly of the same school, if one school can be 
 conceived to contain writers as diverse as Thierry, Renan, and 
 Tocqueville. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 121 
 
 concrete; the methods of dealing with these 
 two categories will be different, the first being 
 that of exposition, and logical, and the second 
 descriptive. 
 
 Chasles, like his contemporary J-J Ampere, 
 was a free lance in criticism; his curiosity ranged 
 from antiquity down, through all the great lit 
 eratures of Europe, with excursions from time 
 to time into philology, into historical erudition. 
 So great versatility, creeping into his judgments, 
 gives them a certain balance and power that 
 at least in studies upon American literature it 
 seems no literary critic closely restricting him 
 self could attain; on the other hand it implies 
 a rapidity of workmanship that will frequently 
 leave but a crumbling structure. Sainte-Beuve 
 speaks of him as a " critique erudit" 3 and in 
 his study upon Loeve-Veimars 4 he gives the 
 following estimate of him: 
 
 . . . C est la tout un cote de la critique actu- 
 elle, de la mauvaise critique; mais hors de 
 celle-la, en face ou pele-mele, il y a la bonne, il 
 y a celle des esprits justes, fins, peu enthousi- 
 astes, nourris d etudes comparees, doues de 
 plus ou moins de verve ou d ame, et consentant 
 a ecrire leurs judgments a peu pres dans la 
 
 3 "Portraits contemp.," vol. II, p. 250 (Calmann-LeVy), in 
 connection with Jules Lefevre. 
 
 4 "Prem. lundis," vol. II, pp. 202-3 (nouvelle Edition Cal- 
 mann-LeVy). 
 
122 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 mesure ou ils les sentent. Cette espece de 
 critique est le refuge de quelques hommes dis- 
 tingue"s qui ne se croient pas de grands hommes, 
 comme c est trop 1 usage de chaque commengant 
 aujourd hui; qui ne me*connaissent pas leur 
 e*poque, sans pour cela Tadorer; qui, en se 
 permettant eux-memes des essais d art, de 
 courtes et vives inventions, ne s en exagerent 
 pas la porte*e. . . . Parmi les hommes assez 
 rares de cette nature, nous ne pouvons pas ne 
 pas mentionner M. Chasles. . . . 
 
 As far back as 1819 Chasles had begun to 
 write in English, 5 and in 1823 there was pub 
 lished a collection of studies upon contemporary 
 English poets that had appeared in the " Revue 
 ency elope* dique," and that bore the title "Coup 
 d ceil sur les pofrtes anglais vivants." 
 
 We can attribute it to what we will, to this 
 good foundation for a real appreciation of the 
 bearing of English literature upon American, 
 or to a conviction that may have forced itself 
 upon him as we can only wonder that it had 
 not already forced itself more generally than 
 seems to have been the case upon French 
 critics that identity of language makes for 
 identity, or similarity, of sympathy, in litera 
 ture as well as elsewhere; in any case, in the 
 
 6 A convenient bibliography of Chasles writings published 
 in book form is to be found in Thieme: "Guide bibliographique 
 de la literature frangaise de 1800 a 1906." (Paris, Welter, 
 1907.) 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 123 
 
 article in the " Revue des deux Mondes" of 
 1835, he says that " twenty wars of indepen 
 dence would not keep the United States from 
 remaining English and Puritan/ 6 And he 
 goes on, insisting that the United States have 
 had no literature that was not English, lit 
 erature, that is, of excellence: Cooper follows 
 Scott, Irving copies Addison. The fact has 
 frequently, if not always, been recognized; but 
 the difference between Chasles and those who 
 had written before him lies in the acceptance 
 of the fact, which he considers an inevitable 
 result of circumstances, not to be combated,, 
 since the causes cannot be changed. 
 
 But there is another reason why the United 
 States had, so far, no national literature; 
 he maintains and this in spite of all the 
 fine theorizing about forests, boundless plains,, 
 democracy he maintains, that "the United 
 States are not a society !" Their original popu 
 lation was a band of people seeking freedom of 
 faith; but bands of adventurers came likewise,, 
 seeking other freedom. The original popula 
 tion of the land disappeared, leaving a conglom 
 eration of the most various elements. And the 
 indigenous character disappearing, nothing that 
 could be said to constitute a unity among the 
 whole body of the new inhabitants came into 
 
 6 "Rev. des deux Mondes," 1835, 4e se>ie, vol. Ill, p. 169. 
 
124 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 existence to supply the place of what had been 
 lost. 
 
 D abord les indigenes s an^antissent, et avec 
 eux cet ordre particulier d id^es et de sen 
 timents, qui nait de I affimte* d une classe 
 d hommes avec un sol et un climat, et imprime 
 aux mceurs, aux lois, a la parole, un caractere 
 ineffagable. . . . Les sauvages fuyant de foret 
 en foret charge s des os de leurs peres et disant 
 adieu & leur sol ... emportent avec eux la 
 poesie ame*ricaine ... et ... les bticherons, les 
 serruriers, les menuisiers, qui vont leur succ6der, 
 n auront aucune inspiration a transmettre aux 
 generations futures. 
 
 The passage seems worth citing, since it rep 
 resents both the power and the weakness of 
 Chasles criticism. We have frequently met this 
 idea of American poetry being, as the product 
 of the American soil, the particular character 
 istic of the Indians. But heretofore the writers 
 upon the subject had not taken the pains to 
 distinguish between a character, a sentiment, 
 and its expression. And the sentiment, after 
 all, was the personal one, the sentiment of 
 the European; we may even say, at that, the 
 sentiment of the European of Europe rather 
 than of the European of America, who had 
 doubtless too many recollections, in the eigh 
 teenth and first quarter of the nineteenth cen 
 tury, of the harrowing details of conquest and 
 defeat to feel that detached sympathy I 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 125 
 
 mean the distance that permits of idealization 
 necessary to a complete poetic expression 
 of the American Land. 
 
 Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor d mind 
 Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the 
 wind: . . . 
 
 That was what the Indian amounted to in 
 the mind of Pope safely ensconced in England, 
 that was about what the "good savage " of a 
 later French generation was going to be made 
 to appear. It may be poetry or not, according 
 to whether a poet or a poetaster deals with the 
 idea; but it is certain that there is one thing 
 it is not: it is not the expression of the new 
 America. And there Chasles distinguishes him 
 self from his predecessors: he does not expect, 
 he does not claim to suppose, that some magic 
 in the air of the New World was going to change 
 every stern Puritan and every greedy adven 
 turer into a new and strange sort of poet. His 
 love of brilliant conclusions however, of the 
 general, in which he resembles, without equal 
 ling Tocqueville, leads him into an unhappy 
 characterization of the American population: 
 he seems to imply, and we shall find the same 
 idea frequently in him, that all in the United 
 States that was not Puritan was industrial or 
 commercial. The population might, indeed, be 
 both the one and the other, but the general 
 
126 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 trend of his argument would go to show that 
 he felt there were no other prevalent ideals. 
 It will readily become evident that here is a far 
 cry from that older conception that American 
 poetry might be considered the daughter of 
 liberty. Apropos, what has remained the key 
 note of the American spirit: the democratic or 
 the commercial ideal, so far as the two are 
 separable? 
 
 But Puritanism, for Chasles, was not, in the 
 numerous manifestations of the protestant sects, 
 analagous to Catholicism in its influence upon 
 the nation that had adopted it. 
 
 Quand les hommes croient comme un seul 
 homme, ce magnifique concert achve de les 
 rendre frres . . . et si quelque ame, marquee 
 secretement de ce sacerdoce qu on nomme po6sie, 
 vient a entendre ce grand murmure d un peuple 
 qui cause avec Dieu, elle chante alors . . . elle 
 laisse a son siecle et a tous les siecles un chef- 
 d oeuvre national. 
 
 Le protestantisme amricain tait autre 
 chose. . . . Les croyances parpille*es r^duisai- 
 ent a rien les hautes sympathies, sans lesquelles 
 la posie est impossible. Le po&te est par 
 essence Thomme de tous, et quand tous sont 
 isole"s, que devient sa mission? 
 
 L Am6rique ne pouvait done avoir son po6te, 
 elle n avait point une nation a lui donner, ni 
 un culte, ni une patrie; elle ne pre*sentait & 
 son esprit nulle grande et mysterieuse unite", 
 qu il embrassat sans effort et avec laquelle il 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 127 
 
 melat son individuality propre; la socie*te ameri- 
 caine n etait pas nee, elle ne Test pas encore. 
 
 Or, qui n a point de poe*sie nationale, ne peut 
 avoir de litter ature nationale. La poesie est a 
 la litterature ce que 1 accent est a la parole, 
 Tame au corps, et Dieu a Tame. . . . 
 
 Probably there is little that is very sound in 
 all this, but much that is true, if only as a cor 
 rective to what we have seen; and finally, 
 there is abounding charm and beauty in his 
 phrases. And is this charm, is this beauty, of 
 small importance in a consideration of the 
 French criticism of American literature? There 
 had been relatively little good writing upon the 
 subject heretofore in France and when those 
 characteristics are uniformly lacking in a body 
 of French prose, one may justly feel that the 
 matter must indeed be of very small importance 
 in that nation, where prose is so uniformly 
 charming. Its presence indicates an interest 
 sufficient to induce men of merit enough to 
 make themselves heard upon questions presum 
 ably more immediately important to the French 
 public, to devote their attention to these studies. 
 But, although Puritanism divided into many 
 forms mutually unsympathetic, it nevertheless 
 remained, by the spirit of restraint that char 
 acterized it, a most powerful influence in Ameri 
 can thought. It hindered the poetic expression, 
 but it fostered a spirit of practicality, a sort of 
 
128 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 prosaic genius, it seems Chasles had in mind, 
 as the opposite of inspiration. And he cites 
 Franklin and Washington as the types of this 
 sort of mind. "De tels modules, he says, feront 
 d excellents citoyens, jamais des artistes." 
 
 It was not protestantism, as Chasles under 
 stood the word in 1835 it was not protestant 
 ism alone that favored the practical and the 
 prosaic in the United States. He does not con 
 fuse the American democracy with those of an 
 tiquity, as had always been so readily done 
 not in France only. 
 
 On ne peut comparer cet essai ph6nom6nal, 
 les Etats-Unis, aux r^publiques anciennes, san- 
 glantes aristocraties portes sur leur char de 
 triomphe par des foules de bipdes rampants. 
 Ici, pour la premiere fois, les masses domi- 
 nent. . . . Veut-on un success? il faut le leur 
 demander. . . . 
 
 The mind, to be heard, must be the practical 
 mind; and ridicule will be the reward of him 
 who gives his attention to poetry. Perfection 
 in workmanship, originality, forms, all these are 
 of no import; the democratic mind, so far as 
 literature is concerned, will try to produce the 
 popular sort; and the popular literature is the 
 literature of periodicals, and especially of daily 
 papers; neither is it those of a high character: 
 it is a fawning, blackguard press that Chasles 
 has in mind: "elle prendra les vices des laquais, 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 129 
 
 he says: elle sera menteuse, calomniatrice, adu- 
 latrice, et pillarde; elle ne sera plus que la ser- 
 vante salariee du bien-etre materiel." 
 
 But at its best, that is, even when upright, 
 these beginnings of American literature remain 
 prosaic. Chasles accords to Franklin certain 
 literary qualities; but Franklin, unfortunately 
 for his renown among Chasles readers, "a rime 
 quelques vers . . . qui peuvent se classer, pour 
 la force poetique, tout aupres des Quatrains du 
 sieur de Pybrac. " Which is as good as saying 
 that Chasles, for one, had not been deeply 
 affected by Franklin s efforts in that direction. 
 
 But there are circumstances in the life of 
 Americans that should make for poetic expres 
 sion: religious " revivals," he says "sont terribles 
 et grandioses," and the descendants of the 
 generation of 1835 would recognize the poetry 
 in such manifestations. The hard existence of 
 the farmer, the bloody struggles of the hunter 
 and the savage, these are the real source of 
 American native poetry, and will one day be 
 recognized as such; but now, again, civilized 
 America despises such themes. So much for 
 the future, when, we may infer, although it is 
 not clearly stated that this is exactly Chasles 7 
 thought, so much for the day when the distance 
 of time separating the event from its poetic 
 expression will give room for the proper, or at 
 any rate the necessary, idealization. 
 
130 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 For the present, there is too little hardship in 
 the United States of that hopeless, inactive 
 nature that breeds a spirit of melancholy or of 
 revolt, and makes for poetry; too few, if any, 
 of those great national disappointments that 
 make the noble idealist seek a refuge in the 
 solitude of his own heart. 
 
 Not, however, that there are not plenty of 
 poets. He mentions Hopkins, Dwight, Barlow, 
 Humphreys, Trumbull, Freneau, Servell, Linn, 
 Lathrop, Prentiss, Boyd, Clifton, Isaac Story, 
 Allen Osborne, Spence, Braynard . . . "en effet," 
 he says, "voila beaucoup de gens qui font des 
 vers." The most of them imitate Hemans, 
 whose voice, "timid and sweet," chimes well 
 with the scrupulous morality of modern 
 Americans. 
 
 He finds a few names, however, that merit a 
 certain praise: P. M. Wetmore, Samuel Wood- 
 worth, John Neal, James Nack, Edward Pinck- 
 ney, Braynard, George Washington Doane, 
 Longfellow, N. P. Willis, Sprague, John Pier- 
 pont, Lydia Sigourney, "la seconde mistress 
 Hemans," Rodman Drake, Fitz-Greene Halleck. 
 But he makes the remark, doubtless quite exact, 
 that poetry is not a profession in the United 
 States; after each of the above names, he gives 
 the profession or business of the writer, and 
 frequently enough he finds occasion to remark 
 upon their material prosperity, the inference 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 131 
 
 being, that poetry is here the diversion of dilet 
 tanti, and not the cry of the soul that demands 
 expression in the face of all hardship: conse 
 quently, that it is neither original nor profound. 
 And indeed, he says almost as much: "en 
 general, tous ces poetes se ressemblent, 1 indi- 
 vidualite leur manque/ 
 
 There is a third category of American poets, 
 a very small one of three members, that he 
 places above the poetasters and above the 
 poets who appear to him to lack the conviction 
 that for us, as well as for him, is the soul of and 
 the excuse for poetry. 
 
 Trois poetes, Bryant, Percival et Dana sont 
 dignes d etre mentionnes. Le sentiment moral 
 est profond et chaste chez Bryant. . . . James 
 G. Percival, avec plus d inegalites, a peut-etre 
 plus de genie . . . quelques-uns des morceaux 
 sortis de sa plume annoncent qu il se serait 
 eleve jusqu a la passion, si la passion pouvait 
 fleurir en Amerique. Enfin, George Dana . . . 
 s est habilement mode!6 sur le type de Words 
 worth. . . . 
 
 But with all that, American literature is 
 empty: and Chasles formulates the error of 
 the American writers. They have made the 
 fundamental mistake of taking "words for 
 ideas, and forms for feeling." Everywhere in 
 American poetry one finds the echo of some 
 image or of some sentiment that is essentially 
 
132 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 European: the lark sings for American poets, 
 but " unfortunately the lark does not sing in 
 America. " 
 
 Une teinte pale et morne se re*pand sur la 
 poesie. Sa douce monotonie fatigue 1 oreille, sa 
 langueur inanime*e assoupit Tame en la bergant 
 de pense*es plus communes que m61ancoliques. 
 Chaque vers semble un e*cho affaibli de quelque 
 poesie e*trangere, chaque ide*e, un souvenir 
 emprunte* a la vieille Europe. 
 
 So much for poetry in the United States. It 
 would appear that historiography might have 
 had a better fate in a land whose traditions were 
 political, and which had as its particular dis 
 tinction in the eyes of other nations its form 
 of government. So it would appear to Chasles, 
 as well. But in 1835 he does not find that the 
 results had met these legitimate expectations. 
 And he attributes the cause of this failure to 
 the " spirit of mercantile exactness. " One may 
 say, in passing, that this is rather a new theory 
 of what we are accustomed to call " German " 
 research, when we speak of that which is done 
 without regard to its significance in relation to 
 other things the cult of careful method, the 
 art for art s sake, as it were, of research. Pos 
 sibly there is inexactness here of the sort 
 that was rather typical of Chasles, with all his 
 good points, when he saw the chance to draw an 
 apt conclusion. Commercial exactness, that 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 133 
 
 was exactly what one would desire to find in 
 almost anything American, but as a matter of 
 fact, has the interest in knowledge for its own 
 sake, apart from its philosophical import, ever 
 had anything particularly in common with 
 commercialism: from the mediaeval annalists 
 to the modern methodologists in research 
 through all the forms and shades that erudition 
 has taken on, is there anything in common 
 between this ideal of knowledge and the strict 
 accountancy, apart from any shade of an ideal 
 whatsoever, that is governed by commercial 
 necessity? And even if research is frequently 
 nothing but the evidence of a curiosity for facts, 
 still that too has nothing in common with com 
 mercialism. The trait so general among French 
 critics of our literature not to go out of the 
 realm of the matter being considered here 
 one may say the mania, almost, for apt generali 
 zations, for conclusions that seem plausible, is 
 thus as typical of Chasles as of those many 
 others far less informed than he certainly was 
 about the United States and things American. 
 
 He particularly mentions Jared Sparks and 
 Bancroft, not, indeed, as being upon the same 
 plane, for he considers Bancroft superior both 
 on account of his great erudition and on account 
 of his care in research. Sparks is a clear writer, 
 and painstaking in his investigations. But in 
 the case of neither is there any movement, any 
 
134 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 unity in the details that goes to build up a real 
 structure with a meaning. And he does not 
 neglect to complain of their weakness of phrase, 
 their lack of color and life. "Toujours une main 
 incertaine, tremblante; une forme lache*e, molle, 
 et prolixe; toujours des documents pour Phis- 
 toire, jamais d histoire." 
 
 In Europe, three American writers are par 
 ticularly well known : Irving, Cooper, and Chan- 
 ning, of whom he speaks but briefly, since public 
 opinion in France had long since decided upon 
 the place these writers were to occupy there. 
 "It would be unjust, he adds, not to add to their 
 number Jonathan Edwards, a metaphysician of 
 the Scotch school." The phrase is of doubtful 
 meaning, in this connection; probably Chasles 
 felt merely that Jonathan Edwards merited a 
 more general recognition. 
 
 But it is Irving and Cooper who really rep 
 resent to France, to Europe, he says the 
 intellectual life of the United States. The Eng 
 lish include two other writers, Charles Brockden 
 Brown and Miss Sedgwick, the author of "Hope 
 Leslie. " We have seen that both these writers 
 were also known in France, but to a relatively 
 slight degree. Cooper is, however, after all, the 
 only author of American life: "Seul, et que cet 
 honneur lui soit rendu, il a su choisir le cote* 
 saisissant de la vie amricaine." 
 
 It seems, then, that he considered the novel, 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 135 
 
 so far as there was any real expression of America 
 in American literature, to be that form that con 
 tained the greatest portion of the native char 
 acter. Paulding s " Dutchman s Fireside " gives, 
 to an even greater degree than Irving s works of 
 American life had done, a convincing picture of 
 the American home, to the formation of which 
 he considers Scotland and Holland countries 
 where the domestic virtues are a more than 
 usually important trait of national character 
 - to have contributed in a very great degree. 
 The idea of the expression of America in 
 American literature was mentioned: Chasles 
 considers that this expression of America is 
 found not alone in American literature per 
 haps above all not in American literature. 
 He characterizes the American as a a half- 
 civilization. n Granted the premise, it is not 
 difficult to see where he would go to seek the 
 expression of it: in Audubon, in whose great 
 work upon American birds the forests live again, 
 in Chateaubriand, in Campbell s " Gertrude of 
 Wyoming." ... Is it necessary to insist? Was 
 not America the land of the European immigrant 
 or of his descendants, is not the expression of 
 the social life of a people more likely to be its 
 true literature than the expression of a volun 
 tary denaturization of that life to fit some pre 
 conception of it is likely to be? The French 
 were seeking what they desired should exist in 
 
136 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 American literature; finding the facts contrary 
 to their expectation, they were willing to accept 
 the interpretation of Frenchmen, of Englishmen, 
 and of American naturalists. 
 
 It might be a study worth while making in 
 this connection, to try to determine in some 
 measure what the effects of environment upon 
 literary expression might be shown to be- 
 provided anything at all conclusive could be 
 advanced upon the general principles governing 
 such development. It would seem, at any rate, 
 that Chasles was right in his remark about the 
 " particular order of ideas and of sentiments 
 that is born of the affinity of a class of men 
 with a soil and a climate, and that stamps upon 
 customs, laws, and speech an indelible char 
 acter. " The Russian literature, for example, 
 which, in its affiliation with the forms of Europe, 
 is, after all, hardly older than the American, is 
 nevertheless formed, and was so at the epoch 
 at which Chasles was writing; and why, if not 
 because of the very relationship of a race with 
 a soil, of which he speaks? A relationship 
 which, however, had existed for centuries, and 
 ended at last the slow process of the formation 
 of the national soul the word is as good as 
 another. ... Or if it did not end, for such 
 processes do not end, it had at least arrived at 
 the point where the race might be said to have 
 distinct positive mental characteristics. The 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 137 
 
 American literature showed, relatively to others, 
 as the French were doubtless right in maintain 
 ing, rather negative characteristics and the 
 most striking, that of imitation. And the 
 strange fact in this criticism of Chasles is that, 
 realizing keenly as he did the importance of 
 these facts, realizing, surely, that racial, or 
 national characteristics are not formed in a few 
 years after the new inhabitants people the land, 
 but only after a much longer period, perhaps 
 many centuries, that he should have expected 
 a national expression in the sense of those of 
 the European nations. What he expected, what 
 he was looking for, could only be one thing: 
 the expression of American nature, an Ameri 
 can land peopled with half-civilized beings, 
 as he says, but, and he does not insist 
 enough upon this, with Europeans who had 
 recently lost their own, their racial civilization, 
 without, consequently, having as yet been able 
 to develop those thoroughgoing qualities that 
 are accounted characteristics of a new race. 
 
 He begins his essay with the assertion that 
 American society does not yet exist, that con 
 sequently there can be no American literature: 
 he concludes by saying precisely the opposite: 
 
 ... la societe americaine existe, et n a pas 
 de poesie originale. C est une litterature de 
 reflet; un tel malheur n tait arrive a aucun 
 peuple. ... La nouveaute inouie de cette civi- 
 
138 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 lisation doit aj outer & la nouveaut6 de ces ca- 
 ract&res . . . [he had spoken of the wealth and 
 interests that should produce complex char 
 acters), et cependant la Muse ne se montre pas, 
 et Tinspiration n est pas n6e! 
 
 The essay is faulty in general plan, for Chasles 
 does not leave his reader a clear idea as to just 
 what he considered might be legitimately ex 
 pected in American literature, but is the most 
 complete and suggestive essay that had appeared 
 upon the subject. 
 
 So long an analysis of this first essay of 
 Chasles seems justified, given its importance as 
 concerns the whole body of the French criticism 
 of our literature, and since he states in it his 
 general point of view perhaps better than in 
 any other single article of his. But, as was said, 
 his interest in the subject, although he appears 
 to have felt that he was wandering on arid 
 ground, continued to the time of his death in 
 1873. For although he was not always satis 
 fied was rarely satisfied with the authors of 
 whom he wrote, the problem that presented itself 
 to his mind in the study of American literature 
 was one of absorbing interest: there had come 
 into existence a new nation; there was to develop 
 a new people. The phenomenon, on such a scale 
 as it could be witnessed in the United States, 
 was unique in history. One can understand his 
 interest; but it is less easy to understand why, 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 139 
 
 in that generalizing epoch of criticism, as it has 
 sometimes been called, there were so few others 
 who treated of the subject. The purely polit 
 ical aspect of the United States would naturally 
 be the most tangible side, as it were, of the ques 
 tion, and we find in that field no end of writ 
 ings of interest. But the literature, as the 
 expression of the people ... it was simply 
 neglected, so far as serious study goes; Chasles, 
 with all his hasty work, is one of its most atten 
 tive students, and one of the most genuinely 
 interested, if the duration of the interest proves 
 that it was deeply rooted in him. And his last 
 work, as was mentioned, "La Psychologie sociale 
 des nouveaux peuples," must in large part have 
 been the crystallization of those very studies. 
 However, "La Psychologie sociale des nouveaux 
 peuples" treats more incidentally than one 
 would expect, judging from the character of his 
 previous work, of the literary manifestations. 
 
 The collection of articles, then, known as 
 "Etudes sur la litterature et les mceurs des 
 Anglo-Americains au XIX e siecle," published 
 in 1851, resumes his work up to that date, and 
 one finds in it the substance of articles not 
 included under the same titles. 7 
 
 7 The "Etudes" were published in Paris, by Amyot, without 
 date, but the preface is signed, "Institut, Paris, 1851." 
 
 The article referred to is "Des Tendances litte"raires en 
 Angleterre et en Ame>ique" in the "Rev. des deux Mondes," 
 nouv. se>., vol. VII, 1844, p. 497. 
 
140 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 The chapters that compose this book, or 
 rather the separate essays, for he does not 
 attempt to make any other unity than that of 
 subject out of them, bear the following titles: 
 "Les Puritains," " Literature des fitats-Unis," 
 "Posie de la vengeance," "Romanciers anglo- 
 ame*ricains," "Poetes anglo-ame*ricains," " Le 
 Marchand d horloges, " " La jeune Acadienne," 
 "Un Incident de la Guerre de l indpendance," 
 "Avenir des fitats-Unis." To take up these 
 essays one after the other, and make of each a 
 complete analysis such as that of his article of 
 1835, would be a long and unnecessary proceed 
 ing, since the intention is here rather to establish 
 what were the general theories and ideas about 
 American literature, than to report all that has 
 been said upon the subject in France. What 
 ever, then, in this series, that throws further 
 light upon his ideas will be selected, and the 
 detailed study of particular writers omitted, so 
 far as it does not aid to a more complete under 
 standing of him than we already have. 
 
 And in this study, it will not do to take a 
 given statement as of very great importance in 
 determining Chasles point of view, for, as has 
 already been noticed, he is not unlikely to be 
 guilty of a seeming contradiction afterward. 
 He would not have used the word "guilty," 
 and perhaps we should not, as he is aware of 
 his characteristic, and explains it at the very 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 141 
 
 beginning of his book, in the preface, as the 
 inevitable one of such discussions; we may 
 blame him, perhaps, for not trying to conciliate 
 his varying opinions; where he did not, it will 
 be necessary to attempt it here, if he is to be 
 rightly understood. 
 
 Involuntarily, on account of the very nature 
 of his research, the European who studies our 
 literature seeks to find in it something that is 
 distinctive, the key-note, as is said and so 
 far so good; yet he incurs the danger of unduly 
 accentuating some character that appears in 
 dividual, but that upon further study would 
 perhaps turn out to be only a slight departure, 
 after all, from what might be found elsewhere if 
 sought for. Chasles himself is caught in this 
 pitfall more than once; but he has the ability 
 to see more than one characteristic and so in 
 a way he redeems himself. 
 
 La France de Mirabeau et de Voltaire cherche 
 a se retrouver dans la republique nouvelle, 
 sortie des mains de Locke et de Washington. 8 
 La plupart de nos defauts sont americains. 
 Dans ce pays comme chez nous les paroles sont 
 larges et les phrases sont grandes. Nous ap- 
 pelons un apothicaire " pharmacien " ; nous 
 n avons plus d epiciers; sur un criteau rouge, 
 on lit en caracteres jaunes " Commerce universe! 
 des denrees coloniales." Les Americains comp- 
 
 8 "fitudes," p. 245. Hereafter the intial fi will be used to 
 distinguish this volume. 
 
142 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 tent, ainsi que nous, deux ou trois mille g6nies 
 en prose et en vers; comme nous, ils parlent 
 avec orgueil de leurs " trois cents meilleurs 
 poetes." . . . . (15, 249) 
 
 The lines are irresistible, and the author of 
 them could doubtless not help writing them. 
 We have seen that although at one time France 
 had indeed felt a certain inclination toward the 
 United States on account of the similarity of 
 political ideal, the tendency waned rapidly, in 
 the manifestations that have been studied here, 
 in favor of a conception of America as the type 
 of the industrial nation. Hyperbole and sound 
 ing phrases for the meanest ideas were indeed 
 prevalent here but does his comparison hold? 
 He would not have maintained that it did, 
 probably, to the prejudice of other generaliza 
 tions that would later attract him. We have 
 the following, at any rate, to qualify what has 
 just been read: 9 
 
 II semble difficile aujourd hui d isoler la lit- 
 trature d un peuple et de la soumettre & 
 une analyse sp^ciale. . . . Londres, Paris, Java, 
 Surinam, Pittsburgh et Halifax donnent les 
 memes fruits, d une saveur fade et aigrelette 
 . . . comme ces liqueurs qui ne font pas faire 
 de folies, qui abreuvent sans danger et coutent 
 peu. Les originalite*s tranches, les livres qui 
 
 9 In the article "Des Tendances litte>aires en Angleterre et 
 en Amerique" in the "Rev. des deux Mondes" for August, 
 1844, p. 497. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 143 
 
 ressortent du caractere intime et special de 
 Fecrivain, disparaissent chaque jour. Je ne 
 vois en Ame"rique que le philosophe Emerson 
 et en Angleterre Carlyle, qui se detachent de 
 la masse. . . . 
 
 One might have asked, if a given generation 
 formerly was accustomed to produce many more 
 of the strength of Emerson and Carlyle; or 
 again, whether those two were, after all, the 
 sum of independence in literary expression at 
 that time. The thesis, so far as that goes, 
 would perhaps prove indefensible. But one is 
 glad that he expressed the idea, as it tells us at 
 least in some measure how to take the previous 
 one; and so on. ... A final prediction: 
 
 Ce que FAmerique deviendra, je Fai demontre 
 dans tous les chapitres ,de ce volume; une 
 Europe agrandie. ... (E, p. 504) 
 
 seems much better hit upon. Only, he had not 
 precisely demonstrated the probability of it in 
 every chapter. . . . And there are other dicta 
 that are profound and just, so founded upon 
 observation of typical human nature that no 
 one who would give himself the pains to reflect 
 upon ordinary experience would be disposed to 
 question them: 
 
 Notre monde vieilli qui cherche a se rajeunir 
 se rapproche, ne*cessairement, par Fintention du 
 moins, de ce monde jeune et & peine forme* qui 
 voudrait se donner pour accompli. (E, p. 245) 
 
144 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 To just what degree the above is true, or 
 inexact, is beside the point; with the remark he 
 makes plain not only the reason for the Ameri 
 can love of everything European in literature, 
 but also the point of view, the preconception of 
 the European studying our literature and insti 
 tutions. It was on each side the ideal not 
 meeting the reality of things, and a consequent 
 search for the opposite of the reality of sur 
 roundings that in each case might be partly 
 realized abroad. 
 
 And realizing the fact, he does not hesitate 
 to fall into the error. One more passage, the 
 length of which will be palliated, not only 
 because of its interest, but because it is alive 
 and has the author s charm of style: 10 
 
 Quelle nouveaute* dans le monde et dans Phis- 
 toire, par exemple, que le ge*nie ame*ricairi mo- 
 derne? Quoi de moins id6al en apparence? Quoi 
 de moins litt^raire? Ce g6nie n est point 
 aimable. II n est point de*sintresse*. II s assied 
 sur des balles de coton, brandit un revolver, 
 voyage de 1 Est a TOuest, comme le boulet, 
 sans regarder; il a des vertus, mais e*bauche*es, 
 violentes, turbulentes, furieuses, farouches, sou- 
 
 10 It is from the "Psychologic sociale des nouveaux peuples," 
 pp. 95-6-7, but would seem to have been written some years 
 before the date of the publication of the work, since the author 
 speaks of the Ku-Klux-Klan as existing. Nevertheless it is 
 one of his final conclusions. We may expect that he would 
 have corrected it with others had he lived longer; he never keeps 
 his conclusions long. 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 145 
 
 vent grossieres. II n est pas homogene. Puri- 
 tain d origine, avec un souvenir des cavaliers 
 royalistes de Charles I er , Quaker a Philadelphie, 
 Chinois et Japonais du cote de la Sierra Nevada, 
 polygame pres du Lac Sale, mystique avec les 
 trappistes et les spiritistes, il a cree une secte 
 actuelle, celle du Ku-klux-klan, qui professe 
 1 assassinat comme les Thugs ou comme les 
 sectateurs du Vieux de la Montagne. Cepen- 
 dant FAmericain adore Franklin et fete Wash 
 ington. Point d unite. Des Elements epars et 
 contraires, des populations infmiment variees 
 qui ne se heurtent pas, parce que Tespace est 
 trop vaste. Partout, depuis Terre-Neuve jusqu a 
 Sacramento, ambition, besoin d arriver, ardeur 
 a conquerir la nature, mepris de la vie, un 
 mepris grandiose; ici, la barbarie sombre; la, 
 une civilisation poursuivie avec acharnement; 
 Thomme, redevenu presque primitif ; une affinite 
 violente avec la vie sauvage, avec les bois, les 
 forets, les animaux, la mer, les montagnes, le 
 desert; un grand bonheur a poursuivre 1 aven- 
 ture partout, a risquer sa vie, sa fortune, a 
 braver TEurope, a etonner les monarchies et le 
 Sud-Americain, a narguer les vieux Anglo- 
 Saxons, les oncles et les peres; quelque chose du 
 parvenu; mais du parvenu heroi que; le dedain 
 de tout ce qui est repos; rien de casanier et 
 accroupi; peu de haines inveterees entre con- 
 citoyens, mais beaucoup de violences sanglantes; 
 point de rancunes, mais beaucoup de combats 
 ar dents. Le contraire enfin de notre Europe 
 latine, ou les salons regnent encore, ou les partis 
 se saluent, se sifflent, se conspuent, s execrent 
 mutuellement, polis, ulcer^s, pleins de rages et 
 
146 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 de haines implacables au milieu de leurs sourdes 
 manoeuvres. 
 
 Telle n est point la situation morale des 
 fitats-Unis. Leur caractere si me!6 et si nou- 
 veau vient d avoir son organe. Ce g6nie, qui 
 s est & peine reconnu lui-meme, a cr sa po6sie. 
 Je ne parle ni de Longfellow ni de plusieurs 
 autres, plus Europ6ens qu Am^ricains, mais d un 
 nomm6 Miller. Cette muse nouvelle n est ni 
 pure ni parfaite. Elle est naturelle et brutale. . . . 
 
 II est aussi abondant que Lamartine en de 
 scriptions anim6es et completes; aussi ardem- 
 ment concis que Byron; il est aussi mu que 
 notre Musset; mais le tout confus, 6norme, 
 fangeux, une bauche de Goya, oil le gnie 
 s 6panche a flots troubles. Est-il classique ou 
 romantique? On ne sait. Espagnol ou Anglo- 
 Saxon? Pas davantage. Barbare ou civilis6? 
 Non plus. II est tout cela. Son ceuvre est aussi 
 peu classique que les meilleurs pieces de Victor 
 Hugo. Elle est aussi peu romantique que les 
 plus larges antistrophes de Pindare. Seulement 
 la sant6 et la vie sont chez lui. 
 
 Goethe s en serait content^. Miller est la 
 nouvelle Am6rique meme. 
 
 It is not the purpose here to point out all the 
 errors of fact that are in this passage; much that 
 he states is questionable, at least; but rather, 
 his willingness to ignore certain facts for the sake 
 of arriving at the conclusion that has no other 
 excuse than that he wished to form it. For the 
 sake of finding a writer resembling Europeans 
 as little as possible, and whom he might there- 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 147 
 
 fore but before establishing sufficient reasons 
 consider American essentially, he passes over 
 the host of authors who represent the greater 
 number of Americans, the inhabitants of the 
 thickly settled East, the representatives of the 
 " civilisation poursuivie avec acharnement" that 
 he admits exists, and disposes of them with ease 
 by saying that they are rather Europeans than 
 Americans. It is like those other truths that 
 have been uttered about the Americans: that 
 they were Puritanical, that they were com 
 mercial, that they were imitators of European 
 manners, that they were devil-may-care blades 
 one and all, etc. As detail, such remarks are 
 respectable and entitled to respect when quali 
 fied; as generalizations, they are but sad 
 specimens of criticism. Chasles, for example, 
 would have us believe that the United States 
 were Puritan in their origin, but tinged "with a 
 reminiscence of the royalist cavaliers of Charles 
 the First. " We have not been accustomed to 
 suppose that the South was Puritan in its origin, 
 or that the self-righteous sleep of the New 
 England farmers was disturbed by haunting 
 visions of glittering dames and cavaliers whom 
 their ancestors fled like the pest in times past. 
 
 If his generalizations are suggestive, they are 
 not to be accepted without question, and his 
 readers in France in the middle of the century 
 and after must have got what real information 
 
148 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 there was to be had in his writings and we 
 must admit that there was a very great deal, 
 after all from his remarks apropos of partic 
 ular writers, sections, or periods. And certain 
 incidental bits about the fate of the American 
 literature in France are valuable for us here. 
 
 Quand Robinson Crusoe apercut la trace des 
 pas de Vendredi sur la plage, il ne ressentit pas 
 plus d 6tonnement que le public d Europe au 
 moment ou les romans americains de Cooper lui 
 apprirent que Ton pouvait vivre a New- York, 
 etre n6 sur les bords de la Delaware, n imiter 
 personne et avoir du ge"nie. Depuis longtemps 
 les critiques avaient decid6 que le talent et la 
 qualit^ d Am6ricain 6taient inconciliables. Une 
 danseuse hollandaise, une V6nus de Me"dicis 
 ne parmi les Esquimaux n eussent pas 6t6 
 accueillies avec une surprise plus profonde 
 qu un bon romancier ou un bon poete aux fitats- 
 Unis. (E. p. 55) 
 
 His esteem for the writings of Audubon, as 
 representative of America, was noted; and he 
 takes Audubon as being the last of the writers 
 of the first period of American literary history 
 (&. p. 105), the epoch of Cooper and of 
 Irving. 
 
 It has been seen that Chasles realized, and 
 devoted much attention to, the expression of 
 American nature, as it was found, for example, 
 in Audubon ; and of the man of nature, as Cooper 
 described him; and as a certain representative 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 149 
 
 which he conceives Joaquin Miller to be 
 expressed himself. 
 
 He spoke also of the element of religious 
 fanaticism that forms a part of the subject- 
 matter for poetry in America, without, however, 
 going into the old colonial literature of the New 
 Englanders to illustrate his statement. This 
 he does, apropos of a then lately published 
 work 11 which he takes the pains to translate 
 into French, with an accompanying article. It 
 is a drama, and one that shows great talent, 
 the translator thinks; and he goes on to say 
 why the form had hitherto numbered so few 
 good examples. It is the same reason that is 
 generally felt to-day to be the true one, and 
 that was indicated before in this chapter. 
 Puritanism, a phase of which Matthews drama 
 tized, had been the enemy of dramatic presen 
 tations, of the theatre, inasmuch as the theatre 
 was the expression of the keen and passionate 
 interest in human life, that Puritanism decried. 
 Perhaps it is worth while to call attention, in 
 this place, to the change in Chasles opinion of 
 the importance of Puritanism when he was writ 
 ing and translating in the 50 s, and when, in 
 later years, he wrote, in the " Psychologic sociale 
 des nouveaux peuples," what we have seen re- 
 
 11 This work is Cornelius Matthew s "Works of the Devil." 
 His article and translation appeared in the "Revue contem- 
 poraine" in vol. V of the 1852-3 series, pp. 204 et sqq. 
 
150 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 garding Joaquin Miller. In that space of time 
 the facts themselves may have changed suffi 
 ciently to warrant a new view: that is, Puri 
 tanism as a force in American thought may have 
 seemed to him to decrease much in importance. 
 But it is hardly necessary to posit this, how 
 ever true it was, as the reason for the new judg 
 ment. It is simply worth while to note that 
 he felt the stress of the two forces, Puritanism 
 and individualism, in American literature. 
 
 And here we arrive at democracy, of which it 
 will have been noticed he has far less to say 
 than most critics. And he takes Channing as 
 the representative of democracy, in one of his 
 phases the one that Chasles considers, by 
 the way, his characteristic. 
 
 . . . c est . . . le balancement des opinions, 
 la pond6ration des principes que le docteur 
 Channing essaie d 6tablir. . . . Cette Iachet6 
 de la pens6e, cette faiblesse devant Popinion 
 s effaceront a mesure que les fitats-Unis s 61e- 
 veront a une civilisation plus avance*e. Dans 
 le mode actuel des institutions am^ricaines, dans 
 ce jeu naturel et n6cessaire d un peuple qui tend 
 tous les ressorts de son organisme vers la con- 
 quete matSrielle de la nature et la creation des 
 industries, il faut que tout le monde marche en 
 bataillon et se dirige vers le meme but. Plus 
 d opinion libre, plus de hardiesse intellectuelle. 
 Un ostracisme inexorable bannit tout ce qui 
 dpasse un certain module. Anath&me sur la 
 pense qui s 61oignerait de la ligne commune! 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 151 
 
 De la, une complaisance universelle pour les 
 idees regues, un jesuitisme souple et facile. . . . 
 On ne veut pas commettre ce crime de "lese- 
 vulgaire" ... on etouffe les fantaisies de son 
 esprit; . . . on ne veut point devenir la "bete 
 noire " du troupeau: la liberte politique aboutit 
 a la servitude de la pensee. 
 
 Ce ne peut etre qu une situation passagere. 
 Des que les interets materiels seront satisfaits, 
 F opposition qui ne tardera pas a se former 
 servira de contre-poids a Fopinion . . . Finqui- 
 sition populaire s evanouira. . . . (E. pp. 64-6) 
 
 In his article of 1835, he had not much en 
 couragement to give prospective French readers 
 of the American poets: his judgments at that 
 time were, in fact, such as to deter any who 
 might have been curious about the subject from 
 entering into it. In the " Etudes " is an article, 
 written apropos of Griswold s " Poets and 
 Poetry of America," published in Philadelphia 
 in 1842, where he again goes into the subject, but 
 evidently without much changing his earlier 
 opinions. This time, the only names worth 
 favorable mention, he finds to be those of Street, 
 Fitz-Greene Halleck, William Cullen Bryant, 
 Longfellow, and Emerson. Percival, Charles 
 Sprague, Dana, and Drake are not mere poetas 
 ters, one judges, but still cannot claim much 
 for themselves. 
 
 He does not consider that there is a remedy 
 for this condition of the country s lack of poetry; 
 
152 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 or rather, the remedy will grow with the lapse 
 of time. He takes the question of imagination 
 to be the important one in this connection, let 
 ting us, of course, infer that he means a national, 
 a typically American imagination. And he puts 
 his point very strikingly, by means of a sort of 
 definition of imagination: imagination is recol 
 lection put to a constructive use, probably un 
 consciously; such is the sense of his proposition. 
 
 De meme qu il serait impossible & un homme 
 prive* de souvenir d avoir de 1 imagination, cette 
 qualite* de Pintelligence ne peut appartenir a un 
 peuple ne* hier, dont tout le passe* date de la 
 veille. . . . Les fitats-Unis . . . manquent du 
 cre*puscule et de la peiiombre que donne la 
 perspective, (fi. p. 9) 
 
 Americans, however, realized what was lack 
 ing in their productions, and, he says, from 1840 
 had been seeking, on the basis of national tradi 
 tions, to nationalize the literature. That there 
 should be irregularity and failure he considers 
 inevitable, but those are conditions of such an 
 effort, and must be excused in consideration of 
 the attempt. (. p. 304) 
 
 In spite of the measured praise that he 
 gave him in his earlier study, it is nevertheless 
 Longfellow whom he finds the most interesting 
 in this analysis; and, as may be expected, on 
 account of "Evangeline." Or rather, it seems 
 to have been "Evangeline" that led him to 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 153 
 
 take up the study of Longfellow, but, once 
 entered into that study, he finds the whole 
 attitude of Longfellow an individual case, as it 
 indeed was, meriting attention for other reasons 
 than the attempt at nationalization. 
 
 Briefly, his attitude is this: so far as subject- 
 matter is concerned, Longfellow s choice was 
 excellent: better than that of Voss writing 
 "Louise," better than that of Goethe writing 
 "Hermann and Dorothea." (E. p. 305) The 
 defect in treatment, as Chasles says, what 
 is lacking in "Evangeline," is passion. (E. p. 
 319) But this defect is redeemed so far as 
 such a defect can be redeemed by any quality 
 whatsoever, he lets us infer by a calm that is 
 almost majesty, and by a peculiar depth of 
 feeling. Tegner, alone, gives an idea of the 
 melody and measured progress of the emotion. 
 One hears in this verse "la permanence triste 
 des grands bruits et des grandes ombres dans 
 ces plaines qui n ont pas de fin et dans ces bois 
 qui n ont pas d histoire." (E. p. 299) 
 
 Two more remarks: the technique of Long 
 fellow, learned from a careful study of all the 
 European literatures, is distinguished by a 
 characteristic that seems peculiar to the Scan 
 dinavian or particularly to the Scandinavian 
 poetry of the older period that of alliteration. 
 The principle of structure was used by Long 
 fellow with a skill and an effectiveness that 
 
154 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 show that for him it was no rhetorical trick; 
 he learned it from the Northern poetry, but 
 he used it unconsciously. 
 
 And if Longfellow was a Protestant, his work 
 nevertheless has the distinction of displaying a 
 breadth in the conception of Christian ideas 
 
 that is worthy of very special credit. (E. p. 
 
 3< 
 4 
 
VI 
 
 CONCLUSIONS 
 
 BEFORE 1835 American literature can hardly 
 be said to have had a real critic in France. The 
 straggling bibliographical notes and the in 
 complete accounts of such American works as 
 appealed at all to the French reviewers seem to 
 indicate, indeed, not any interest in American 
 literature as such, but rather a mere mention of 
 what was considered the least important mani 
 festation of the intellectual life of the United 
 States. There are certain traces of a feeling of 
 disappointment that American literature did not 
 immediately reflect in poetry and in oratory the 
 idealism of liberty. The idea was general before 
 Tocqueville and after Tocqueville it regained 
 a considerable ascendancy that the American 
 people was a new race, and that a new and 
 vigorous literature would come out of it. There 
 are examples, before Chasles and Tocqueville, 
 of mention of what was termed "the tyranny of 
 the English language " ; but Chasles and Tocque 
 ville explained the state of matters more exactly 
 by a recognition of facts: it was evident to 
 
 155 
 
156 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 them that the American people was not a new 
 people, but an old race transplanted. 
 
 The other important consideration for French 
 critics before 1835-40 was that of the American 
 soil. Such unspoiled beauty and majesty as 
 that could not fail, in the ideas of readers of 
 Rousseau, of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, of 
 Chateaubriand, such nature could not fail, 
 especially when taken together with the ideal of 
 liberty and fraternity consecrating all to a new 
 epoch of human history, to evoke the most 
 enthusiastic confidence in the qualities that 
 would be inherent in American literature. The 
 boon of this new and vigorous expression was 
 not forthcoming; the French were nonplussed, 
 or became querulous over the " tyranny " of 
 English . It took the l Democratic en Ame* rique 7 ; 
 to make it evident that the destinies of the race 
 were the important consideration in America; 
 that men did not go there to pass their years in 
 religious contemplation before the grandeur of 
 mountain and plain and forest, but to conquer 
 that nature and to suit it to the happiness of the 
 greatest possible number. The democratic ideal 
 was the human ideal, and the well-being of men 
 was the first consideration. 
 
 It was stated above that literature was con 
 sidered in France the least important concern 
 in connection with the United States. The 
 reviewers and travellers expected much in that 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 157 
 
 line, found but little, and came to the conclu 
 sion that the Americans were seriously lacking 
 there, but without explaining the matter to 
 themselves. And it is this lack of serious and 
 intelligent analysis that left them constantly 
 disappointed and disgruntled to a degree never 
 evident either in Tocqueville or in Chasles. 
 
 Franklin and Cooper, in their time, were 
 certainly very popular in France; Franklin 
 because he was the most distinguished person 
 ality of a nation to a considerable degree the 
 protegee of France, and Cooper because he 
 described American wild nature which was 
 certainly what a true American should be 
 expected to do ! and because his plots were 
 absorbing. As for Franklin, his popularity was 
 due largely to his ability as a diplomat and as 
 a scientist. We learn from contemporary reviews 
 that "Poor Richard s Almanac" was popular 
 in French translation, but it does not appear 
 that it was considered very particularly repre 
 sentative of American literature. 
 
 After the early enthusiasm for America as 
 the representative of the new democracy, in 
 the first quarter of the nineteenth century, 
 when it was becoming evident that its literature 
 would, at least in its beginnings, follow along 
 the paths of English tradition the French 
 surrendered the right of first judgment of it 
 to the English; French publishers are advised 
 
158 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 to await the opinion of English reviewers upon 
 a given American w r ork before arranging for its 
 translation into French. There is noticeable 
 here a certain discrepancy, too, between the 
 criticism accorded American books, such as the 
 novels of Brockden Brown, and their popularity 
 in French translation. It is one of the reasons 
 for supposing that the American literature as 
 such, given the trend it was taking towards 
 English tradition, was not considered as rep 
 resentative of the nation: that a given work 
 might be interesting in itself, and widely read, 
 as was doubtless the case with the novels of 
 Brockden Brown, but that, at the same time, it 
 would be very probably an imitation of some 
 English writer; therefore relatively unimportant 
 except in relation to the model, and in any case 
 not American. 
 
 The periods in the development of the French 
 criticism of our literature are fairly distinctly 
 marked. From the beginning, that is to say 
 from the last decade of the eighteenth century, 
 approximately, , to the year 1819, is a period of 
 very scanty remarks upon the subject, mostly 
 confined, of course, in the first part, to the one 
 well-known writer of America, Franklin. In 
 1819, with the founding of the " Revue ency- 
 clope*dique," considerably more frequent notices 
 appear, but it is not until the end of the first 
 quarter of the century, 1825-30, that these 
 
FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 159 
 
 notices begin to develop, at times, into attempts 
 at a general appreciation of the main charac 
 teristics of American literature. In 1835 the 
 first comprehensive study appeared in Philarete 
 Chasles article in the " Revue des deux 
 Mondes"; and in 1840, with the second part of 
 Tocqueville s "Democratic en Amerique," the 
 examination of American literature as the lit 
 erature of a democracy. Tocqueville as a theo 
 retician supplements Chasles; together they 
 give a fairly adequate general view which those 
 who come later can utilize, if only tentatively, 
 in seeking out the history of the development of 
 literature in the United States. 
 
 The French critics who follow Tocqueville 
 and Chasles will profit by their study. They 
 are, besides, to have greater American writers 
 to discuss. Emerson, Channing, Poe, and Long 
 fellow are to be studied by Montegut, Laboulaye^ 
 Caro, Jouffroy, Etienne; and the question of 
 slavery and emancipation will be agitated in 
 France as elsewhere around a work of fiction. 
 The two decades from 1840 will be eventful 
 ones in the destinies of American literature; 
 and the character of the discussion of it is not 
 of a piece with what went before 1835-1840. 
 On the whole its history is a development not 
 always constant, it is true beyond the status 
 of the discussion where Chasles abandoned it 
 about 1850. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 PERIODICALS CONSULTED FOR THE FRENCH 
 REVIEWS OF AMERICAN WORKS TO 1852 
 
 1 . " Magasin encyclope"dique " 
 
 2. " Bibliotheque britannique 
 
 (Section "Litterature") 
 
 3. " Mercure de France " 
 
 4. "Mercure etranger" 
 
 5 . " Bibliotheque uni verselle 
 
 (Section "Litte"rature") 
 
 6. "Journal des Savants" 
 
 7. "Annales encyclope"diques " 
 
 8. " Minerve f rancaise 
 
 9. "Revue encyclope"dique " 
 
 10. "Revue britannique * 
 
 11. " Bulletin du bibliophile" 
 
 12. "Revue de Paris" (old) 
 
 13. "Revue des deux Mondes" 
 
 14. " Magasin litteraire" 
 
 consulted 1795-1816 inclusive 
 
 " 1796-1800 " 
 1800-1820 (Except 
 Apr. 29 and Sept. 
 2, 1815) 
 1813-1814 inclusive 
 
 1816-1818 
 " 1816-1852 " 
 
 1817-1818 
 
 1818-1820 
 
 " 1819-1832 " 
 " 1825-1852 
 
 1834-1850 
 
 1829-1843 
 
 " 1829-1850 (Except 
 t. XXVI and 
 1830) 
 
 1842-1847 inclusive 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL BOOKS CONTAINING DISCUSSIONS 
 OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 la. "Esquisse morale et politique des fitats-Unis de 1 Ame rique 
 du nord"; Achille Murat, "citoyen des fitats-Unis, colonel 
 honoraire dans I arme e beige, ci-devant prince royal des Deux- 
 Siciles." Paris, imp. Vve Thuau, lib. Crochard, 1832. 
 
 16. (An English translation, entitled:) "The United States of 
 North America" (the name of the translator not given); 
 published in London by Effingham Wilson. The 2d edition 
 is dated 1833. 
 
 161 
 
162 FRENCH CRITICISM OF AMERICAN LITERATURE 
 
 2. "Re"ponse d* quelques imputations centre les fitats-Unis, 
 
 e"nonc6es dans des 6crits et jouraaux re"cents"; Eugene A. 
 Vail, citoyen des fitats-Unis. . . . Paris, 1837. 
 
 3. "De la litte>ature, et des hommes de lettres aux fitats-Unis 
 
 d Ame>ique"; Eugene A. Vail, citoyen des fitats-Unis. 
 Paris (Ch. Gosselin), 1841. 
 
 4. "Washington: Vie, Correspondance et ficrits" . . .; F-P-G. 
 
 Guizot, 6 vols., Paris (Ch. Gosselin), 1839-1840. (The 
 translation of selections from Jared Sparks edition of "The 
 Writings of George Washington"; 12 vol., Boston, 1834- 
 1837.) 
 
 5. "(Euvres completes"; Alexis de Tocqueville, publie es par 
 
 Madame de Tocqueville. . . . "De La Democratic en Ame"ri- 
 que" comprises the first three volumes of this edition, and 
 are in this edition, of 1888; "La Democratic" appeared 
 originally from 1835-1840 (the first part in 1835, the second, 
 in 1840). 
 
 6. "Etudes sur la litte>ature et les moours des Anglo- Am6ricains 
 
 au XIXe siecle"; Philarete Chasles, Paris (Amyot), s.d. 
 (1851). 
 
 7. "La Psychologic sociale des nouveaux peuples"; Philarete 
 
 Chasles, Paris (Charpentier), 1875. (Published posthu 
 mously; it was completed in 1873.) 
 
INDEX 
 
 Adams (H. B.) 94n 
 Addison (J.) 123 
 Ampere (J.-J.) 121 
 Audubon (J. J. ) 135, 148 
 
 Bancroft (G.) 133 
 Barlow (J.) 47n, 80, 130 
 Belloc (Mme) 21n, 29n, 44, 
 
 62n, 63 
 
 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre 156 
 Brainard (J. G. C.) 130 
 Brown (C. B.) 57n, 58, 134, 
 
 158 
 
 Bryan (D.) 29n, 30 
 Bryant (W. C.) 54, 55, 57, 80, 
 
 130, 151 
 Byron 22n, 54, 55, 57, 103, 146 
 
 Campbell (Th.) 38, 135 
 
 Carlyle (Th.) 143 
 
 Caro (E.-M.) 159 
 
 Caste*ra, 6 
 
 Channing (W. E.) 134, 150, 
 
 159 
 Chasles (Ph.) 76, 77, 79, 118- 
 
 155, 159 
 Chateaubriand (F.-R.) 103, 
 
 135, 156 
 Cheever (G.) 51 
 Chevalier (M.) 83 
 Coleridge (S. T.) 38, 55 
 
 Cooper (J. F.) 4n, 19, 22n, 
 38-^4, 52-54, 57, 59, 65-69, 
 77, 123, 134, 148, 157 
 
 Corneille (P.) 80 
 
 Crabbe (G.) 55, 57 
 
 Dana (R.) 34-36, 54-55, 130, 
 
 151 
 
 Daunou (P.-C.-F.) 7, 23 
 Davidson (L. M.) 38n 
 Defauconpret 40, 42n 
 Depping 12, 42 
 Dillon (P.) 78-83 
 Doane (G. W.) 130 
 Drake (R.) 130, 151 
 Dunlap (Wm.) 61-62 
 Dwight, 130 
 
 Edwards (J.) 134 
 
 Eliot (J.) 47n 
 
 Emerson (R. W.) 143, 151, 159 
 
 fitienne (L.) 159 
 
 Fairneld (S. L.) 29n 
 
 Fontaney (A.) 64n 
 
 Franklin (B.) 5-9, 19, 23-24, 
 
 81, 128-129, 157-158 
 Freneau (P.) 130 
 
 Godwin (Wm.) 59 
 Goethe, 153 
 
 163 
 
164 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Griffin (E. 0.) 60n 
 Griswold (R.) 151 
 Guizot (F.-P.-G.) 83 
 
 Halleck (F.-G.) 22n, 55, 130, 
 
 151 
 
 Hemans (F.) 38, 130 
 Hillhouse (J. A.) 32 
 Hugo (V.) 146 
 "Humours of Utopia" 44 
 Hunter (Mrs.) 47 
 
 Irving (W.) 20, 21, 24, 26, 42, 
 44, 48n, 57, 64-68, 77, 123, 
 134 
 
 Jay (J.) 81 
 
 Jefferson (Th.) 23, 24, 81 
 Jouffroy (J.-M.) 159 
 Juilien (B.) 40 
 Jullien (M.-A.) 46 
 
 Kettell (S.) 22n 
 
 Laboulaye (E.) 159 
 Lafayette, 29 
 Lamartine (A.) 103 
 Lamst, 43 
 Landon (L. E.) 38 
 Laroche (B.) 69 
 Lebrun (J.) 19 
 Locke 141 
 
 Longfellow (H. W.) 26, 55, 130, 
 140, 146, 151-154, 159 
 
 M Henry (J.) 51, 52n 
 Madison (J.) 81 
 Matthews (C.) 149 
 
 Mignet (F.) 8 
 
 Miller (J.) 146, 148, 150 
 
 Millin (A.-L.) 6 
 
 Mirabeau, 141 
 
 Monod (G.) 91 
 
 Monte*gut (fi.) 159 
 
 Montgolfier (A.) 51, 57n, 60n 
 
 Montgomery (J.) 47n 
 
 Moore (Th.) 22n, 33 
 
 Morris (G.) 3 
 
 Morse (S.) 38n 
 
 Murat (A.) 70-75 
 
 Musset (A.) 146 
 
 Nack (J.) 130 
 Neal (J.) 130 
 
 Osborne (A.) 130 
 
 Paine (Th.) 23 
 
 Paulding (J. K.) 44, 65, 66, 77, 
 
 135 
 
 Percival (J.) 32, 130, 151 
 Person (Wm.) 38n 
 Pierpont (J.) 130 
 Pigault de Mont-Baillard 57n 
 Pindar 146 
 Pinkney (E.) 130 
 Poe (E. A.) 4n, 159 
 Pope (A.) 22n 
 
 Racine, 80 
 Rogers (S.) 38 
 Rousseau (J.-J.) 6, 156 
 
 Scott (W.) 38-42, 44, 53-54, 
 
 57, 59, 123 
 Sedgwick (Miss) 43, 134 
 
INDEX 
 
 165 
 
 Sedgwick (H. D.) 43n 
 Sigourney (L.) 130 
 Smith (R. P.) 62n 
 Southey (R.) 38, 55 
 Southwick (S.) 29n, 30 
 Sparks (J.) 83, 94n, 133 
 Sprague (Ch.) 130, 151 
 Story (I.) 130 
 Suard (J.-B.-A.) 11 
 
 Tegner, 153 
 
 Tocqueville (A.) 77, 81, 83, 
 
 85 sq., 118, 125, 155, 156, 
 
 159 
 
 Vail (E. A.) 76-80, 82-84 
 Vickar (J. M.) 60n 
 Voltaire 8, 141 
 Voss (J. H.) 153 
 
 Warden (D. B.) 12 
 Ware (A.) 114 
 Washington, 83, 128, 141 
 Weill (G.) 70n 
 Wetmore (P. M.) 130 
 Whartoix (J.) 47n 
 Willis (N. P.) 21n, 36-37, 130 
 Woodworth (S.) 130 
 Wordsworth 54-55, 57 
 
VITA 
 
 Born in Lodi, Ohio, 1888. Student in Washington 
 University. Saint Louis, 1906-7; in the University of 
 Michigan, 1907-8, and again in 1910. graduating with 
 the degree of A.B. in 1910. The year 1909 was spent in 
 France. . Assistant in Romance Languages in the Uni- 
 ?qhil> of Illinois during the year 1910-11; Instructor 
 in French in Washington University, 1911-12. The 
 years 1912-14 were spent in Italy. Instructor in French 
 in the Department of Extension Teaching of Columbia 
 University since 1914. Registered in the Graduate 
 School of Columbia University, Department of Romance 
 Tdingreigm and literatures, in 1914, and work for the 
 degree of PhJX concluded in 1916. 
 
 HABOLD Fi.ifnt MANTZ 
 YOMX, 
 March, 1917 
 
THIS BOOK IS 
 
 DATE 
 
 
 MAR_jj_J94p 
 
 JUJU-196644 
 
 -9itf???lL 
 
 I 
 
 39(402*) 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRAR^