The Creators: A History of Heroes of the Imagination (144 page)

Chapter 57. Inventing the Essay
. A brief introduction to Montaigne is “Montaigne, or the Art of Being Truthful,” the essay by Herbert Luthy, in
The Proper Study
(Quentin Anderson and Joseph A. Mazzo, eds., 1962). We can enjoy the lively and scholarly biography,
Montaigne
(1984), by Donald M. Frame. The
Essays
are in
Great Books of the Western World
(1952), Vol. 25 (Charles Cotton, trans.) and in many reprints, of which my favorite is the lively J. M. Cohen translation in Penguin Classics (1958). Essays are commonly distinguished into the “formal,” which fill current magazines on all topics; and the “informal” or “familiar,” which are now the mainstay of
The New Yorker
, chronicled in W. F. Bryan and R. S. Crane, eds.,
The English Familiar Essay
(1916).

Chapter 58. The Art of Being Truthful:
Confessions. A history of meanings of the word “confessions” from theology to psychology would be a microcosm of Western thinking about the self. A clue to the transformations is the contrast between the private searchings of Saint Augustine and the sensational “revelations” in an American
True Confessions
magazine. Rousseau alone has inspired literatures both of psychoanalytic dissection and of philosophic debate on his political theories, for example in Irving Babbitt,
Rousseau and Romanticism
(1919). For a copious biography, see Jean Guehenno,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
(2 vols., 1966, John and Doreen Weightman, trans.); and a shorter C. E. Vulliamy,
Rousseau
(1972). And do not miss the searching and readable Maurice Cranston,
Jean Jacques … The Early Life and Works
 … 
1712–1754
(1982), in paperback, and
The Noble Savage: Jean Jacques
 … 
1754–1762
(1991). For Rousseau’s works:
The Confessions
is in Everyman’s Library (2 vols., 1941) and in the vivid translation by J. M. Cohen (Penguin Classics, 1953), É
mile
(Barbara Foxley, trans.) in Everyman’s Library;
The Social Contract
(in many reprints),
A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality
, and
Discourse
on Political Economy
are in
Great Books of the Western World
, Vol. 38.

Chapter 59. The Arts of Seeming Truthful: Autobiography
. The best biography is the scholarly and readable Esmond Wright,
Franklin of Philadelphia
(1986), with bibliography. A perceptive short introduction is Carl L. Becker’s article in the
Dictionary of American Biography
(1931); and for reference, the massive Carl Van Doren,
Benjamin Franklin
(1938). Franklin’s
Autobiography
and his other writings are widely available, for example, in Penguin Books (1987). The definitive scholarly edition of Franklin’s
Papers
is edited by Leonard W. Labaree (15 vols., 1959–71). For a “classic” depreciation of Franklin, see D. H. Lawrence,
Studies in Classic American Literature
(1953). And for the American context of Franklin’s thought, see my
Lost World of Thomas Jefferson
(1948; 1981). Some tantalizing questions are raised by Roy Pascal,
Design and Truth in Autobiography
(1960).

Chapter 60.
Intimate Biography
. Boswell’s private papers, which had been believed to have been destroyed, were recovered at Malahide Castle, near Dublin, in the 1920s and 1930s, and sold to an American collector by Boswell’s great-great-grandson. The papers, acquired by Yale University, have been published in eighteen volumes (Geoffrey Scott and F. A. Pottle, eds., 1928–37). These, Boswell’s journals, even if only sampled, give us the best access to the man. The first biography of Boswell to draw on these papers was F. A. Pottle,
James Boswell, The Earlier Years, 1760–1769
(1966). An attractive short life is by D. B. Wyndham Lewis,
James Boswell
(1980). See also Chauncey B. Tinker,
Young Boswell
(1922). Boswell’s
Life of Johnson
is unabridged in
Great Books of the Western World
, Vol. 44, and is available in many other reprints, for example, in the World’s Classics (R. W. Chapman, ed.), and in a useful abridgment, with a helpful introduction, by Christopher Hibbert in Penguin Classics (1987). We should read both T. B. Macaulay’s and Thomas Carlyle’s vigorous essays on biography and on Boswell’s
Life of Johnson
in those writers’ collected essays. For twentieth-century interpretations, see James L. Clifford, ed.,
Boswell’s Life of Johnson
(1970), and Marlies K. Danziger and Frank Brady, eds.,
James Boswell, The Great Biographer, 1740–1795
(1988).

Chapter 61.
The Heroic Self
. The Goethe literature is as vast and as international as that on Shakespeare, amplified by the fact that Goethe’s own writings, which came to 133 volumes in the Weimar Edition (1887–1919), have since been many times reedited. Goethe societies around the world add to the literature. The most interesting life is still
The Life and Works of Goethe
(2 vols., 1855; new ed. 1965) by George Henry Lewes, the “husband” of George Eliot, who helped his researches in Weimar and Berlin. See also Georg Brandes,
Wolfgang Goethe
(2 vols., 1924) and the suggestive essay by Erich Heller, “Goethe and the Avoidance of Tragedy,” in
The Proper Study
(1962). Goethe biographies in this century are a panorama of the world of letters, with notable lives in English by Benedetto Croce (1970), Ludwig Lewisohn (1949), Albert Schweitzer (1949), Karl Vietor (1970), and Thomas Mann (in
Three Essays
, 1932), among others.
The Sorrows of Young Werther
(1989),
Elective Affinities
(1987), and selected
Verse
(1987) are in Penguin Books. Goethe’s
Autobiography
, a translation of his
Dichtung und Wahrheit
by John Oxenford (2 vols., 1974), is available in an attractive University of Chicago Press paperback with an illuminating introduction by Karl Weintraub. Goethe’s
Faust
, many times translated, is in
Great Books of the Western World
(George Madison Priest, trans.), Vol. 47, in Everyman’s Library (Albert G. Latham, trans.), and Modern Library (Bayard Taylor, trans.). My favorite is the Anchor paperback (1963, new translation by Walter Kaufman, with the German text on the facing pages). Few episodes are more revealing of Goethe than the journals (1962) of his
Italian Journey
(1786–88) with the perceptive comments of W. H. Auden. For Goethe the scientist: Charles Sherrington,
Goethe on Nature and on Science
(2d ed., 1949); the excellent article by George A. Wells in
Dictionary of Scientific Biography
(1972), Vol. 5. Thomas Mann has cast into a novel his view of Goethe as genius creator, with his view of how contemporaries saw Goethe:
The Beloved Returns:
Lotte in Weimar
(1940; 1990 with introduction by Hayden White).

Chapter 62.
Songs of the Self
. Convenient access to the prose and poetry of Wordsworth and Coleridge with helpful notes is in
The Norton Anthology of English Literature
, Vol. 2 (M. H. Abrams, ed. 4th ed., 1979), in addition to numerous reprint editions of their separate works. The standard edition of Wordsworth’s poetical works is in 5 vols. (1940–49), E. de Selincourt and R. Darbishire, eds.; an edition of
The Prelude
by de Selincourt (rev. ed., 1970) offers the versions of 1805 and 1850 for comparison. Do not overlook
Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth
(William Knight, ed., 1930). For perceptive biography: the comprehensive Mary Moorman,
William Wordsworth
(2 vols., 1957–65), and the shorter Hunter Davies,
William Wordsworth
(1980). To put Wordsworth in context: Jonathan Wordsworth et al.,
William Wordsworth and the Age of English Romanticism
(1987),
The Prelude, 1799, 1805, 1850
(1979) relating the poem to the poet’s life and times. For Coleridge’s writings: the attractive and well-chosen
Selected Prose and Poetry of Coleridge
(Stephen Potter, ed., 1933);
The Poetical Works of Coleridge
(James Dykes Campbell, ed., 1924). For a scholarly and readable short life: Walter Jackson Bate,
Coleridge
(1973), or Basil Willey,
Coleridge
(1972); and for detail E. K. Chambers,
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1938, 1973). John Livingston Lowes,
The Road to Xanadu
(1927), offers an intriguing study of the making of Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan.” For the wider background of Romanticism in philosophy and psychology: the brilliant M. H. Abrams,
The Mirror and the Lamp
(1953; Oxford University Press paperback, 1971),
Natural Supernaturalism: Tradition and Revolution in Romantic Literature
(1971); S. Prickett,
Coleridge and Wordsworth: The Poetry of Growth
(1970). To seek how literary dogmatists have blamed romanticism as the source of modern evils—relativism in morals and “enthusiasm” in politics—Irving Babbitt,
Rousseau and Romanticism
(1935),
The New Laökoon
(1934), an essay on the confusion of the arts. Suggestive clues on how the rise of romantic individualism has stimulated pride and property in authorship: Thomas Mallon,
Stolen Words … the Origins of Plagiarism
(1989);
The Forger’s Art: Forgery and the Philosophy of Art
(Denis Dutton, ed., 1983).

A good introduction to the life of Whitman is the article by Mark Van Doren in the
Dictionary of American Biography
(1936), and the well-written Justin Kaplan,
Walt Whitman
(1980).
Walt Whitman: Complete Prose & Selected Prose and Letters
, Emory Holloway, ed., is in an attractive Nonesuch Press edition (1938, 1964). Whitman’s poetry and “Democratic Vistas” are in many anthologies and paperback reprints; The
Complete Writings of Whitman
(10 vols., 1902; 1965). A good selection, with helpful notes:
The Norton Anthology of American Literature
, Vol. 1 (4th ed., 1979), pp. 1850–2032. For background, the reflective Edmund Wilson,
Patriotic Gore
(1962), and the chatty Van Wyck Brooks,
The Times of Melville and Whitman
(1947),
New England: Indian Summer 1865–1915
(1940). Whitman has been the butt of passionate criticism from different sides: George Santayana attacked him as the poet of “barbarism,”
Interpretations of Poetry and Religion
(1951); D. H. Lawrence contemned his “empty Allness. An addled egg,” (
Studies in Classic American Literature
, 1953).

Chapter 63.
In a Dry Season
. Begin with the perceptive Peter Ackroyd,
T. S. Eliot: A Life
(1984). To test the range of Eliot’s thought, enjoy his elegant acerbic prose:
Selected Essays (1917–1932)
(1932);
After Strange Gods: A Primer of Modern Heresy
(1934);
Essays Ancient and Modern
(1936);
Selected Prose
(1953), a Penguin book. Find his poetry in
Collected Poems, 1909–1935
(1936),
Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats
(1939),
The Waste Land and Other Poems
(1940). His plays:
Murder in the Cathedral
(1935; film script, 1951),
The Family Reunion
(1939),
The Cocktail Party
(1950). We gain some perspective on his ideas from his Harvard thesis,
Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F. H. Bradley
(1964). Varied perspectives: Elizabeth Drew,
T. S. Eliot, The Design of his Poetry
(1949); F. O. Matthiessen,
The Achievement of T. S. Eliot
(3d ed., 1958, with a chapter by C. L. Barber); Helen Gardner,
The Art of T. S. Eliot
(1949). Especially illuminating: Valerie Eliot, ed.,
The Waste
Land: A Facsimile and Transcript of the Original Draft Including the Annotations of Ezra Pound
(1971). Ezra Pound continues to challenge biographers who try to appreciate his literary achievement without denying his wild and vicious social views. Readable recent efforts: Peter Ackroyd,
Ezra Pound and his World
(1980), with illustrations; John Tytell,
Ezra Pound: the Solitary Volcano
(1987); Humphrey Carpenter,
A Serious Character: The Life of Ezra Pound
(1988).
The Literary Essays of Ezra Pound
(1954) are collected and introduced by T. S. Eliot. For Pound’s poetry:
Selected Poems
(1928, 1933), edited with an introduction by T. S. Eliot;
Selected Poems of Ezra Pound
(new ed., 1957), a New Directions paperback;
The Cantos of Ezra Pound
(1948).

Along with the discovery of hidden dimensions of experience by pioneers like Charles Darwin, James G. Frazer, Sigmund Freud, Carl G. Jung, among others, came the inwardness of modern man. (See my
The Discoverers
, Chapter 76.) It is significant that some of the most influential American thinkers of the early twentieth century—for example, William James and John Dewey—pursued these paths of inward discovery. These writers, too, focused on the concrete experiences of the individual person, and did not seek refuge in metaphysics. But it is easier to describe the symptoms than to explain the causes of this trauma (and feast) of inwardness that we find among the creators of Part XII. Again we are better able to see the what and the how than the why. Much of the literature about literature is an effort to explain and describe this new focus of the Vanguard Word and cast it into a definition of “the modern.” One of the more influential and prophetic of these interpretations of modern literature was Edmund Wilson’s
Axel’s Castle
(1931; with introduction by Hugh Kenner, 1991). For another American perspective: Steven Watson,
Strange Bedfellows: The First American Avant-Garde
(1991).

Defining “modernity” has intrigued and challenged literary critics: Ricardo J. Quinones,
Mapping Literary Modernism
(1985); Frederick R. Karl,
Modern and Modernism, The Sovereignty of the Artist 1885–1925
(1985), which relates writers to painters. Some have sought a definition in the character of particular writers: Julian Symons,
Makers of the New: The Revolution in Literature 1920–1939
(1987); Malcolm Bradbury,
The Modern World: Ten Great Writers
(1988). Or in selected writings: the admirable
The Modern Tradition: Backgrounds of Modern Literature
(1965), edited by Richard Ellmann and Charles Feidelson, Jr.;
Modernism: A Guide to European Literature 1890–1930
(Malcolm Bradbury and James McFarlane, eds., 1976), a richly varied critical anthology, a Penguin book. For brief essays on particular arts and artists, see Kenneth McLeish,
Penguin Companion to the Arts in the Twentieth Century
(1985), and for writers,
Columbia Dictionary of Modern European Literature
(Jean-Albert Bede and William B. Edgerton, eds., 2d ed., 1980). And for the context of modern criticism: M. H. Abrams,
Doing Things with Texts: Essays in Criticism and Critical Theory
(1989).