It was embarrassing. As of 1820, forty-four years after the Declaration of Independence, American nationalists spent hours every day crowing about the wonderfulness of the land of the free. But then along came a nasty English literary critic named Sydney Smith, and he wrote:
“In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? Or what old ones have they advanced? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans? Who drinks out of American glasses? Or eats from American plates? Or wears American coats or gowns? or sleeps in American blankets? Finally, under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a slave, whom his fellow-creatures may buy and sell and torture?”
The embarrassing part was that every thinking person in the United States knew the sad answers to those questions. But within less than a century, all of the answers had changed – and changed for the better.
Some American writers with names like Emerson and Dickinson and Hemingway had a lot to do with making the changes happen. Read them and you’ll understand a lot better who you are and how you fit into your American culture. They’re fun to read, too.
Text: The Norton Anthology of American Literature, shorter edition.
Four 5-page papers, midterm and final.