American Literature and the Academy: The Roots, Growth, and Maturity of a Profession (Anniversary Collection)

631 Pages·1987·54.76 MB·English

by  Kermit Vanderbilt

American
Literature
and the
Academy

American The
Roots,
Literature
Growth,
and the
and
Maturity
Academy
of a
Profession
Kermit
Vanderbilt
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia 1986
FRONTISPIECE: Commencement at the University of Pennsylvania, 1952.
(Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Archives)
This work was funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities
Publications Program.
Copyright 1986 by University of Pennsylvania Press
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vanderbilt, Kermit.
American literature and the academy.
Includes index.
1. American literature—Study and teaching (Higher)—
United States—History. 2. Politics and education—
United States. 3. American literature—History and
criticism—Theory, etc. 4. Criticism—United States—
History. 5. College teachers—United States.
6. Americanists—United States. 7. Universities and
colleges—United States—History. I. Title.
PS47.U6V36 1986 810'.7'1273 86-11424
ISBN 0-8122-8031-8 (alk. paper)
Printed in the United States of America
TO MY MENTORS, Living and Deceased,
Who Taught American Literature at the
University of Minnesota after World War II

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Book One: Roots
The Cambridge History of American Literature
(1913-1921): Summing Up the First Century
1 Prelude: Origins of the CH AL
2 Organizing the CH AL Team
3 Preface to Volume I: Trailblazers in the Nationalist
Era of Samuel Knapp
4 Rufus W. Griswold and the Collectors' Marketplace
5 The Duyckincks among the Young Americans, the
Knickerbockers, and Others
6 Moses Coit Tyler and the Rise of American Literary
History
7 Charles F. Richardson and the Ferment of the
Eighties
8 Barrett Wendell in a Turn-of-the-Century Harvest
9 The CH AL (Volume I) Appears
10 And Then Volume II
11 Interim: Some Insurgent Critics versus "the
Professors"
12 The CH AL Completed
Book Two: Growth
Professional Scholarship and Politics (1921-1939)
13 A New Era: The Profession Establishes a Political
Voice
14 American Literature in the University: Study and
Debate in the 1920s
15 The Reinterpretation of American Literature (1928)
Professional Scholarship after the CH AL
[viii] Contents
16 American Literature (1929): The Profession Has a
Journal 285
17 Parrington's Main Currents in American Thought
(1927-1930) 301
18 The Heirs of Parrington: Four Leftist Histories
during the Great Depression 333
19 More Advocacy in the Thirties: Humanists,
Agrarians, Freudians, and Nationalists 355
20 American Literature in the University: Curriculum,
Graduate Research, and Controversy in the Thirties 381
21 Journals and Other Instruments of the New
Scholarship 391
Book Three: Maturity
The Literary History of the United States and the
Academy in Wartime (1939-1948)
22 The Profession Plans a New Literary History 413
23 The Cooperative History Goes Independent:
Organization and Theory (1942-1943) 427
24 The Editors in Profile (1943) 439
25 Screening the Contributors—and Early
Contributions (1943-1944) 453
26 American Literature and the Academy during World
War II (1939-1945) 461
27 The LHUS: Shaping the Text (1945-1948) 499
28 Reception of the LHUS: Summary Estimate of the
Profession 513
Postwar Epilogue: New Directions in a Thriving Profession 535
Appendix: Leaders of the American Literature Group,
1921-1948 545
Notes 549
Index 591
Illustrations
Frontispiece: Commencement at the University of Pennsylvania,
1952
Book One
1. Moses Coit Tyler (1835-1900)
2. Charles F. Richardson (1851-1913)
3. Lorenzo Sears (1838-1916)
4. Barrett Wendell (1855-1921)
5. Brander Matthews (1852-1929)
6. George Woodberry (1855-1930)
7. William P. Trent (1862-1939)
8. John Erskine (1879-1951)
9. Stuart P. Sherman (1881-1926)
10. Carl Van Doren (1885-1950)
11. Fred L. Pattee ( 1853-1950)
12. Percy Boynton (1875-1946)
13. William B. Cairns (1867-1932)
Book Two
1. Killis Campbell (1872-1937)
2. Joseph W. Beach (1880-1957)
3. Norman Foerster( 1887-1972)
4. Vernon L. Parrington (1871-1929)
5. Arthur H. Quinn (1875-1960)
6. George F. Whicher (1889-1954)
7. JayB. Hubbell (1885-1979)
8. Clarence Gohdes(l 901-)
9. Ernest E. Leisy (1887-1968)
10. Louise Pound (1872-1958)
11. Harry H. Clark (1901-1971)
12. Granville Hicks ( 1901 -1982)
13. Tremarne McDowell (1893-1959)
14. Kenneth Murdock (1895-1975)
15. Sculley Bradley (1897-)
Illustrations
Book Three
1. F. O. Matthiessen (1902-1950)
2. Cleanth Brooks (1906-)
3. Robert Penn Warren (1905-)
4. Henry Nash Smith (1906-)
5. Robert E. Spiller (1896-)
6. Willard Thorp (1899-)
7. Henry S. Canby (1878-1961)
8. Thomas H. Johnson (1902-)
9. Stanley T. Williams (1888-1956)
10. Howard M. Jones (1892-1980)
11. Dixon Wecter (1906-1950)