Essayson ana,,, hist Jiterature

216 Pages·2006·8.7 MB·English

Edited by Robert H. Bremner
Essays
on

ana,,, hist

Jiterature
Ohio State University Press
$5.00

Essays

o n
and n.
Jiterature
Edited by Robert H. Bremner
Emerson, in his essay History (1841), de­
fined literature as "fable," created by the
imagination, and history as "experience, in­
terpreted by the reason. At approximately the
same time, Macaulay declared that history lay
"on the confines of two distinct territories. It
is under the jurisdiction of two hostile powers,
and like other districts similarly situated, it is
ill defined, ill cultivated, and ill regulated.
Instead of being equally shared between its
two rulers, the Reason and the Imagination, it
falls alternately under the solid and absolute
dominion of each. It is sometimes fiction; it is
sometimes theory."
In this volume, four of America's leading
literary and intellectual historians discuss the
relationship of history and literature today.
Daniel Aaron, author of Writers on the Left
and Men of Good Hope, explores some of the
problems of writing contemporary literary his­
tory by recounting his experiences in tracing
the development of American literary radical­
ism during the 1920s and 30's while a number
of the people involved were still living. Ed­
ward Lurie, author of Louis Agassiz: A Life
in Science, also seeks to break the "web of
deception" contemporaries spin about their
own time; he advances a fresh interpretation
of nineteenth-century American scholarship
that recognizes the persistent association of
(Continued on back flap)

Essays on History and Literature

Edited by Robert H. Bremner
Essays on History
and Literature
Daniel Aaron
Edward Lurie
Stow Persons
Russel B. Nye
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
COPYRIGHT © 1966
BY THE
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Card Number: 66-22733

Printed in the United States of America
For Rhea and Marion Dulles