The Literary Criticism of Frank Norris by Donald Pizer

Author:Donald Pizer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2014-09-28T16:00:00+00:00

THE NATIONAL SPIRIT AS IT RELATES TO THE “GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL” 25

With us, on this side of the Atlantic, this one subject, the great American novel, seems inexhaustible. Also by implication, the fact that there is no great American novel is deplored, lamented. It seems to be considered a vague reflection upon our literature.

On the whole, it does not appear that this should be so. It seems, on the contrary, that the difficulty of adjusting the novelists’ conception of American life, their ideas of art, their definition of the word “novel” to fit this sounding phrase is practically insurmountable. Who is to say what is meant by “great”? Who is to formulate just what is meant by “American”? Who is even to decide upon the kind and school of novel writing best adapted to a presentation of the subject in hand?

A national literature, distinctive, excellent, is one of the last things acquired by a people. Observe one says “distinctive.” An early literature is almost invariably characterized by universal sentiments, is a presentation of characteristics common to humanity in general. The Iliad could have been written as well of Romulus and Remus as of Agamemnon and Priam. The Chanson de Roland is in sentiment as much German as French. Grettir of Iceland and Robin Hood of England are much the same. In the primitive stages, in the primitive ideals all peoples, all races are alike, and it is only after thousands of years of geographical isolation, after generations of action and government independent of and separated from the mass that the national spirit, the distinctive national spirit, discloses itself. It is not a question of “patriotism.” Patriotism and a national spirit are two very different conceptions. Patriotism is an impulse, whereas “nationalism” is an attitude. Patriotism produces the great epics, the Iliad, the Nibelungen Lied, the Saga, the Zend Avesta. The national spirit is at the root of Notre Dame de Paris, of Anna Karenina, of Adam Bede.

There is no such thing as a national American epic, in the strictest sense of the term. Unlike all other nations, we Americans have never been a primitive people. Very possibly it is to our disadvantage. At all events as a distinct people primitive life has never been ours. We did not evolve through centuries of growth. We simply declared our independence and came into the world already half-grown. If Americans have any national epics at all they must not be looked for in the early days of the United States, but in the beginnings of English life. To all ends and purposes Beowulf and the Romance of the Rose are American epics. But the Declaration of Independence relegated those to a nation which our forbears decided to call foreign.

We had patriotism enough in those early days, but it was not the patriotism of the young new people, not the kind that produces epics. We were born too late for that. If we had that kind of spirit we should have found our national epic in the “Winning of the West,” in the “Frontier Life.

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