FEINBERG/WHITMAN
Box 36 Folder 42

LITERARY FILE Prose "On Literature, Mainly American" (undated). A.MS.draft. (DEN 131)835

ON LITERATURE, MAINLY AMERICAN; notes.
A.MS. (11p. 25 x 20 cm. largest)

Some ideas as to literature, jotted down at different times: "But America may well demand that writers here, those who expect to be of any account, should first survey the whole area of the New World"... {131}U Is [Have also to assure that is]
is quite indifferent whether you conform
to  [?] please or displease [?]ay boy
What do you suppose 
with are to
they disappear, like
a grand Literature really
the Royal[?] colonide
gavefrusrh a [?] years sirecey 
govefraor[?] have disappeared
is - or is to be. - Not
to make polite [pretty] paragraphs,
[correct books a fine
artificial style or]
I assure you - nor handsome
conceidt or rhymes or books
which merly show that you
have carefully read all
[?]reedy'  books. - Soueth from
yourself [and [?]] is demanded -
and a conformity [to] with America is steady
grounded and for Love days to come,Corner of South 2D and Fourth Streets 
City of Williamsburgh, Dr,Such tests applied, we perceive
the astonishing spectacle of These
States, with the most heroic, copious,
and original supply of their own 
native life-blood, life-motion, and
life-material, but yet, (with the
exception of censuses, returns and
cheap newspapers—though those are
indeed grand,) entirely [any idio?catic] without any physiognomy 
of their own. —[What they have
been the stamp in our immigrancy–
features, importations before their own 
body.] What is here in such profusion 
— the numberless reprints,
histories, essays, novels, poems — did
you think they identified America,
or celebrated her genius? — No;
they identify Europe, kings, lords, ecclesiastics- all [bound up in a] standing for lands
foreign to us, and a spirit foreign -
no one the natural and free growth
of our own soil — no one the
new phases of humanity in the 
States. — Plenty of fine words — pages,
paragraphs, verses, &c., mountain-piles,
just as correct, just as genteel 
as the best of them;– But the
spirit! ah, the spirit is wanting.—Literature means, (I say in the same
haste,) the expression, [taking
this own eternal native permanent shape]
of the body and contents and especially the idiocracy and spirit of a 
nation — and is its physiognomy,
curious in itself, but principaly
curious from the play of physical,
mental, and spiritual facts it
rises out of (for [literature] the face does 
not [meant] mean the face [itself]
only, but the body,) — Curious, also,
from its look [contrary] shooting out wonderful
attributes, may-be inexplicable,
(although every one else [too] has a 
[face] countenance, too, and features
partake in common,) which fix
that identity to be remembered, different,
not merely part of a [general] crowd — rather,
some divine idiomatic mask, individual symbol
of life behind none but itself.—Is Literature forever to propose no higher
object than to amuse, to just [?] away the time 
[I [?] not propose to ] & stave off ennui?
amaze you, except in that 
highest amusement [the 
(but that is [truly worthy] perhaps the true
punishment for American- is it never to be the courageous
wrestle with strong live subjects
The strong gymnasium of the mind- must it offer only
things easy to understand us nature (?) overIn the creative field of Literature especially, Do, by 
In my opinion, the United States under its new and enlarged conditions, with this important constitutional readjustments, embodying, the experiences of this century of existence, require today, and for the future, an entirely new class of men, fitted to their new readjusted and immensely enlarged conditions? Such men must be supplied, and must (?) poetry, legislatures, the executive office, and the judiciary.

Bring in the"Centennial" pointIn a brief passage give a description of -- & do justice to -- Modern Literature, its best leading features.Literature 
pages
245-6
German Lit

        {I do not demand
        {(or)
? or  {It is not so much to be demanded
(or) to insist today
         {America may not demand of
literary expression that is should
depict life & characters here
with all their native own colors &
idioms & the sninck of atmosphere
& soil, for
life & characters here are
at present are
individually crude, they are in
transitional conditions ? too rapid
too terrible, too varied &
boiling & bubbly
with formative processes - they
[these times] [they though] persons & there is [enough][these times] [to the]
[inspirations of] here to-day for artist souls.
great [as nutriment] as humanity can know.
-- but the nutriment is [in the]
not [here] derived her & now from picturesque
individualities -- it is but from the
action of [such unprecedented] humanity in larger far larger masses than ever before,
like the whirling of mighty windsimpossible to resist & to be carried 
along by which is glorious, & [it] derived from 
[is from the] the general buoyancy 
& intensity of the spirit of life. 
So the portraiture of individual specimens of [Chariate?] may not at present be devalued [?]
But what America [demands] may well demand 
is that [here] writers here, those
[worthy] who expect to be 
of any account, should first 
survey the whole area of
[this] the New World  -- its 
scope 
possibilities
[not] survey [first] its geographic[al] &
hydrographic greatness only
-- [not] its mines & the teeming
richness of its products
from the soil.
survey & estimate well
its people, the intense
intellect & hard conscientious
fibre of the New England states,
with [all] their feverish industry & innovation
[the] estimate too abandon [personal] egotism & electric passions
of the south precious elements [indep]
[the vast] [??? & calm] like the lightning that may kill but the [universe?]
cannot live without it
amplitude & brawn of the westThe prairies, the the mighty generic race that
is [rapidly] so swiftly [?] upon them - 
[all] absorb [??] soul the splendid prophecy of
the west, in its material facts
alone - survey these [& their]
[us but] -- then
the moral aspects
the religious fervor, often grotesque
the reformers, also grotesque,
spiritualism
the enthusiastic young men
(then at present the cities which are nowhere American but dwell long
as you [choose] like on the
[good] average specimens
of the county.)
dwell on the great [moral reali] idea -- facts of
Liberty, progress, the eligibility
of man to greatness & to 
the best & highest & to
knowledge, [&] to the Presidency
away the rest, which have
here there roots & sprouts growth.
and out of this, & these surveys,
& these digestions ?, [to form] ? an American
spirit & write in it  -- 
(This last is not complete)I fully join in the complaint that
-- for years past men of capacity
honor & dignity -- have been
altogether driven from politics,
& have left that important &
vital field to [most] the low
& wily & (expand -- get the
printed "address to say men" &
extract from it) --

- I fully join in this complaint 
[but wish to feel that an impor]
a serious hiatus [has existed] exists in the 
& would suggest that a [great] an indispensable
part of [their] the remedy to the
applied [consists in the] must
consist in the better men who 
should enter the field of practical
politics, must begin by making
themselves at home with the masses
of the people, must habituate themselves [in] to direct contact
with them, & not be so much 
afraid, must if needs be mix
with them in their haunts, even 
the lowest. Are the people to be reached?
then go where they are ( [expand &] make this statement clearer