LITR 4232: American Renaissance
UHCL, spring 2001
Sample Student Paper

Joanne Hale

Professor White

Literature 4232

21 April 2001

 

Journalism: The Cornerstone of American Literature

The period in American Literature known as the American Renaissance was a time of great change in our country. It was an age of westward expansion and social conflict. Americans were divided on such volatile issues as slavery, reform and sectionalism that ultimately led to the Civil War. Emerging from this cauldron of change came the voice of a new nation - a nation with views and ideals all its own. The social, economic, technological and demographic revolution that was taking place at this time set the stage for a new era of writers. The voice of the nation found a home, first, on the pages of the newspaper. It was there that the hopes, fears and political views of Americans were represented. The newspaper united Americans by giving them a vehicle to voice their opinions and concerns. The result was a newfound spirit of solidarity that opened the door to the first great period of creative writing in America known as the American Renaissance.

The ranks of America's greatest imaginative writers overflow with men and women whose careers began in journalism (Fishkin 3). The birth of the penny press created hundreds of new newspapers along with jobs that authors like Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway and Mark Twain were eager to fill. The affect that journalism, with its respect for fact, had on the early authors of America was profound (Fishkin 4, 6). It

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fostered a style of writing that put truth above rhetoric and first hand knowledge above hearsay. Writing for a newspaper required that the writer be immersed in the events taking place in the world around him and report what he saw, heard and felt. It brought the writer into the realm of the everyday raw experiences of life ö life as an American.

The development of the newspaper in the early 19th century was a slow, steady process. The early newspapers were very limited in their scope. A typical newspaper was four pages long, sold only by subscription, and aimed at a small, almost exclusively male audience, mainly interested in business and politics. The chief purpose of the newspaper, at this time in history, was to supply financial and mercantile information to businessmen and to promote the viewpoint of a political party. The news pages were filled with articles dealing with national, state and local governments along with editorials and news reprinted from other newspapers. Journalism had very little in common with the popular literature of this era ö poetry, romances and fiction ö in both form and subject matter (Robertson 2, 3).

However, the emergence of the penny press in the 1830âs redefined the role of the news and established a strong connection between journalism and popular literature. The penny papers were no longer sold to a select group of subscribers, they were sold in the street for one cent - to the working class American - both men and women. The press broadened its attention beyond business and politics by including human-interest stories that depicted everyday life in America (Robertson 4). The popularity and influence of this uniquely American style of newspaper was unparalleled.

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The right to freedom of the press made it possible for journalists to print stories that would have been censored in a more repressive time (Reynolds 169). The conditions were ripe for the mass production of these immensely popular newspapers due to the dramatic improvements in print technology and book distribution during the early 1900âs. During the 1870âs the number of daily newspapers published in the United States doubled. Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, one of the most popular of the "new journalism" style papers, reached more than a quarter million readers in 1880 (Bell 10).

The influence that journalism had on the authors of the American Renaissance period was directly connected to this shift in news writing from rigid business reporting to the more open, experimental sensational style. Early-nineteenth-century America was intrigued by the new, uncensored stories dealing with real aspects of American culture. Stories of crime, the erotic, mysticism and romantic adventure fiction were immensely popular during this period and provided a fascinating cultural setting for the themes of American Renaissance literature (Reynolds 170).

In Beneath the American Renaissance, by David S. Reynolds, he describes this change in America culture as a "journalistic revolution that had a lasting impact on America's cultural life, including its major literature." Edgar Allan Poe once wrote that the rise of the sensational penny newspapers in the early 1830âs had an influence upon American life and letters that was "probably beyond all calculation" (qtd in Reynolds 171).

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The major writers of the time including Emerson, Thoreau, Poe, Whitman and Melville had mixed feelings about the trend toward the sensational. In one aspect they associated this freer style with a raw and vibrant Americanism that would enable them to break free from the old, constricting European style of writing. It offered a new perspective and a "chance to start all over again from scratch" (Matthiessen 6). But this sensational style, by definition, lacked form and direction. It was in this inadequacy that genius was born. The American Renaissance authors, in their novels and poems, took this raw material and transformed it into multi-dimensional works of art. They focused on the newspaper style and expanded it. Shelley Fishkin describes how the Renaissance writers challenged their readers to take an active role in what they read and thereby form their own opinions in From Fact to Fiction: Journalism & Imaginative Writing in America:

Walt Whitman, while editor of the Aurora, wrote a number of editorials urging his readers to learn to step beyond the boundaries of society and question authority (Allen 41). As a reporter and editor Whitman highlighted social injustices that other newspapers chose to ignore. His compassionate stories that told of the plight of the poor, the outcast and the oppressed were not abandoned with his change in venue from newspaperman to poet and author.

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In his famous poem, Leaves of Grass, Whitman draws a sympathetic sketch of the working class and the less fortunate in America. He describes the lunatic being taken to the asylum and never being able to sleep in this mother's room, the quadroon girl being sold on the stand and the prostitute being laughed at by the crowds. Whitman's style of writing challenges his reader to rethink the stereotyped images of the oppressed in society and come to their own individual conclusions. Whitman brings this point home in Song of Myself, when he writes "You shall no longer take things at second or third hand . . . you shall listen to all sides and filter them for yourself" (2744).

The popularity of crime stories and trial reports in 19th century America was a phenomenon that helped to establish the criminal as a likeable figure in American literature. Hawthorne, Poe and Melville highlighted this fascination with the literary notion of an admirable villain in their works. The early crime pamphlets, designed to satisfy the sensation-hungry public, contained detailed accounts of American murderers, robbers, pirates and sex fiends and were immensely popular. This thirst for stories of such graphic, scandalous material dispels the myth that the American culture during this era was one of extreme morals and puritan beliefs. The early pamphlets often included warnings of retribution and encouraged the wrong doers to repent; however in later pamphlets the trend was toward a sympathetic treatment of criminals. This style eventually became a central theme in much of American crime literature (Reynolds 175, 176).

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Reynolds discusses how Hawthorne addressed the lack of integrity in popular crime literature of the day by injecting the importance of morals into his novels:

The social atmosphere that existed during the era of the American Renaissance was one of cultural diversity. The nation was fertile with new ideas and eager to venture into the unknown. What it meant to be an "American" was not yet solidified. New standards were being set and with them new attitudes and opinions were surfacing. The Constitution ensured that every American was given the right to freedom of expression and by way of the press this expression was heard. It was a raw, undisciplined energy that first graced the pages of the American newspapers. The early journalists were writers who wrote from first hand experiences in a rigid and often limited style. This writing style, although restrictive, tapped in to a new, creative consciousness ö the consciousness of the individual. The determination of the great writers of this era - to move beyond the walls of society and enter into the realm of literary exploration ö brought us brilliant, fresh, original and distinctly American expression that breaks through stereotypes and enforces the notion of the individual.

 

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The great authors of the American Renaissance from Emerson to Whitman made their mark on the literary scene by emphasizing what it meant to be an individual in a free society. The subjects they chose--slavery, prostitution and the oppressed--addressed the concerns of the people and were explored in their novels and poems with greater freedom than what was available in the press. It was as poets and novelists that the American Renaissance writers challenged society to consider unfamiliar concepts - to move beyond their limited scope and embrace the unknown.

 

 

Works Cited