CAN AMERICA HAVE A LITERATURE?
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the intense national individuality of the Greeks. The average Hellene regarded all other peoples as but little better than beasts. Barbarian languages they considered as but little removed from the cries of wild animals. The very word barbaros seems to come from a root meaning to speak inarticulately. Wherever the men of Hellas settled, whatever their occupations, they kept the customs, manners and religion of their fatherland; they remained Hellenes. Thus the Greeks, wholly self-centered, and working out the materials within themselves, produced a literature such as no nation has ever excelled, and but one ever seemed to equal. Thus they became the intellectual ancestors of all our modern world of thought. Yet it must be remembered that Homer is the source of imaginative Greek literature. Even Aischylos, the mightiest of tragedians, describes himself as picking up the crumbs of Homer's banquet. Now what are the poems of Homer? A collection of stories told about a great war, and of the return of one of its heroes.
As I have said before, it seems most likely that Homer only cast these folk-tales into artistic form, that he was only the editor and reviser of stories by unknown authors.
When do we find the next great period in literature? In the age of Elizabeth, when young Europe, stirred from its sleep of centuries, is beginning to look forth upon the world, and to see the beauty and joyousness of life.
Yet Chaucer and Shakespeare are not English in the sense that Homer and Aischylos are Greek. The English writers are the intellectual heirs of the Hellenic. Compared with the Roman or American the Elizabethan literature is national, but not as the Greek literature is national.
tion and literary form derived from the classic literatures, there is also the influence of unnational religion. Christianity tends to make men introspective and selfquestioning. For instance, the same motive—the murder of his father by his mother—that is enough for Orestes, is not sufficient for Hamlet.
New influences are at work on the minds of men. Aside from the weight of tradi-
Thus we see that even English literature borrows so much, is moved by such influences contrary to the original genius of the race that it is no longer truly national. English literature, like English speech, is heavily indebted to the classic races.
Now I come to the final question: "Can America have a literature?" The answer must be, No.
I have endeavored to show what are the sources and what is the growth of a national literature. From the past we may judge of the future.
The conditions which we see to have produced a real national literature in the past are: the absence of any overhanging traditions of literary form or manner; a religion developed from the people; a folk-lore well known and dear to the hearts of the nation; and last, but by no means least important, a certain mental seclusion from surrounding nations.
All these are now impossible. We have the weight of twenty-five centuries of literary tradition ubon us; we have a foreign religion; our folk-lore has been overthrown and driven from remembrance by the progress of the exact sciences. The printing press, the steam engine, the telegraph, have annihilated space and time.
So, in my opinion, it were vain for us, as Americans, to hope for a national literature. Men are becoming every day more cosmopolitan. A universal language and literature may, perhaps, be among the possibilities; an American, never. Whether this is to be regretted or no, must for us of to-day remain an open question.