Roundabout to Boston (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance) E-Book

William Dean Howells

• Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

In "Roundabout to Boston," part of William Dean Howells'Äô larger work, "Literary Friends and Acquaintance," the author intricately weaves together personal reflections and incisive observations of American society in the late 19th century. This narrative eschews traditional plot structures, instead favoring a more episodic and conversational style that mirrors the author'Äôs real-life encounters with literary figures. With his characteristic realism, Howells captures the nuances of human interaction and the socio-cultural landscape of his time, offering insightful commentary on the evolving American identity against the backdrop of burgeoning cities and shifting social norms. William Dean Howells, often hailed as the "Dean of American Letters," was a prolific writer, critic, and editor whose own experiences shaped his literary vision. His extensive interactions with contemporary writers and artists, coupled with his earnest desire to portray the authentic American experience, inform the vivid characterizations and situational dynamics present in this work. As a notable figure in the Realist movement, Howells sought to challenge the romantic ideals of literature, opting instead to present a more truthful depiction of everyday life. Readers interested in American literature, as well as those who cherish keen social observations, will find "Roundabout to Boston" a compelling exploration of the human condition. Howells'Äô eloquent prose and keen insights invite readers to reflect on their own understanding of friendship, identity, and the cultural shifts of their time, making this work a timeless reflection worth delving into.

Leseprobe

William Dean Howells

Roundabout to Boston (from Literary Friends and Acquaintance)

Published by Good Press, 2021

[email protected]

EAN 4064066159627

Table of Contents

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Table of Contents

Besides those few pitiful successes, I had nothing but defeats in the sort of literature which I supposed was to be my calling, and the defeats threw me upon prose; for some sort of literary thing, if not one, then another, I must do if I lived; and I began to write those studies of Venetian life which afterwards became a book, and which I contributed as letters to the 'Boston Advertiser', after vainly offering them to more aesthetic periodicals. However, I do not imagine that it was a very smiling time for any literary endeavorer at home in the life-and-death civil war then waging. Some few young men arose who made themselves heard amid the din of arms even as far as Venice, but most of these were hushed long ago. I fancy Theodore Winthrop, who began to speak, as it were, from his soldier's grave, so soon did his death follow the earliest recognition by the public, and so many were his posthumous works, was chief of these; but there were others whom the present readers must make greater effort to remember. Forceythe Willson, who wrote The Old Sergeant, became known for the rare quality of his poetry; and now and then there came a poem from Aldrich, or Stedman, or Stoddard. The great new series of the 'Biglow Papers' gathered volume with the force they had from the beginning. The Autocrat was often in the pages of the Atlantic, where one often found Whittier and Emerson, with many a fresh name now faded. In Washington the Piatts were writing some of the most beautiful verse of the war, and Brownell was sounding his battle lyrics like so many trumpet blasts. The fiction which followed the war was yet all to come. Whatever was done in any kind had some hint of the war in it, inevitably; though in the very heart of it Longfellow was setting about his great version of Dante peacefully, prayerfully, as he has told in the noble sonnets which register the mood of his undertaking.

At Venice, if I was beyond the range of literary recognition I was in direct relations with one of our greatest literary men, who was again of that literary Boston which mainly represented American literature to me. The official chief of the consul at Venice was the United States Minister at Vienna, and in my time this minister was John Lothrop Motley, the historian. He was removed, later, by that Johnson administration which followed Lincoln's so forgottenly that I name it with a sense of something almost prehistoric. Among its worst errors was the attempted discredit of a man who had given lustre to our name by his work, and who was an ardent patriot as well as accomplished scholar. He visited Venice during my first year, which was the darkest period of the civil war, and I remember with what instant security, not to say severity, he rebuked my scarcely whispered misgivings of the end, when I ventured to ask him what he thought it would be. Austria had never recognized the Secessionists as belligerents, and in the complications with France and England there was little for our minister but to share the home indignation at the sympathy of those powers with the South. In Motley this was heightened by that feeling of astonishment, of wounded faith, which all Americans with English friendships experienced in those days, and which he, whose English friendships were many, experienced in peculiar degree.