Studies in Classic American Literature by D. H. Lawrence
"Studies in Classic American Literature" by D. H. Lawrence is a seminal work that critically examines notable American authors through a modernist lens. Written during World War I while Lawrence was confined in England, the text marks one of the earliest serious analyses of American literature as an independent discipline. Initially, Lawrence's essays reflect a generally appreciative view of the authors, highlighting the promise of American literature as a departure from European traditions. However, revisions made when he moved to the United States reveal a more critical stance, particularly toward figures like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, whose works he argues embody duplicity and moral complexity.
Despite the more critical views on several authors, Lawrence's admiration for Herman Melville remains steadfast, particularly regarding "Moby-Dick," which he considers a masterpiece. The influence of "Studies in Classic American Literature" is significant; it not only contributed to the early formation of American literary criticism but also played a key role in reviving interest in American literary figures during the 20th century. This work is recognized for its groundbreaking approach to understanding the evolution of the American psyche as reflected in literature, helping to pave the way for future academic studies in the field.
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Studies in Classic American Literature by D. H. Lawrence
Identification: Collection of critical essays on mostly nineteenth-century American authors
Author: D. H. Lawrence
Date: 1923
Written in radically informal modernist prose, Studies in Classic American Literature was a work of interest in itself, as well as being among the first serious critical treatments of American literature as an independent field of study. It helped shape the development of modern literary criticism and contributed to a twentieth-century revival of critical interest in the works of Herman Melville.
British author D. H. Lawrence began writing Studies in Classic American Literature in 1917 while under virtual house arrest in England during World War I, as he and his German wife, Frieda von Richthofen (a distant cousin of the German fighter pilot known as the Red Baron), were suspected of being spies for Germany. The early versions of the essays feature a generally positive perspective on the authors under discussion, expressing admiration for America’s promise of escape from the Old World, while the 1923 versions, rewritten while living in the United States, pass harsher judgments.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, for example, was originally “a philosopher as well as an artist,” and his most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter, was “a profound and wonderful book”; but the final version of Lawrence’s critique condemns the novel’s “duplicity” in exposing the “deliberate consciousness of the Americans so fair and smooth spoken, and their under-consciousness so devilish.” Similarly, Edgar Allan Poe is called out for exhibiting “the inevitable falseness [and] duplicity of art, American art in particular,” and James Fenimore Cooper’s Deerslayer is dismissed as “the miserable story of the collapse of the white psyche.” Lawrence’s response to Walt Whitman is better, but still ambivalent: “Whitman, the great poet, has meant so much to me,” he contends, and yet, “in Whitman lies the greatest of all modern humbugs.” Of the authors discussed in the book, Herman Melville is unique in still receiving positive treatment after Lawrence’s revisions. While reading Melville’s Moby-Dick in 1917, Lawrence wrote to friends that he “loved” the novel, calling it a “real masterpiece,” a view Lawrence retained to the end.
Impact
In writing Studies in Classic American Literature, Lawrence was a pioneer in examining American authors as subjects of serious study; approving or not, his insights into American literature as an expression of the evolution of the American psyche away from its European roots were groundbreaking. The first professorship in American literature was not established until 1919, and the Modern Language Association did not recognize scholarly interest in American literature until 1921. Literature specialists of the later twentieth century have acknowledged the significant impact of Lawrence’s criticism and the role it played in shaping modern interpretations of earlier American authors.
Bibliography
Beal, Anthony, ed. D. H. Lawrence: Selected Literary Criticism. London: Heinemann, 1955.
Chase, Richard. The American Novel and Its Tradition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Clarey, JoEllyn. “D. H. Lawrence’s Moby-Dick: A Textual Note.” Modern Philology 84, no. 2 (November, 1986): 191–195.