St Johnsbury Academy - Lamp Yearbook (St Johnsbury, VT)

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THE ACADEMY STUDENT 13 of Whitman’s work has been widely disputed. He has been challenged not as to the depth or importance of his work, but as to whether or not he has any poetic quality at all. However, it is generally understood that what he tried to create was something which should definitely express America. He put new life into American poetry. Bv introducing American subjects and American ideas and ideals he expressed his love for democracy. “Write a book of new things,” he wrote in his notebook. “Make no quotations and no reference to any other writers.” Of other poets like Shakespeare, Ovid, and Homer he commented: “All those are good — they are what they are — I know they should not have been different — I do not say I will furnish anything better— but instead I will aim at high immortal works — American, the robust, large, manly character — the perfect woman — the illustriousness of sex, which I will celebrate. — I will be a master of my own kind, making the poems as they pass or stay the poems of freedom and the expose of personality — singing in high tones Democracy and the New World of it through these states.” With these ideas in mind, Walt Whitman went on to write a book of poems entitled Leaves of Grass, which is considered his masterpiece. A very familiar poem on Democracy is found in this book. It is called For you, O Democracy. “Come, I will make the continent indissoluble, I will make the most splendid race the sun ever shone upon, I will make divine magnetic lands, With the love of comrades With the life-long love of c rr des. I will plant companionship m.vrc as trees along the rivers of America, and All along the shores of the great lakes, and all over the prairies. I will make inseparable cities with their arms about each others’ necks By the love of comrades, By the manly love of comrades, For you these from me, O Democracy, to serve you. ma femme, For you, for you, I am trilling these songs.” Along with this new subject matter, Whitman introduced for the first time in modern literature a new form of poetry, the form often called free verse. Free verse has no metre but has a definite rhythm. It may or may not ’•hyme. Although received rather skeptically at first, free verse gained rapid popularity with the American people, and other poets began to appreciate its value and employed it in their poems. Amy Lowell, famed romanticist, found that free verse could express grace and beauty more eloquently than the conventional forms, and she used it to a wide extent. Carl Sandburg, one of outmost popular contemporaries, uses free verse in expressing problems of the slums and of smoky cities. Thus Walt Whitman created a new form of poetry which America is proud to call its own. In this day of speed and hurry and bustle the short story is the favorite form of fiction. With this fact in mind it can readily be seen that the world is i

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12 THE ACADEMY STUDENT SALUTATORY ESSAY AMERICA’S CONTRIBUTIONS TO LITERATURE Tradition and conventionality have never agreed with the American people. We have constantly, since the beginning of our history, striven to create something new. Originality has been the key-note of our brief existence. Especially in the field of literature has American originality been prominent. In three types of literature — drama, poetry, and the short story — we have in particular excelled. Three Americans may be referred to as the pioneers in these literary explorations. American drama, since the beginning of this century, has grown in leaps and bounds; and this growth has been the result of the originality shown by our dramatists. Today Eugene O’Neill is our foremost dramatist. Rising to fame steadily during the World War period, he attained a still higher place as a playwright when he presented a play entitled The Emperor Jones. It was written in eight scenes instead of the customary three acts. It relates the story of a former Negro pullman porter and ex-convict who rules as emperor over an island in the West Indies. He is tyrannical to his Negro subjects and has exploited them to the extent of a large fortune, with the plan to return to the United States and live in luxury. Eventually his people find out his treachery and go to find him with the intent to kill. Most of the play is concerned with Jones’s flight through the forest. Throughout this flight a drum beats incessantly, keeping time with his heart and increasing with his fear. Through this enormous fear, Jones, the pompous auu ’-efree “Emperor”, is gradually reduced scene by scene to a very primitive state, until in the end he is nothing less than a savage. In conclusion, he is killed in ' ’ by a silver bullet. The play as a whole is perhaps one of the most magnificent studies of fear ever presented on the stage. This was something new in the way of drama, and large audiences were attracted to it. The Great God Brown is another example of O’Neill’s skill. The plot revolves about a boy’s love for a girl, this same girl’s love for another man, and her marriage to this second man. The plot is a very familiar one. But by the use of masks O’Neill was able to portray not only what his actors said, but also what they thought. Thus in this work of art did Eugene O’Neill present his criticism of life. This again was something new, and theatre goers flocked to the play. Strange Inter1 de, a third play of O’Neill’s, is essentially the story of woman and the glory of love. In this play are presented the actors’ speech, their thoughts, and also what goes on in their subconscious minds. This is accomplished without the aid of masks and much in the manner of the soliloquies of Shakespeare. For those people who crave “something different” in the form of drama the plays of Eugene O’Neill have served their purpose and paved the way to originality for other playwrights. American poetry is always a popular topic for discussion. I should like to dwell on what Walt Whitman accomplished in this field. The value

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14 THE ACADEMY STUDENT indeed indebted to the creator of the short story. This man was Edgar Al’an Poe. America is indebted to him for the greatest single achievement in American literature. His genius is doubly impressive when it is realized that in France and Russia, where the people are less familiar with his tragic life, Poe’s short stories are classics. Writing with the conception that a short story should be about a single incident and should create a single impression, Poe succeeded perfectly in carrying out his own ideals. In most of his own stories this impression or effect is one of horror. Dark and dismal scenes are presented. Disease and insanity are expressed in his characters. Murder lurks in their minds. Death is the key-note of his plots. Near the end of his life Poe wrote to James Russell Lowell, “My life has been a whim, impulse, passion, a longing for solitude, a scorn of all things present.” That same halo of mystery, gloom, and yearning for solitude that enveloped his life is found in his stories. Yet. contrary to his belief that his life was Avasted, it is evident in the course of the literature that has followed him that what he created shall live forever. Although the short story has changed in many ways it is evident that the best short stories of today are those that follow Poe’s idea of creating a single impression on the reader. Originality pays dividends in all phases of life, and this has proved exceptionally true in literature. Eugene O’Neill, Walt Whitman, and Edgar Allan Poe combined new subject matter with new form in their particular fields of literature, and produced works Avhich may be described as truly great and truly American. - Nicholas Economou