Lionel Trilling
OUR HAWTHORNE
Henry James's monograph on Hawthorne must always have
a special place in American letters
if
only because, as Edmund Wilson
observed,
it
is the first extended study ever to be made of an AmericaR
writer. But of course it is kept in the forefront of our interest by more
things than its priority. We respond to its lively sense of the American
cultural existence and the American cultural destiny, to the vivacity
which arises from James's happy certitude that, in describing the
career of the first fully-developed American artist, he celebrates the
founder of a line in which he himself is to stand preeminent. And we
can scarcely fail to be captivated by the tone of James's critical dis–
course, of a mind informed and enlightened, delighting in itself and
in all comely and civilized things; it is the tone of the center, far
removed from the parochialism which (together with strength) James
imputes to Poe as a critic. For the student of American literature in
general the little book is indispensable.
But the student of American literature for whom Hawthorne is a
particular concern must experience some degree of discomfort as he
reads James on his author. He will be aware that through James's high
and gracious praise there runs a vein of reserve, even of condescension.
In an attempt to account for this, the student will perhaps reflect that
Hawthorne made himself susceptible to condescension, for he was often
at pains to avow the harmlessness of his temperament, to dissociate
EDITORS' NOTE :
This is a somewhat revised version of the essay which appears a6
the
"Afterword" of
Hawthorne Centenary Essays,
edited by Roy Harvey Pearce
and published by the Ohio State University Press.
It
formed the basis of a lecture
delivered
at
the commemoration of the centenary of Hawthorne's death which was
held at Ohio State University on May 15th of this year.
