Black Lamb

A Week in Literary History

August 27th, 2002

American novelist Theodore Dreiser (Sister Carrie, 1900) is born in Terre Haute, Ind. in 1871.

Theodore Dreiser, b. August 27, 1871, d. 1945

Few major writers ever wrote worse than Dreiser, but as Mencken said, “one swiftly forgets his intolerable writing, his mirthless, sedulous, repellent manner, in the face of the Athenian tragedy he instils into his seduced and soul-sick servant girls, his barbaric pirates of finances, his conquered and hamstrung supermen, his wives who sit and wait.” The hugeness in Dreiser’s books — the unrelenting empathy, the implacable honesty — knock all the clumsiness into a corner, and we’re left with unique, unmediated greatness.

Suggested Reading Novels Sister Carrie, 1900. Jennie Gerhardt, 1911. The Financier, 1912. The Titan, 1914. The “Genius,” 1915. An American Tragedy, 1925.

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A Week in Literary History

August 19th, 2002

American versifier Ogden Nash (I’m a Stranger Here Myself, 1938) is born in Rye, N.Y., 1902.

Ogden Nash, b. August 19, 1902, d. 1971

Great light verse is impossible to define, but you know it when you see it, or, in the case of Ogden Nash, when you see and hear it. Nash has delighted generations of readers with his talent for gnarled rhymes, sometimes based on odd spellings (“awesome” and “blawssom”) but more often on bold, unashamed ingenuity, as in this representative sample from his collection The Private Dining Room:

The Caterpillar

I find among the poems of Schiller
No mention of the caterpillar,
Nor can I find one anywhere
In Petrarch or in Baudelaire,
So here I sit in extra session
To give my personal impression.
The caterpillar, as it’s called,
If often hairy, seldom bald;
It looks as if it never shaves;
When it walks, it walks in waves;
And from the cradle to the chrysalis
It’s utterly speechless, songless, whistleless.

Suggested Reading Verse collections Hard Lines, 1931. I’m a Stranger Here Myself, 1938. Good Intentions, 1942. Many Long Years Ago, 1945. Versus, 1949. The Private Dining Room, 1953. Marriage Lines, 1964.

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A Week in Literary History

August 8th, 2002

Queen Elizabeth reviews her troops in anticipation of the approach of the Spanish Armada, 8 August 1588:

I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.
I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean time my lieutenant-general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdoms, and of my people.

Elizabeth R.

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A Week in Literary History

August 1st, 2002

American novelist Herman Melville (Moby-Dick, 1851) is born in New York City in 1819. Exactly 100 years later, Melville’s granddaughter discovers the 340-page manuscript of Billy Budd, Foretopman in a trunk, 26 years after the author’s death in obscurity.

Herman Melville, b. August 1, 1819, d. 1891

Although often thought of these days as old-fashioned (like his neighbor Nathaniel Hawthorne), Herman Melville is in fact a very modern-seeming writer. After Moby-Dick, go back to the South Sea yarns Omoo and Typee, then the coming-of-age-at-sea novels Redburn and White Jacket, and then move on to the amazing mastery of Piazza Tales (The Encantadas, Bartleby the Scrivener, Benito Cereno) and, finally, Billy Budd, not published until almost forty years after Melville had died, completely forgotten, at the age of 72. With Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, one of the unassailable titans of American literature.

Suggested Reading Novels Typee, 1846. Omoo, 1847. Mardi, 1849. Redburn, 1849. White Jacket, 1850. Moby Dick, 1851. Pierre, 1852. Israel Potter, 1855. The Confidence Man, 1857. Billy Budd, Foretopman, 1924. Stories Piazza Tales, 1856.

Posted by: The Editors
Category: Books and Authors, A Week in Literary History | Link to this Entry