An American Procession

Kazin writes about what he calls the crucial century of American Literature from 1850 to 1930. He starts off with Emerson and writes about Thoreau, Hawthorne and Poe, Whitman, Lincoln, Melville, Twain, James, Dreiser, Adams , Crane ,Eliot, Pound, Faulkner and Hemingway. It does not seem to me that he breaks major critical new ground in this work, but rather provides informative readings of each individual writer. A few samples follow in order to provide a sense of how the work truly reads. "Emerson with his invincible belief that the universe is on man's side and that there is " compensation" for our losses, remained lofty spiritual in his tastes." p.29 "Each sentence is, as usual with Thoreau, an absolute in itself, each is a distillation of the most powerful feelings." p. 77 About Hawthorne reflecting on himself. "So much solitude lived in anxious self- confrontation and self- study meant a totally inferior life." About Melville. " Vehement in thought he had to go to the limit in book after book, pitting himself against ' the fates.'His first and lasting image of the self was heroic, scornfully independent of the suffering that came with his sense of constant struggle. His life was as tumultuously up and down as his work." For lovers of American literature this book is a must read.