A History of American Literature

by Percy Holmes Boynton

Wilson, J. G. Bryant and his Friends. 1886.

Wilson, J. G. Joseph Rodman Drake, in Harper’s Magazine. June, 1874.

Collections

Boynton, Percy H. American Poetry, pp. 136–153, 624–626.

Duyckinck, E. A. and G. L. Cyclopedia of American Literature, Vol. I, pp. 201–207.

Griswold, R. W. Poets and Poetry of America. 1842.

Stedman and Hutchinson. Library of American Literature, Vol. V, pp. 363–379.

TOPICS AND PROBLEMS

Read the “Salmagundi Papers” and “The Citizen of the World” for evident influences. Close attention will reveal obligations not merely in the use of a foreign observer, a slight narrative thread, and the kind of topics treated, but also in actual detail passages.

Read passages covering the education of Goldsmith in Irving’s Life, in Macaulay’s essay, and in Thackeray’s “English Humourists,” and compare the degrees of sympathy with which Goldsmith is presented.