Topic 54 - Humour - Mark Twain. Henry James and Cosmopolitanism - Oposinet PDF

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twain. Henry james and Topic 54 – Humour: mark twain. Henry james and cosmopolitanism - Oposinet
cosmopolitanism
OUTLINE
1. INTRODUCTION.
1.1. Aims of the unit.
1.2. Notes on bibliography.
2. A HISTORICAL BACKGROUND.
2.1. Before the Civil War.
3.1.1. War of Independence (1778-1783).
3.1.2. The aftermath of the war.
3.1.2.1. Social consequences.
3.1.2.2. Economic consequences.
3.1.2.3. Political consequences.
2.2. The Civil War (1861-1865).
2.3. The aftermath of the Civil War (1865-1901).
2.3.1. Social consequences.
2.3.2. Economic consequences.
2.3.3. Political consequences.
2.4. The twentieth century: up to the First World War (1914-1918).
3. A LITERARY BACKGROUND: THE LATE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH-

CENTURY LITERATURE: THE AMERICAN NOVEL.
3 1 M i lit f t
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13/11/2020 Topic 54 – Humour: mark twain. Henry james and cosmopolitanism - Oposinet
3.1. Main literary features.
3.2. Main literary forms.
3.2.1. Drama.
3.2.2. Poetry
3.2.3. Prose: the American novel.
4. MARK TWAIN AND HENRY JAMES: HUMORISM AND COSMOPOLITANISM.
4.1. Mark Twain (1835-1910).
4.1.1. Life and works.
4.1.2. Main themes and style: humorism.
4.2. Henry James (1843-1916).
4.2.2. Main themes and style: cosmopolitanism.
5. MAIN EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS.
6. CONCLUSION.
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
1. INTRODUCTION.
1.1. Aims of the unit.
The present unit, Unit 54, aims to provide a useful introduction to two
relevant figures of American literature, Mark Twain and Henry James, whose
literary contributions were namely produced on the second half of the
nineteenth century and associated to the literary streams of humorism and
cosmopolitanism, respectively. In general, the literature of the time was both
shaped by and reflected the prevailing ideologies of the day, that is, the
main social, economic, political, cultural, and technological conditions of
thi i d h th ti f l th N th E t i d t i l
this period, such as the question of slavery, the North East industrial
revolution, the War with Great Britain, the aftermath of the Civil War, the Gold
Rush period, the classic cultural capital of Boston, and the use of steaming
ships in the Mississippi, among others.
As we shall see, these two writers are a reference point in which social,
economic, cultural, technogical and political allegiances are placed very
much to the fore. Actually, Mark Twain (whose real name was Samuel
Longhorne Clemens) reflects the social and political situation of the United
States with humour as a means of social critic, where the questions of
slavery, racism, hypocrisy and cruelty of modern civilization are highlighted;
on the other hand, Henry James denounces the absence of cultural
interaction between the United States and the old Europe in terms of culture,
traditions, monuments, treasures of art, and above all, values, since he was
the first major American writer to become an expatriate. Hence his
cosmopolitan vision when writing about the national virtues and vices in
search of an ideal civilization.
Then, we shall examine all this information within a historical and literary
background so as to provide an appropriate context for M. Twain and H.
James’ lives and literary works. Therefore, we shall divide our presentation in
five main chapters.
Chapter 2 namely offers a historical background of the United States in the

nineteenth and early twentieth century regarding social, economic and
political changes. So, we shall divide our study in four main sections
regarding the main events occurred before and during the nineteenth
century: thus (1) before the Civil War, where we shall examine (a) the War of
Independence (1778-1783) and (b) the aftermath of the war in terms of (i)
social, (ii) economic and (iii) political consequences; (2) the period of the
Civil War itself (1861- 1865); (3) the aftermath of the Civil War up to President
Theodore Roosevelt (1865-1901), where we shall examine the main (a) social,
(b) economic and (c) political consequences which gave way to (4) the
early years of the twentieth century up to the First World War (1914-1918).
In Chapter 3, we shall provide a literary background of this period with the

aim of going further into its main literary productions and, in particular, into
the king style within the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century
literature the American novel within American fiction Therefore we shall
literature, the American novel within American fiction. Therefore, we shall
start by briefly comparing (1) American vs. British literature in terms of
general features, and (2) the main literary forms, regarding (a) drama, (b)
poetry, and (c) prose, out of which we shall locate the American novel within
prose productions.
In Chapter 4 we shall attempt to provide an account of two American

novelists, Mark Twain and Henry James within the literary the streams of
humorism and cosmopolitanism in the United States. Therefore, we shall
introduce, first, an American writer, journalist and humorist who won a
worldwide audience for his stories of the youthful adventures of Tom Sawyer
and Huckleberry Finn, that is, (1) Mark Twain (1835- 1910), who is associated
with humorism and; next, we shall introduce the figure of (2) Henry James
(1843-1916), who is associated with cosmopolitanism and the link between
the American and European culture. Both writers will be approached in
terms of (a) life and main works, and (b) main themes and style.
Chapter 5 will be devoted to the main educational implications in language

teaching regarding the introduction of this issue in the classroom setting.
Chapter 6 will offer a conclusion to broadly overview our present study, and
Chapter 7 will include all the bibliographical references used to develop this
account of the United States History and Literature in the nineteenth and
early twentieth century.
1.2. Notes on bibliography.
An influential introduction to the historical background of the United States

of America in the nineteenth century, is based on Thoorens, Panorama de
las literaturas Daimon: Inglaterra y América del Norte. Gran Bretaña y
Estados Unidos de América (1969); and White, The Horizon Concise History
of England. American Heritage (1971). On the literary background, relevant
works are: Rogers, The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature (1987);
Albert, A History of English Literature (1990); Speck, Literature and Society in
Eighteenth -Century England: Ideology Politics and Culture (1998); Cunliffe,
American Literature to 1900 (1993); Alexander, A History of English Literature
(2000); Ward & Trent, The Cambridge History of English and American
Literature (2000); and Allan Neilson, Lectures on the Harvard Classics (2001).
Specific bibliography on the life, works and style of Twain and James include
respectively: Gale (1973), Plots and Characters in the Works of Mark Twain;
Gale (1982), Dictionary of Literary Biography; Foggel (1993), A Companion to
Henry James Studies; Gordon (1999), A Private Life of Henry James; and Ford
(1988), The New Pelican Guide to English Literature.
The background for educational implications is based on the theory of

communicative competence and communicative approaches to language
teaching are provided by the most complete record of current publications
within the educational framework is provided by the guidelines in B.O.E.
(2004) for both E.S.O. and Bachillerato; and the Council of Europe, Modern
Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. A Common European
Framework of reference (1998).
2. A HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE NINETEENTH AND

EARLY TWENTIETH CENTURY.
Chapter 2 namely offers a historical background of the United States in the

nineteenth and early twentieth century regarding social, economic and
political changes. So, we shall divide our study in four main sections
regarding the main events occurred before and during the nineteenth
century: thus (1) before the Civil War, where we shall examine (a) the War of
Independence (1778-1783) and (b) the aftermath of the war in terms of (i)
social, (ii) economic and (iii) political consequences; (2) the period of the
Civil War itself (1861- 1865); (3) the aftermath of the Civil War up to President
Theodore Roosevelt (1865-1901), where we shall examine the main (a) social,
(b) economic and (c) political consequences which gave way to (4) the
early years of the twentieth century up to the First World War (1914-1918).
2.1. Before the Civil War.
2.1.1. War of Independence (1778-1783).
The War of Independence, also known as the American Revolution, was first
regarded as a civil war against Britain, but when other countries entered the
confrontation, namely France (1778), Spain (1779) and the Netherlands
(1780), it became an international war. Initial confrontations
were mixed (the British being successful at Brandywine but suffering badly
at Saratoga), but the situation improved for the colonists when these three
13/11/2020 g Topic 54 – Humour: mark twain. Henry james and cosmopolitanism - Oposinet
countries utilized the opportunity caused by the confrontation to declare

war on Britain as well. Eventually, by 1782, the British campaign was
crumbling.
The British Parliament demanded an end to the war, largely due to its high
expenses. The Prime Minister, now Lord North, resigned and, on 3 September
1783, treaties were signed at Versailles. Britain retained Canada and the
West Indian Islands but the thirteen rebellious states were formally
recognised as the United States of America. On the other hand, France
retained their West Indian Islands and were given Tobago in addition, and
Spain recovered Florida after twenty years of British control (but later sold it
to the Netherlands).
2.1.2. The aftermath of the war.
Therefore, the aftermath of the war was particularly felt in the national
division of the states due to the political struggle over slavery and the
spread into new territories (the West). Hence, the North representing the
modern, industrial, and business-minded states versus the South, which
represented the cultures, colonial and aristocratic states. Yet, in general, the
main consequences following the loss of the American colonies were to be
noticed at all levels. For instance:
2.1.2.1. Social consequences.
In social terms, the Constitution had been able to regulate conflicts of

interest and conflicting visions for the new, rapidly expanding nation. But
from 1820 to 1860 many other factors had changed, thus the rise of mass
democracy in the North, the breakdown of the old two-party system, the
increasingly virulent and hostile sectional ideologies (especially that of “free
labor” in the North), the acquisition of new lands in the West in the 1840s and
slavery in the south, which would catapult the nation into civil war.
Also, the United States exerted an irresistible attraction on visitors and

therefore, immigrants, namely from Germany and Ireland. Between the
1830s and 1840s, population grew at an amazing rate attracted by an
efficient network of economic and cultural richness in the new land. The
German did well whereas the Irish immigrants were not rich enough to buy
land Hence they had to take the menial and unskilled labour needed by the
land. Hence they had to take the menial and unskilled labour needed by the
expanding economy, and
as a result, they suffered discrimination in towns and cities (their

discrimination is compared to the free blacks in the North).
There is little question that the salient issue in the minds of the public and
popular press of the time, and the histories written since, was the issue of
slavery. Slavery had been abolished in most northern states, but was legal
and important to the economy of the Confederacy, which depended on
cheap agricultural labor. State sovereignty (for the South) and preservation
of the Union (for the North) have both also been cited as issues, but both
were reflections of the slavery issue. Since Northern blacks possessed
theoretical freedom, they suffered discrimination at all social levels (politics,
employment, education, religion, and even in cemeteries).
Yet, their situation improved between the 1830s and 1850s under the Age of
Reform, where a great variety of ideals and movements flourished in favor of
women’ rights, pacifism, abolition of imprisonment, capital punishment,
improving working classes conditions, and a better education, among
others. Yet, a vast majority of Americans did not support these changes. The
Reform reflected the sensibility of a small number of people.
2.1.2.2. Economic consequences.
Economically, after the War of Independence two different economic

models towards capitalism developed, thus represented by North and South
ideals. On the one hand, the North, supported by the Middle West, based its
economy on industry and farming in order to set up tariffs to protect
themselves against rival European products; on the other hand, the South,
namely aristocratic, based its economy on cotton production in big
plantations, and therefore, free trade of slaves. Slavery did not exist in the
Northern states, so the North found it difficult to accept the attitude of the
South.
2.1.2.3. Political consequences.
Political consequences were to be felt in Britain and in the American

colonies. Let us examine the most relevant events in both continents.
In the British Empire, there was an increasing interest in the east. The East
India Company had long been the main agent of Imperial expansion in
southern Asia and exercised many governmental functions. Although the
company maintained sole responsibility for trade and patronage, in 1784
under the India Act, a Board of Control
was established to oversee the revenue, administration and diplomatic

functions of the company as well as the aspects of its military expansion.
Yet, the new target of Britain was not only the East, but also the colonisation
of the Antipodes so as to establish penal colonies (1788). The colonisation of
Australia and New Zealand began with the desire to find a place for penal
settlement after the loss of the original American colonies. The first shipload
of British convicts landed in Australia in 1788, on the site of the future city of
Sydney1.
Regarding the American colonies, the resolution on the settlement in the

West was to be realized by a Federal government, which was established
according to the interests of the North states. Until 1789, the United States
was governed by the Articles of Confederation, which created an extremely
weak central government. The United States had no power to levy taxes; for
income, it relied essentially on money from the states. In addition, the
government of the United States had no central executive branch, making
its already weak government further divided and lacking strong leadership.
The government of the United States under the Articles was also weak with
regards to foreign affairs, and during this period Britain and Spain treated
the United States like a third-rate power.
Therefore, since the South was afraid of a possible centralized government,

they started to think about the possibility of breaking with the Union and
replaced the Articles of Confederation with a stronger central government.
Those who advocated the creation of such a government took the name
Federalists, and quickly gained supporters throughout the nation. The most
well- known Federalists include Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and
John Jay. These were the main contributors to the Federalist Papers, a series
of 85 essays which served in many ways as seminal documents for the new
United States that was to come.
The Constitution of the United States was adopted as a direct response to

the Articles of Confederation and as a result, a strong executive branch was
created for the first time to give the government the power to tax. After the
first elections then the old nationalists (Federalists) took the power.
Moreover, the Federalists gained a great deal of prestige and advantage
when George Washington joined their cause.
The political atmosphere before the Civil War was, therefore, one of
unremitting crisis. The underlying problem was that the United States had
been on the whole a country, but not a nation and hence, the major
functions of government (education, health, transport) were carried out at a
state or local level. Yet, an enduring manifestation of hostility toward the
nationalizing tendencies in American life was the reassertion of strong
nationalistic feelings threatened by the West.
There were several points of view from West, East, North and South. On the
one hand, the West developed a strong sectional feeling, blending its sense
of uniqueness and the feeling of having been exploited by the businessment
of the East and, on the other hand, the East reasserted his national feeling.
Moreover, the South persisted on Negro slavery, which had already been
abolished or prohibited in all other parts of the United States. So, people
from the South stated an elaborate pro-slavery argument on defending
their institutions on biblical, economic, and sociological grounds. On the
contrary, the North reaffirmed its position towards industry and against
slavery, and made a great effort to change the South’s point of view.
In fact, George Washington received every electoral vote and became

president, and only a handful of Anti-federalists were elected to Congress.
When Washington determined not to continue, president John Adams was
elected president, and in turn, Jefferson (a republican) in
1800, and James Madison in 1809. Britain and France were forced by
Madison to respect the
commercial restraints in the seas, but the efforts were futile. Britain
periodically humiliated the small American navy by seizing American ships.
By 1812, American relations with Britain did not improve. Rather, a popular
clamour for war began to arise namely due to the frustration and desire to
clamour for war began to arise, namely due to the frustration and desire to
redeem the national honour, and eventually, America declared the war
against England in 1812. Two years later (1814), the Americans defeated
England in 1814 and peace was reestablished in the United States by James
Monroe (former secretary of state and president in 1816). This period was to
be known as the “Era of Good Feeling”.
By 1860, the American society underwent both a sectional confrontation and

an economic revolution.depression, sharpened by economic and class
divides, realigning the interplay of race, class, and political ideology. In other
words, the realignment of cleavages and cooperation among geographical,
social classes, and party affiliations in politics between the depression of
1857 and the election of 1860 led to the

election of a president so objectionable to Southern
1
The majority of these convicts were young men, many of whom had committed only petty
crimes. New
slave-owing interests that it would trigger Southern secession, and

consequently a war to save the integrity of the Union.
Hence, in 1860 the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln took place in an

atmosphere of great tension and was not received in the same way in the
North and South. In the South, Lincoln’s election was taken as the signal for
secession and South Carolina became the first state to withdraw from the
Union. This time they were determined and soon, other states followed their
proposal. In 1861, in February 4, six Southern states sent representatives to
establish a new independent government, but Lincoln was not in favour of
the Union to be divided. Then, in his inaugural address, his speech closed
with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union. The South, particularly
South Carolina, ignored the plea, and on April 12, the South fired upon the
Federal troops stationed at Fort Sumter in the Charleston, South Carolina
until the troops surrendered.
2.2. The Civil War (1861-1865).
The Civil War has been also called the main American social revolution, a
watershed in the rise of modern industrial society in the United States and
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as the result of free-labor industrial capitalism, and the resolution of

sectional conflict in the North. This war was fought between the northern
states, popularly referred to as the “Union,” the “north,” or the “Yankees,” and
the seceding southern states, commonly referred to as the Confederate
States of America, the “Confederacy.” the “south,” or the “rebels.”
As stated above, the Civil War started with Lincoln’s victory in the
presidential election of
1860, which triggered South Carolina’s secession from the Union. By February
1, 1861, six more Southern states had seceded. On February 7, the seven
states adopted a provisional constitution for the Confederate States of
America. The remaining southern states as yet remained in the Union, and
less than a month later, on March 4, 1861, Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as
president of the United States.
Since then a march of Union troops under the command of the Confederate
force was built up by July 1861 at Manassas, Virginia . The first battle is known
as the First Battle of Bull Run (or First Manassas), whereupon they were
forced back to Washington, DC by Confederate troops
under the command of Generals Joseph E. Johnston
and P.G.T. Beauregard. Alarmed at the loss,
South Wales opened to free settlers in 1819. By 1858, transportation of

convicts was abolished.
the United States Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on

July 25 of that year in an attempt to prevent more slave states from leaving
the Union. Also, it stated that the war was being fought to preserve the Union
and not to end slavery.
Subsequent encounters took place and the first victory of the war was under
the Union flag under the figure of Ulysses S. Grant, who captured Fort Henry,
Tennessee on February 6, 1862. Later on in September 5, the Confederates
made its first invasion of the North under the rule of General Lee, who led
55,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia across the Potomac River at
White’s Ford near Leesburg, Virginia into Maryland. Then, on September 17,
1862, Lee’s army, checked at last, returned to Virginia. Yet, the war’s turning
point was made by George Meade, who stopped Lee’s invasion of Union-
held territory at the Battle of Gettysburg between 1-3 July
1863, inflicting 28,000 casualties on Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia , and

again forcing it to
retreat to its state.
In general terms, while the Confederate forces had some success in the
Eastern holding on to their capital, fortune did not smile upon them in the
West. Confederate forces were driven from Missouri early in the war. The
Union’s key strategist and tactician Ulysses S. Grant, won victories at Fort
Donelson, Battle of Shiloh, Vicksburg, Mississippi, and Chattanooga,
Tennessee, driving Confederate forces out of Tennessee. Grant’s aim was to
defeat the Confederate forces and bring an end to the war.
At the beginning of 1864, Grant was given command of all Union armies in
the East, who attempted to defeat Lee and fought several battles during that
phase of the Eastern campaign: the Battle of the Wilderness, Spotsylvania
Court House, and Cold Harbor. Grant was tenacious and kept pressing the
Army of Northern Virginia under the command of Robert E. Lee. He extended
the Confederate army, pinning it down in the Siege of Petersburg and, after
two failed attempts, he finally found a commander, Philip Sheridan, who
could clear the threat to Washington DC from the Shenandoah Valley.
Yet, the North superiority was in the air. The main advantages widely
believed to have contributed to the Union’s success include the North’s
strong, industrial economy; the North’s strong compatible railroad links (and
the South’s lack thereof); the North’s larger population; the North’s
possession of the United States’ merchant marine fleet and naval ships; the
North’s established government; the North’s moral cause given to the war by
Abraham Lincoln (the Emancipation Proclamation); and last but not least,
the recruitment of black men, including many freed slaves, into the Union
Army after the Emancipation Proclamation was approved.
On 9 April 1865 Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox

Court house. The Battle of Palmito Ranch, fought on May 13, 1865, in the far
south of Texas was the last
land battle of the war and ended with a Confederate victory. All Confederate
land forces had surrendered by June 1865 whereas Confederate naval units
surrendered as late as November of
1865.
2.3. The aftermath of the Civil War (1865-1901).
The aftermath of the Civil War is namely represented by several

international and national events which are interrelated regarding (1) social
consequences reflected by the strong spirit of reform, reflected on
important social and cultural changes; (2) economic consequences, which
include the emergence of new industrialized fronts in the South and the
West as a result of the late consequences of international events, such as
the Industrial Revolution and the imperialist policy of powerful countries; and
finally, the main (3) political consequences in this period.
2.3.1. Social consequences.
The main social consequences were to be felt since ancient times, such as
(1) the question of slavery, and also, due to the industrialization and
expansion to the West regarding (2) immigration movements to the West
and from different parts of the world, and the new (3) distribution of social
classes.
The question of slavery.
The question of slavery is closely related to the Emancipation Proclamation,

which was supposed to free all slaves who were in territory under
Confederate control at the time of the Proclamation. Yet, slaves were not
freed in the remaining states and parts of the Confederacy until the
passage of the Thirteenth Amendment by third quarters of the states, which
did not occur until December of 1865. A good deal of ill will among the
Southern survivors resulted from the destruction inflicted on the South by the
Union armies as the end of the war approached, the resulting shift of
political power to the North, and the Reconstruction program instituted in
the South by the Union after the end of the war.
Migrations to the West and from the rest of the world.

On the one hand, as a result, thousands of Americans and immigrants

started farms in the West, namely on the Great Plains. Mine and cattle
industry also developed in that area, so after 1870, settlement became so
widespread in the West that it was no longer possible to draw a continuous
frontier line. This expansion to the West meant the end of native Indians
since new
settlers occupied their land and slaughtered indiscriminately buffalo herds,

namely their main way of survival. Eventually, federal soldiers were sent by
the government to crush the Indian conflict, and pushed them onto
reservations.
Following Brogan (1985), another kind of immigration is the early twentieth-

century one, which was given at a higher scale. America had received
immigrants from its colonial days due to its attractive image, which was
derived to a large extent from its dynamic economy, but in a low number.
Yet, immigration reached its highest point after the American economic
recession in the decade from 1901 to 1910, when millions of emigrants came
from south-eastern Europe. This movement is known as the Melting Pot of
America due to the ethnic diversity.
After obtaining its independence, the United States lacked a cultural pattern
and was continuously searching for an identity. In this sense, the mass
immigration has helped the United States define the national culture as
politically egalitarian and democratic since the first large-scale immigration
occurred. Also, it has provided richness, color, cultural heritage and art to
American life. Yet, immingration also creates conflicts, such as those
regarding housing, sanitation, crime and, therefore, legal system due to
problems of assimilation and adjustment.
Distribution of social classes.
On the other hand, the effects of the Industrial revolution on society made
the spirit of reform be stronger, and were to be felt namely on the American
people lives and, therefore, social classes since thousand of people moved
from farms to cities. Hence we can distinguish three main social classes: a
small percentage of high social class, who enjoyed wealth and luxury lives; a
larger percentage of middle class who lived comfortably but below the
larger percentage of middle class, who lived comfortably, but below the
level of the former; and a huge number of people who belonged to the low
social class and lived in extreme poverty.
It is worth mentioning that during the early 1900’s the reformers wanted to
reduce poverty by improving the living conditions of the poor and regulating
big business. Also, the government aimed at putting an end to corruption,
making government closer to the people, and obtaining other goals such as
the women suffrage. Yet, by 1917, since the reformers had achieved most of
their aims and some of them were called progressives, this period of
American history is often known as the Progressive Era (Palmer, 1980).
2.3.2. Economic consequences.
First of all, following Musman (1982), “after the Civil War, American industry
changed dramatically.” On the one hand, “machines replaced hand labor
as the main means of
manufacturing, thus increasing the production capacity of industry.” As a

result, “a new nationwide network of railroads enabled businessmen to
distribute goods far and wide” and promoted the rise of big business and
the industrialization of the South and the West.
On the one hand, the rise of big business was the result of the increase in
American industry produced by the value of goods between 1870 and 1916,
and several production developments. Thus, the improvement of production
methods favoured the use of machines in manufacturing. This use made
factories employ thousands of workers, which were assigned specific jobs.
This system of labor is known as the division of labor, which sped up
production and had a tremendous impact on economy. It also allowed
prices to get lower and meant that more people could afford more
products.
On the other hand, the emergence of new industrialized fronts in the South
and the West took place when the South decided to rebuild its society since,
in economic terms, it had been behind the rest of the nation. Hence, though
some industry developed in the region, the South remained an agricultural
area throughout the period of American industrialization. On the other hand,
the West industrialization started when the Congress passed the
( )
Homestead Act (1862) by means of which public land was offered to people
for free or at very low cost, which had a great impact in social terms.
2.3.3. Political consequences.
The main political consequences of the Civil war are the Spanish-American
War (1898), the American domination policy in the Caribbean area, and the
Mexican revolution, and the First World War (1914-1918). Yet, the only one
which is framed within the nineteenth century is the first one, the Spanish-
American War. The other three events are examined in next section since
they are framed within the turn of the century.
The Spanish-American War (1898) was the principal event of the

administration of President William McKinley (1897-1901), who fought over
the issue of the liberation of Cuba, though it started under the rule of the
previous President, Cleveland (1885- 1893). Following Brogan (1985), most
Americans wanted their country remain away from European affairs and
thought it should offer an example of democracy and peace to the rest of
the world. Actually, this war made the United States come up into the world
politics on a new road to imperialism.
Previously to the event, it is worth remembering that Spain ruled over Cuba,
Puerto
Rico, the Philippines and other overseas possessions during the 1890’s. When
Cuba
rebelled against the Spanish rule in 1895, the repression was hard. Yet, soon
the rising public in America demanded for intervention.Yet, on February 15,
1898, the American battleship Maine was blown up off the coast of Havana,
in Cuba and, although it is not clear enough who caused the explosion,
many Americans blamed Spain.
As a result, on April 25, 1898 McKinley gave way to the Congress to declare
the war on Spain. The war was officially ended by the Treaty of Paris in the
same year. Militarily speaking, this war was brief and relatively bloodless
whereas its political and diplomatic consequences were enormous. Actually,
this event marked a turning point in the history of the United States foreign
policy since Spain relinquished Cuba (whose independence was recognized
in 1902) and ceded to the United States the Philippine Islands, Guam, and
Puerto Rico.
Expansion of the nation to include regions outside of the North American

continent was denounced as imperialism by the Democratic Party, and
became the principal issue of the 1900 presidential campaign. The nation,
however, supported the policy of expansion as carried out by the McKinley
administration. In September 1901 McKinley was assassinated by a crazed
anarchist, and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became president. His
administrations marked a new attitude held by a section of the Republican
Party toward the important social, political, and economic questions of the
time, and led gradually to a sharp split in the party.
2.4. The twentieth century: up to the First World War (1914-1918). So, the turn
of the century brought about the following consequences:
the American domination in the Caribbean, which ranges approximately

from the presidence of Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1905) to that of Wilson
(1913-1917), though the latter coincides with the First World War. As we
mentioned before, the era of Th. Roosevelt is related to a period of progress
and, therefore, his policy is known as Progressivism. Actually, Roosevelt, like
Jackson and Lincoln, believed that the president had the duty of initiating
and leading Congress to implement a policy of social and economic benefit
to the people at large. Among domestic questions, Roosevelt addressed
those of federal supervision and regulation of all interstate corporations;
amendments of the Interstate Commerce Act to prohibit railroads from
giving special rates to shippers; the conservation of natural resources;
federal appropriations for
irrigation of arid regions in the West; and the extension of the merit system
in civil service.
Yet, for our purposes, the most relevant domestic affair had to do with the
desire of Eastern business to have easy access to Pacific markets. An
isthman canal was demanded to link the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans,
but the only obstacle was the government of Colombia, which owned
Panama. Then, both governments negotiated a treaty and the construction
of the canal began so soon that on August 15, 1914 it was opened to
shipping Hence when crisis appeared in the Caribbean area Wilson was
shipping. Hence when crisis appeared in the Caribbean area, Wilson was
determined to protect American security even with the use of force.
Therefore, a protectorate was established by force in Haiti in 1915 and also a
military occupation of the Dominican Republic in Nicaragua in 1916.
Roosevelt gained worldwide importance through his dramatic speeches

and actions as president, his inauguration of the building of the Panama
Canal, and his activities in ending the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).
Roosevelt declined to run for reelection in
1908 and the Republicans nominated his secretary of war, William Howard
Taft in
1909, based on Roosevelt’s recommendation. He was followed by Woodrow

Wilson who, like Roosevelt, believed that the presidency should be used for
initiating and guiding national legislation in accordance with the chief
executive’s interpretation of the will of the people.
the Mexican Revolution, by means of which Woodrow Wilson succeeded in

carrying out notable revisions and reforms in the laws governing the tariff,
the banking system, trusts, labor, and agriculture. One of his main
achievements in domestic affairs was to deal with an uprising in Mexico in
1913 started by a Victoriano Huerta, a military usurper who murdered the
preceding president Francisco Madero. Wilson trie d to persuade the
dictator to step down from office and allow free elections for a new
democratic government. Then Wilson gave open support to Madero’s
successor, Venustiano Carranza. Yet, when Civil War appeared, Wilson
refused to interfere. It is at this point that the figure of Pancho Villa comes to
the scene, seeking to provoke war between the United States and Mexico.
Wilson then sent a punitve expedition which was a failure. Relations between
the two government were greatly improved when Wilson extended
recognition to Carranza’s new constitutional regime in 1917.
Wilson also achieved a victory in domestic affairs when the 19th

Amendment to the United States Constitution, which legalized women’s
voting rights, was passed in 1919 and ratified in 1920, hence the so-called
Woman Suffrage. Yet, the most important issues of Wilson’s presidence were
those arising from the outbreak of World War I in
Europe in 1914, the entrance of the United States into the war in 1917, and the
making of peace in 1919.
And finally, for our purposes, the First World War (1914-1918) , which brought a
period of diplomatic conflict between the United States and Great Britain
and between the United States and Germany since it was an outgrowth of
European territorial problems and nationalism. Following Palmer (1980), the
great majority of Americans were firmly neutral and determined to avoid
intervention unless American rights and interests were violated, and in 1915
an official proclamation of neutrality was proclamated. This procla mation
appealed the Americans to be impartial both in thought and action. Yet, in
April 6, 1917 the United States was finally drawn into the war against
Germany and its allies due to the unrestricted German submarine warfare
on Atlantic shipping.
The United States contribution was decisive in the outcome because of its
military superiority both in armament and people. Hence it provided Britain
with the ships to overcome the submarine threat and also, with the
American Expeditionary Force on September 1918 to France. As a result, this
military power inclined the balance on the western front and helped to end
the war in November 1918. Next year, the United States was also influential in
the writing of the Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended the war in 1919.
The Senate of the United States rejected the treaty and the United States
membership in the League of Nations (the covenant for which formed part
of the treaty) which temporarily reversed the tendency toward U.S.
involvement in world affairs. Actually, a separate treaty of peace was signed
by the U.S. and Germany in Berlin in August 25,
1921.
Although the early 1920s brought improvements in architecture, education,

technology, these years also saw the rising of mass law-breaking and the
rise of organized crime. Therefore, several acts were passed, such as the
‘Volstead Act’, which prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of
intoxicating liquors (the Prohibition Amendment). Yet, the late years of the
1920s witnessed the cease of this prohibition due to the 1929
Stock Market Crash and the turn of the decade saw the Great Depression
p
which was an
unparallelled economic disaster in the history of the United States.
3. A LITERARY BACKGROUND: THE LATE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH-

CENTURY LITERATURE: THE AMERICAN NOVEL.
In Chapter 3, we shall provide a literary background of this period with the

aim of going further into its main literary productions and, in particular, into
the king style within the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century
literature, the American novel within American fiction. Therefore, we shall
start by briefly comparing (1) American vs. British literature in terms of
general features, and (2) the main literary forms, regarding (a) drama, (b)
poetry, and (c) prose, out of which we shall locate the American novel within
prose productions.
3.1. American vs. British literature: general features.
As we shall see, these two literary streams shall reflect the prevailing
ideologies of the nineteenth and early twentieth century both in Britain and
in America. Thus, in Britain literature is to be framed into, first, the Victorian
literature (1837-1901) where the novel and the romance are the most
popular literary forms, and second, the Edwardian (1901-1910) and Georgian
literature, which will challenge previous productions by offering a late-
nineteenth-century realism, which is defined as the pre-war literature up to
the First World War.
Yet, in America, Twain and James also brought a new spirit of realism into
the genre of romance and, as their European colleagues, also were shaken
by the great processes of change that were transforming the American life,
that is, human nature, society, and the individual’s place of history. These
fast changes were to be felt in technology, urbanization, secularization and
modernization at an international level, and in fact, the United States
became a dominant nation in the twentieth century. In the same way,
literature also interpreted these changes as a period of a fundamental
redirection in the nature of the ideology of American society and also,
cultural and technological development.
Whereas Europe could afford the luxury of romanticising its past and finding
Whereas Europe could afford the luxury of romanticising its past and finding
its ideal in the pastoral, America’s past was too close. Yet America’s
literature was in need of tradition in which literature could flourish as it did in
Europe. Hence it would take fifty years of accumulated history for America to
earn its cultural independence and to produce the first great generation of
American writers: Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper, Ralph Waldo
Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar
Allan Poe, Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, Henry James, and Emily Dickinson.
America’s literary
independence was slowed by a lingering identification with England, an

excessive imitation of English or classical literary models, and difficult
economic and political conditions that hampered publishing.
Then American awareness of literary fashion still lagged behind the English,
and fifty years after the building of a new nation attracted talented and
educated people to politics, law, and diplomacy. Despite these pursuits
brought honor, glory, and financial security, writing did not pay. Hence early
American writers, now separated from England, effectively had no modern
publishers, no audience, and no adequate legal protection, so until 1825,
most American authors paid printers to publish their work.
On the other hand, nineteenth-century literature in the Victorian period, that

is, from 1837 to
1901 coincides with the late consequences of the British imperialism since
the mid-Victorian period (from 1850 to 1873) saw the highest point of the
British imperial expansion, and economic and political prosperity. This
literary period is characterized by its morality, which to a great extent is a
natural revolt against the grossness of the earlier Regency, and the
influence of the Victorian Court. In addition, literary productions are affected
by the intellectual developments in science, religion, and politics, where we
observe a strong literary interaction between American and European
writers (specially in political and philosopical writings).
Yet, the early twentieth century period (from 1901 to 1914) is associated to the
consequences of the end of the Victorian period, that is, loss of consensus
due to the Great Depression (1873), the end of British economic supremacy
and, therefore, the decline of the British empire; finally, the period of pre-war
literature (up to the First World War) is associated with a stream of realism,
both in American and in Britain, which diverted attention from the cruder
conceptions of imperial expansion to social problems. Hence Twain and
James reflected these changes and problems first, with humour, and
secondly, from a cosmopolitan view, respectively.
3.2. Main literary forms.
Broadly speaking, the nineteenth and early twentieth century saw a wide
variety of American authors in the Victorian and pre-war period who
produced their work within the field of the most important literary forms:
drama, poetry and prose, but for our purposes we shall focus on M. Twain
and H. James in the latter form: American fiction in prose style . Let us briefly
examine the three literary forms so as to provide a basis for a detailed
analysis in next chapter.
3.2.1. Drama.
Drama was written as freely as ever, but did not monopolize the activities of
the major poets. Following Albert (1990), “from the dramatic point of view the
first half of the nineteenth century was almost completely barren” since the
professional theatre of the period was in a low state and the greater part of
the dramatists work never saw the stage”, both in Britain and America. “The
popular pieces of the day were melodrama, farces and sentimental
comedies, which had no literary qualities whatever, were poor in dialogue
and negligible in characterization, and relied for their success upon
sensation, rapid action, and spectacle”.
The comic spirit in drama was in abeyance, but in general there were a few
dramatic productions and therefore, little interest on this literary form. Yet,
towards the end of the nineteenth century, the last decades of the reign saw
major talents in a revival of literary theatre, namely on the European
continent (Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, John Millington Synge, Henry
Arthur Jones, Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, John Galsworthy), but not in the
American one.
3.2.2. Poetry.
Poetry, broadly speaking, reaches its peek in America in the 19th century
although some of the most imaginative and creative poetry was created
centuries earlier (Tu Fu of the Tang Dynasty in China in the 7th century
B.C.;William Shakespeare in the 16th century; Dante in the thirteenth
century). It is in the nineteenth-century where we include the works of
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percey Bysshe Shelley, Walt Whitman, Lord Byron,
and some of the greatest poets of the nineteenth century, along with
examples of of their work.
Literary writing was not as simple and direct as political writing. When trying
to write poetry, most educated authors did it in an elegant neoclassical
style. The epic, in particular, exercised a fatal attraction, and soon American
literary patriots felt sure that the great American Revolution naturally would
find expression in the epic (a long, dramatic narrative poem in elevated
language, celebrating the feats of a legendary hero). Yet, many American
writers tried but none succeeded, and not surprisingly, satirical poetry and
mock epics fared much better than serious verse.
3.2.3. Prose: the American novel.
Within prose we find different types of productions: novel (fictional and non-
fictional) , literary criticism, periodical literature (political, philosophical) ,
essays, and other miscellaneous works which receive scanty notice. Yet, we
shall focus on the novel (American fiction) in the United States. The first
fiction writers used American subjects, historical perspectives, themes of
change, and nostalgic tones. They wrote in many prose genres, initiated new
forms, and found new ways to make a living through literature. With them,
American literature began to be read and appreciated in the United States
and abroad.
Towards the middle of the century, American literature started to become

independent as well as self-divided, since a tragic note in American
literature becomes dominant in the novels, even before the Civil War of the
1860s manifested the greater social tragedy of a society at war with itself.
Similarly, there is no doubt that the Victorian era, even in America, was the
age of the English novel, namely realistic, thickly plotted, crowded with
characters, and long.
By the end of the period, the novel was considered not only the premier form
f t t i tb t l i f l i d ff i
of entertainment but also a primary means of analyzing and offering
solutions to social and political problems, only challenged by the revival of
realism towards the end of the century. It is in this background that we find
relevant writers such as Mark Twain and Henry James.
The American novel, which shows a literary form in which happy country life
is portrayed as a contrast to the complexity and anxiety of the urban
society, as we can see in the American romancers’ use of the frontier, Indian
society, Arcadian communities, Puritan villages, and shipboard societies.
Whereas for the Romantic American writers the typical features of romance
were the crime, religion, ghosts, magic , which are used as the basis of a tale
of terror, the late nineteenth-century writers such as Twain and James were
characterized by the use of humour and the cosmopolitan element in their
works so as to reflect the social tragedies and the connections with the
European continent.
4. MARK TWAIN AND HENRY JAMES: HUMORISM AND COSMOPOLITANISM.
In Chapter 4 we shall attempt to provide an account of two American

novelists, Mark Twain and Henry James within the literary the streams of
humorism and cosmopolitanism in the United States. It is worth pointing out
that these two authors, together with other contemporary
writers (Nathaniel Hawthorne, Emily Dickinson, Edgar Allan Poe, Francis Bret
Harte) represent the first great literary generation produced in the United
States, which combined fiction and reality. Yet, they used the novel as a
means of transmitting their ideas, but differ in offering the vision of
imperialism and the early years of the twentieth century with the
emergence of realism, which represented social and political events of the
time where the democratic American individual had to invent himself.
Therefore, we shall introduce, first, an American writer, journalist and

humorist who won a worldwide audience for his stories of the youthful
adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, that is, (1) Mark Twain
(1835-1910) , who is associated with humorism and; next, we shall introduce
the figure of (2) Henry James (1843-1916), who is associated with
cosmopolitanism. Both writers will be approached in terms of (a) life and
main works, and (b) main themes and style.
4.1. Mark Twain (1835-1910).
Mark Twain was the pseudonym of Samuel Taylor Clemens, who was born
on November 30,
1835 in Florida, Missouri. The Clemens family consisted of two brothers

(included Twain), a sister, and the family- owned slave, Jenny, whose vivid
storytelling was a formative influence on the character of his novels some
years la ter. As aVirginian family, he was brought up within the perspective
of slave-owning tradition.
After his father’s death in 1847, he was in turn an apprentice to a pr inter, a

journalist (since he wrote for his brother’s newspaper), and later on a silver-
miner in Nevada, and a licensed Mississippi river-boat pilot. Yet, the Civil War
put an end to the steamboat traffic and Clemens moved to Virginia City,
where he edited the Territorial Enterprise . Then in the late summer of
1862, he was summoned by Joe Goodman, owner and editor of the Virginia
City Enterprise, to
come up and take the local editorship of that paper. Then he contributed to
it with sketches under the pen name of ‘Josh,’ and Goodman recognized a
talent full of possibilities.
Twain realized he needed a pen-name for the more comedic and fantastic
columns he was writing, and eventually, he chose a river term, used in
making soundings, recalled from his piloting days. So on February 3, 1863,
‘Mark Twain’ was born when Clemens signed a humorous travel account
with that pseudonym. The name presently became known up and down
the Pacific coast and soon he acquired a world-wide fame, and was
recognized, together with
Bret Harte, as one of the foremost among a little group of overland writers.
Next year (1864) Twain left for California, and worked in San Francisco as a
reporter. After visiting Hawaii as a correspondent for The Sacramento Union,
he published several letters on his trip and gave some lectures A pleasure-
he published several letters on his trip and gave some lectures. A pleasure-
trip to Europe and other continents (France, Italy, Egypt, the Holy Land)
provided him with material to record his experiences in The Innocents
Abroad (1869), where we see vivid an amusing pictures of Europe through
the eyes of a typical American turning on the Old World the sceptical view of
the New. This work established his popularity as an American humorist of the
first rank, since he poked fun at both American and European prejudices
and manners.
For him, a career in journalism was more than natural and his success as a
writer gave him enough financial security. Then in 1870 he married Olivia
Langdon and soon he set up in Nook Farm, a sort of literary suburb of
Hartford, Connecticut, where neighbouring authors included Charles Dudley
Warner and Harriet Beecher Stowe. In this context, he published Roughing It
(1872), which was an account of his own experiences in the West and The
Gilded Age (1873), written in collaboration with C.D. Wagner.
Between 1876 and 1884 he published other several masterpieces, like The
Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876), where he breaks away from the cultured
gentility of New England literature to give vivid, realistic, and racy pictures of
life in the southern states; A Tramp Abroad (1880), which tells of his further
travels in Europe; The Prince And The Pauper (1881), a Tudor England story
set in the sixteenth century of poor quality in which Edward VI of England
and a little pauper change places.
Moreover, we find Life On The Mississippi (1883) which reflects his childhood
at the great waterway through a travel book and contains an attack on the
influence of Sir Walter Scott, whose romanticism has caused according to
Twain ‘measureless harm’ to progressive ideas.; The Adventures of
Huckleberry Finn (1883) is generally adjudged his greatest work together
with Tom Sawyer because of the deep levels of human experience, the
power of the character (the boy) to tell the truth, and the picture of
American society at that time; and also A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur’s Court (1889).
In the 1890s Twain lost most of his earnings in financial speculations and his
run of properity was interrupted by the bankruptcy of a firm with which he
was connected and then, he undertook a lecturing tour round the world: first
Hartford, and then in the United States and
a o d, a d e eU ed S a es a d
England. To recover from the bankruptcy, he started a world lecture tour

round New Zealand, Australia, India, and South Africa (during which one of
his daughters died).
After this, he wrote books as The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894), and
Personal Recollections Of Joan of Arc (1896), which are works of a poorer
quality; also the travel book Following the Equator (1897), in which he writes
of the world-wide lecture tour made toward the end of his life; and the bitter
story of The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg (1900) and the final fatalism of
The Mysterious Stranger (posthumously published in 1916).
It is worth noting that during his long writing career, Twain also produced a
considerable number of essays and romances based on non-personal
experiences (The Prince and th e Pauper, A Connecticut Yankee in King
Arthur’s Court, Joan of Arc). Yet, the death of his wife and his second
daughter darkened the author’s later years, which he spent on completing
his official autobiography, posthumously published (1924). Yet, though Twain
died on 10 April, 1910, lives on in the hearts and minds of grateful readers
everywhere.
4.1.2. Main themes and style: humorism.
Twain believed that American novel lacked the analytical sensibility

necessary to the novelist’s art, although he enjoyed magnificent popularity
as a novelist. In general, from the very beginning of his journalistic career,
Twain made fun with the novel and its tradition and th is is the reason why
he frequently returned to travel writing through a vein of humor. Alike Henry
James, Twain saw the European culture with a sceptical eye and he is said
to have broken away from the strong influence of European models, and
helped to lay the foundations of a distinctively American tradition:
humorism (Albert, 1990:412).
He aimed to please the masses, his strokes are bold and broad, and the
humour ranges from farce to bitter satire. Yet, the key to success relies on,
first, introducing the double vision of the world through the eyes of a child in
most of his plays; second, to use his personal experience as a boy in
Mississippi waterway, his mining days, and his days as a journalist; and the
bi ti f ‘t d d ’ it i fl t d i T
combination of a ‘treasure, a woman, and a dream’ as it is reflected in Tom
Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn. Moreover, he always offered episodic plots, but
well handled, characters with warm humanity, and a spontaneous style
which gives his writings an enduring charm.
Regarding his themes, and as we stated above, the question of slavery is

always present in his works since he was brought up within the perspective
of slave-owning tradition, but his conscience was Northerner (against
racism). Actually, his family-owned Jenny, a black slave,
whose vivid storytelling was a formative influence on the character of ‘Sam’

in his later novels. He was called a liberal since he stated in numerous times
the moral superiority of the black race (Jim in Huckleberry Finn, Sam in Tom
Sawyer, Uncle Daniel in The Golden Age).
Also, although he set up in the East, his roots were those of a Westener, and
constant references to the West are made through the river Mississippi
under the figures of boys (Huck, Tom) and through his days as a silver-
miner in Nevada, in the Far West. Pioneer conditions, the battle with the
frontier, and the Indians made life very difficult there, but Mark treated them
with humour since this literary form sold most in the so-calle d Posbellum
America (1866- 1913). Hence he wrote about the consequences of the Civil
War since his best works are firmly grounded in cruel reality, between
tragedy and humour.
4.2. Henry James (1843-1916): cosmopolitanism.
Henry James was born on April 15, 1843 in New York City into a wealthy and
cultured American family. His father was Sr. Henry James, who was one of
the best-known intellectuals in mid-nineteenth-century America, so in his
youth James travelled back and forth between Europe and America and
studied with tutors in Geneva, London, Paris, Bologna and Bonn. By the late
1860’s the fascination of the older European civilization was making itself felt
and he wrote his first essays and reviews, but after that, at the age of 19, he
briefly attended Harvard Law School (1862).
Yet, he preferred reading literature to studying law since from an early age
James had read the classics of English, American, French and German
literature and Russian classics in translation. He was gifted with talents in
literature, psychology, and philosophy and he is regarded as a prolific writer.
Actually, James wrote novels, short stories, travel sketches, literary criticism,
and autobiography (20 novels, 112 stories, 12 plays and a number of works of
literary criticism).
He was a friend of the New England group of writers (among them James
Russell Lowell, H.W. Longfellow, and William Dean Howells), and it was as a
contributor to Howells’ Atlantic Monthly and other American magazines that
James began his career as a writer. In fact, James published his first short
story, A Tragedy of Errors and two years later, betweem 1866-69 and
1871- 72 he was a contributor to the Nation and Atlantic Monthly. It was in the
Atlantic that his first novel, Watch and Ward (1871) appeared first serially (it
is the story of a bachelor who
adopts a twelve-year-old girl and plans to marry her). James wrote it while
he was traveling through Venice and Paris.
After spending much time in Europe he settled initially in Paris, where he was
contributor to the New York Tribune; then he moved to England, London,
where he lived until 1897, and finally, he moved to Rye (1898), where where
he spent the rest of his life and wrote his last novels. So, by 1875 he had
established himself in London as his new home, and during his first years in
Europe James wrote novels that portrayed Americans living abroad.
Actually, the first of his novels was Roderick Hudson (1875), which deals with
the contrast between the young American civilization and the older
European culture; and that was followed by similar novels like The American
(1876-77), the story of a New World innocent who discovers at once the
cultural richness of Europe and its underlying depravity.
This was followed by The Europeans (1878), where he reversed the

international pattern in his witty, meticulously controlled study of the way in
which two ‘Europeanized’ Americans readjust to the life of staid and quiet
Boston; Daisy Miller (1879), where the young and innocent American, Daisy
finds her values in conflict with European sophistication; and James’
masterpiece The Portrait Of A Lady (1881) where again a young American
woman becomes a victim of her provincialism during her travels in Europe
woman becomes a victim of her provincialism during her travels in Europe.
Other novels mark the beginning of Henry James’ second period as a

novelist, such as The Princess Casamassima (1886); The Bostonians (1886),
which is set in the era of the rising feminist movement and portrays the
English characte r; What Maisie Knew (1897), on depicting the child’s mind of
a preadolescent young girl, who must chose between her parents and a
motherly old governess; two works which he left unfinished at his death, The
Sense of the Past and The Ivory Tower, both of which were published
posthumously in 1917.
Also, The Tragic Muse (1890), The Spoils of Poynton (1897), and The Awkward
Age (1899). Yet, the highwater mark of his career was reached in the three
novels, The Wings Of The Dove (1902), where a heritage destroys the love of
a young couple; The Ambassadors (1903), which is considered James’ most
perfect work of art; and The Golden Bowl (1904), in which, turning again to
the them of the contrast between European and American cultures, he
achieves a subtlety of character-study, a delicacy of perception, and an
elaboration of artistic presentation which rank them high among modern
novels (Albert, 1990:439).
Between 1879-1880 his astonishing career saw a collection of tales and

James’s most famous short stories, of which James was an acknowledged
master. To his credit he has almost a hundred tales, which began with his
earliest contributions to American magazines and continued well into the
middle of his writing life. Among them we may include the short novels
Confidence; Hawthorne; and Wahington Square. Also, The Turn of the Screw
(1898), a ghost story in which the question of childhood corruption obsesses
a governess; and a short novel which shows James’ interest in the occult,
The Altar of the Dead, The Beast in the Jungle , The Birthplace, and other
Tales (1909).
Other stories appeared in The Madonna of the Future and other Tales (1879),
The Aspern
Papers and other Stories (1888), Terminations (1895), and The Two Magics
(1898). Between
1906 and 1910 James revised many of his tales and novels for the New York
edition of his complete works. On the other hand, his autobiographical

writings were A Small Boy and Others (1913), Notes of a Son and Brother
(1914), and the third volume, The Middle Years, appeared posthumously in
1917. This posthumous fragment is known as Terminations (1917), not to be
confused with the short story of that name.
The outbreak of First World War was a shock for James and in 1915 he
became a British citizen as a declaration of loyalty to his adopted country
and in protest against the US’s refusal to enter the war. James suffered a
stroke on December 2, 1915, and he died three months later in Rye on
February 28, 1916. His letters, published in 1920, his Notes on Novelists (1914),
and the essay, The Art of Fiction (1884) are of the utmost importance to the
readers of James, and further light is thrown upon his work by The
Notebooks of Henry James (1947). Note that although James is best known
for his novels, his essays also attract a more general audience.
4.2.2. Main themes and style: cosmopolitanism.
Following Albert (1990:439), “a study of James is essential to the sutdy of the

modern novel because he was one of the first to view it as an artistic form.
To him the novel was primarilyan art form to be judged solely by artistic
canons, concerned, not with moral purpose, but with the objective and
impartial presentation of the reality of life.” James is concerned with the
detailed and elaborate study of the subtlest shades of human reactions to
the situations which he conceived.
Hence his technique is namely based on the consciousness of a single

character, discarding the omniscience of a traditional novelist. Also, the
character, often standing outside the main drama of the novel, acts as
commentator and guide to the reader in many of James’ works. His main
themes are closely related to his technique since the key to James’ is found
in his own life. He was an American fascinated by the charm of an older
civilization, where he finds most of his themes: the impact of European
society upon America and the study of the processes of adjustment and
their effect upon the development of the individual character.
Henry James is regarded as a superb stylist. His preoccupation with

technique is felt in the mastery of language, his quest for the exact word, the
perfect image, and the delicately suggestive rhythm. His descriptive powers
pe ec age, a d e de ca e y sugges e y . s desc p e po e s
are highlighted by an excellent dialogue form. He encompasses brilliantly
aesthetic and phychological considerations on form, by combining the old
tradition in novel with the new one.
Simple and unadorned in his ealry fiction, James becomes increasingly

ambiguous and elliptical in his late years. Similarly, his characters follow the
obscure and subtle forces ruling human conduct and are framed within the
central consciousness of James’ technique, the stream of consciousness, to
be recaptured by his followers (Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson and
James Joyce). Finally, his worldwide vision of an ideal society, and his
emphasis on the contrast between the young American civilization and the
older European culture have made him popular within the literature of
cosmopolitanism.
5. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS IN LANGUAGE TEACHING.
Literature, and therefore, literary language is one of the most salient aspect
of educational activity. In classrooms all kinds of literary language (poetry,
drama, novel, prose, periodicals, newspapers, pamphlets), either spoken or
written, is going on for most of the time. Yet, handling literary productions in
the past and, in particular, American History and Literature, makes relevant
the analysis of the main literary works, such as novels, letters, poems,
newspapers, essays, among others, which reflect the social, political,
economical and cultural situation of the period, for our purpose, the late
nineteenth and early twentieth century.
Hence it makes sense to examine relevant figures such as of Mark Twain

and Henry James, among others because of their relevant contributions not
only to American literature, but also to European literature as well. Who has
not read or seen Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom
Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn when we were little, or cried with Henry James’
What Maisie Knew or The Bostonians? As we can see, American literature is
so close to our culture and, in particular, to most of our students through the
media: TV, films, radio, books, and magazines, among others.
Currently, action research groups attempt to bring about change in

classroom learning and teaching through a focus on literary production
d t i Fi t b th b li l i i i t l
under two premises. First, because they believe learning is an integral
aspect of any form of activity and second, because education at all levels
must be conceived in terms of literature. The basis for these assumptions is
to be found in an attempt, through the use of various modes of literary
forms, to develop understanding of students’ shared but diverse social and
physical environment.
Learning involves a process of transformation of participation itself which

has far reaching implications on the role of the teacher in the teaching-
learning relationship. This means that literary genres are an analytic tool
and that teachers need to identify the potential contributions and potential
limitations of them before we can make good use of the genre analysis
techniques: poems, comedies, historical accounts and romances. We must
bear in mind that most students will continue their studies at university and
there, they will have to handle successfully all kind of genres, especially
poetry and fiction ones within our current framework.
But how do nineteenth and twentieth American literature tie in with the new
curriculum? American literature may be approached in linguistic terms,
regarding form and function (morphology, lexis , structure, form) and also
from a cross-curricular perspective (Sociology, History, English, French,
Spanish Language and Literature). Yet, Spanish students are expected to
know about the American culture and its influence on Europe (or the other
way round, from James’ point of view) since students are required to know
about the world culture and history. So, American literature is easily
approached by means of the subjects of History, Language and Literature
by establishing a paralelism with the Spanish one (age, literature forms,
events).
In addition, one of the objectives of teaching the English language is to

provide good models of almost any kind of literary productions for future
studies. Following van Ek & Trim (2001), ‘the learners can perform, within the
limits of the resources available to them, those writing (and oral) tasks
which adult citizens in general may wish, or be called upon, to carry out in
their private capacity or as members of the general public’ when dealing
with their future regarding personal and professional life.
Moreover, nowadays new technologies may provide a new direction to

language teaching as they set more appropriate context for students to
language teaching as they set more appropriate context for students to
experience the target culture. Present-day approaches deal with a
communicative competence model in which first, there is an emphasis on
significance over form, and secondly, motivation and involvement are
enhanced by means of new technologies. Hence literary productions may
be approched in terms of films and drama representations in class, among
others, and in this case, by means of books: novels, short story, or poetry,
among others.
The success partly lies in the way the language becomes real to the users,
feeling themselves really in the language. Some of this motivational force is
brought about by intervening in authentic communicative events.
Otherwise, we have to recreate as much as possible the whole cultural
environment in the classroom. This is to be achieved within the framework of
the European Council (1998) and, in particular, the Spanish Educational
System which establishes a common reference framework for the teaching
of foreign languages where students are intended to carry out several
communication tasks with specific communicative goals, for instance, how
to produce a literary text (oral or written): writing a chapter of a novel, a
terror story, a poem, acting out in a theatre play, representing a film scene
orally , and so on.
The knowledge about American culture (history and literature) should

become part of every literary student’s basic competence (B.O.E., 2004).
There are hidden influences at work beneath the textual surface: these may
be sociocultural, inter and intratextual. The literary student has to discover
these, and wherever necessary apply them in further examination. The main
aims that our currently educational system focuses on are mostly
sociocultural, to facilitate the study of cultural themes, as our students must
be aware of their current social reality within the European framework.
6. CONCLUSION.
On reviewing the literary figures of Mark Twain and Henry James within the
literary streams of humorism and cosmopolitanism, respectively, in the
mid- late nineteenth and early twentieth American literature, we have
reviewed the prevailing ideologies of the day, such as the questions of
slavery, the North East industrial revolution, the War with Great Britain, the
aftermath of the Civil War, the Gold Rush period, the opportunities to travel
, p , pp
around Europe and contrast experiences between the American and
European culture, and even technological
stereotypes on the American rivers such as the use of steaming ships in the
Mississippi, among others.
But why these two writers and not other contemporary American authors
such as the humorist Francis Bret Harte or the cosmopolitan James Russell
Lowell, H.W. Lonfellow or William Dean Howells? Twain and James share
common features such as living in the same period and using the American
novel as a literary means to transmit their vision of reality. Yet, they differ in
two main points, first, their childhood and youth background (Twain in his
West world and Mississippi river, and James in an educational background
around America and Europe, which let him get a cosmopolitan vision of the
world and the contrast between America and Europe culture); and secodn,
their vision of the world, by means of which James is fascinated by the
contrast between the American civilization and the magnificence of the
older European world whereas Twain breaks with this influence and founds a
distinctively American tradition.
So, on examining all this information we have addressed a historical

background of the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth
century regarding social, economic and political changes, where we have
approached the main events occurred before and during the nineteenth
century (the War of Independence, its aftermath, the period of the Civil War
itself up to the First World War (1914-1918). In Chapter 3, we have provided a
literary background so as to frame the literary features of our authors and
their style within the late nineteenth and early twentieth – century literature,
and particularly, the American novel within American fiction .
Finally, in Chapter 4 we have provided a personal and professional account

of Mark Twain and Henry James within the literary the streams of humorism
and cosmopolitanism in the United States; and in Chapter 5 we have
accounted for the main educational implications in language teaching
regarding this issue. Finally, we shall present in Chapter 7 all the
bibliographical references used to develop this account of the United States
History and Literature in the nineteenth and early twentieth century for
further reference.
So far, we have attempted to provide the reader in this presentation with a

linguistic, historical and cultural background on the vast amount of
literature productions in the nineteenth and early twentieth century
literature in the United States. This information is relevant for language
learners, even ESO and Bachillerato students, who do not automatically
establish similiarities between Brit ish and Spanish literary works. So, learners
need to have these associations brought to their attention in cross-
curricular settings. As we have seen, understanding how literature reflects
the main historical events of a country is important to students, who are
expected to be aware of the richness of English literature, both in the United
States and on the European continent.
7. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
Albert, E. 1990. A History of English Literature. Walton-on-Thames. Nelson. 5th

edition (Revised by J.A. Stone). Allan Neilson, W. et al. 2001. Lectures on the
Harvard Classics, edited byVol. XLI. The Harvard Classics. New
York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001.
Alexander, M. 2000. A History of English Literature. Macmillan Press. London.
B.O.E. 2004. Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Decreto N.º 116/2004, de 23

de enero. Currículo de la Educación
Secundaria Obligatoria en la Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia.
B.O.E. 2004. Consejería de Educación y Cultura. Decreto N.º 117/2004, de 23 de

enero. Currículo de Bachillerato en la Comunidad Autónoma de la Región
de Murcia.
Council of Europe (1998) Modern Languages: Learning, Teaching,

Assessment. A Common European Framework of reference.
Cunliffe, M . 1993. American Literature to 1900. The Penguin History of

Literature, Volume 8. Penguin Books. Foggel, Daniel M. 1993. A Companion to
Henry James Studies . Macmillan Press. London.
Ford B (ed ) 1988 The New Pelican Guide to English Literature vol 9º
Ford, B. (ed.). 1988. The New Pelican Guide to English Literature, vol. 9
American Literature.
Gale, Robert L. 1982. Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 11: American

Humorists, 1800-1950 , Volume 12: American Realists and Naturalists.
Gale, Robert L. 1973. Plots and Characters in the Works of Mark Twain. Shoe
String Press. Gordon, L. 1999. A Private Life of Henry James. London & New
York: Longman.
Rogers, P. 1987. The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature. Oxford

University Press.
Speck, W.A. 1998. Literature and Society in Eighteenth-Century England:

Ideology Politics and Culture 1680-1820. Book Reviews.
Springer, H. (ed.). 1995. America and the Sea: A Literary History. Athens: U of
Georgia P.
Thoorens, L. 1969. Panorama de las literaturas Daimon: Inglaterra y América

del Norte. Gran Bretaña y Estados
Unidos de América. Ediciones Daimon.
Ward & Trent, et al. 2000. The Cambridge History of English and American
Literature. New York: G.P. Putnam’s
Sons, 1907–21; New York: Bartleby.com.
White, R.J. 1971. The Horizon Concise History of England. American Heritage
Publishing Co, Inc.: New York, New York.
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1.1. Aims of the unit.

1.2. Notes on bibliography.

2.1. Before the Civil War.

3.1.1. War of Independence (1778-1783).

3.1.2. The aftermath of the war.

3.1.2.1. Social consequences.

3.1.2.2. Economic consequences.

3.1.2.3. Political consequences.

2.2. The Civil War (1861-1865).

2.3. The aftermath of the Civil War (1865-1901).

2.3.1. Social consequences.

2.3.2. Economic consequences.

2.3.3. Political consequences.

2.4. The twentieth century: up to the First World War (1914-1918).

3. A LITERARY BACKGROUND: THE LATE NINETEENTH AND EARLY TWENTIETH-

3.2. Main literary forms.

3.2.3. Prose: the American novel.

4. MARK TWAIN AND HENRY JAMES: HUMORISM AND COSMOPOLITANISM.

4.1. Mark Twain (1835-1910).

4.1.1. Life and works.

4.1.2. Main themes and style: humorism.

4.2. Henry James (1843-1916).

4.2.1. Life and works.

4.2.2. Main themes and style: cosmopolitanism.

5. MAIN EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS.

1.1. Aims of the unit.

Chapter 2 namely offers a historical background of the United States in the

In Chapter 3, we shall provide a literary background of this period with the

In Chapter 4 we shall attempt to provide an account of two American

Chapter 5 will be devoted to the main educational implications in language

1.2. Notes on bibliography.

An influential introduction to the historical background of the United States

The background for educational implications is based on the theory of

2. A HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE UNITED STATES IN THE NINETEENTH AND

Chapter 2 namely offers a historical background of the United States in the

2.1. Before the Civil War.

2.1.1. War of Independence (1778-1783).

countries utilized the opportunity caused by the confrontation to declare

2.1.2. The aftermath of the war.

2.1.2.1. Social consequences.

In social terms, the Constitution had been able to regulate conflicts of

Also, the United States exerted an irresistible attraction on visitors and

as a result, they suffered discrimination in towns and cities (their

2.1.2.2. Economic consequences.

Economically, after the War of Independence two different economic

2.1.2.3. Political consequences.

Political consequences were to be felt in Britain and in the American

was established to oversee the revenue, administration and diplomatic

Regarding the American colonies, the resolution on the settlement in the

Therefore, since the South was afraid of a possible centralized government,

The Constitution of the United States was adopted as a direct response to

In fact, George Washington received every electoral vote and became

By 1860, the American society underwent both a sectional confrontation and

1857 and the election of 1860 led to the

slave-owing interests that it would trigger Southern secession, and

Hence, in 1860 the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln took place in an

2.2. The Civil War (1861-1865).

as the result of free-labor industrial capitalism, and the resolution of

under the command of Generals Joseph E. Johnston

and P.G.T. Beauregard. Alarmed at the loss,

South Wales opened to free settlers in 1819. By 1858, transportation of

the United States Congress passed the Crittenden-Johnson Resolution on