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The Ideological Function of Illustrations in American Literary Histories by Michael Boyden

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The Ideological Function of Illustrations in American Literary Histories

Author: Michael BOYDEN Published: August 2001
A bstract: This article discusse s the use and function of illustrations in Pe te r C onn's "Lite rature in Am e rica: An Illustrate d History" (1989). In se ve ral re spe cts C onn's book goe s back to a tradition of te x tbook historie s that flowe re d during the first two de cade s of the twe ntie th ce ntury. At the sam e tim e , howe ve r, Lite rature in Am e rica que stions ce rtain assum ptions gove rning te x tbook s. By opposing and inte rre lating te x t and im age , C onn displays the ide ological capacity of illustrations. This capacity shows itse lf in the way illustrations contribute to the im agination of the Am e rican soul. Keywords: criticism , historigoraphy, philosophy of history, lite rary history , Am e rican lite rature , illustrations

This article focuses on the use and function of illustrations in American literary histories. I treat literary history as a genre, rather than as a sequence of 'literary' events. I will restrict the discussion to one representative of the genre, namely Peter C onn's Literature in America: An Illustrated History (1989). As illustrations I count pictures of whatever kind accompanying the main text. In extension, however, anything that does not belong to the main text and explains or exemplifies it in some way or other can acquire an illustrative function. Thus, lists, tables, maps, notes, captions, fragments from texts other than the main text, etc. will occasionally be drawn into the analysis. But the main focus are the illustrations themselves. Literature in America was published around the same time as the prestigious C olumbia Literary History of the United States. Despite this fact, however, the two works differ considerably. Something that immediately leaps to the eye is that Literature in America is a one man-project, whereas the Columbia Literary History is a collaboration of a large number of specialists. This characteristic is only seemingly trivial, for cooperative authorship is a convention more or less built into the genre of modern literary history. This convention is ultimately linked to the specialization accompanying the gradual autonomization of American Studies. This among other things makes C onn's history a rather improper representative of the genre. In what follows, I will argue that Literature in America places itself in a tradition of textbook histories which is in various respects discontinuous with modern literary scholarship, but also that it extends the potential of this tradition as regards the use of illustrations. To make this point, however, I need to somewhat contextualize the textbook tradition to which C onn goes back.

The Textbook tradition

Textbooks are designed for use in schools and colleges. Their main function is instruction and explanation. In the American context, textbooks are usually associated with a period preceding the rise of professional scholarship. In his introduction to a 1969 reprint of C airns's A History of American Literature , which first appeared in 1912, James A. Sappenfield categorizes the work as a prominent
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representative of 'a distinct genre of literary histories in the first two decades of the twentieth century' (C airns vii). These literary histories, Sappenfield continues, are characterized by 'the considerable uniformity of textbooks. They are remarkably similar in size and physical quality. Most of them have marginal notation to facilitate selective reading. Many include bibliographic data, recommendations for primary source reading, and study questions. Some are illustrated. Their approach to the subject is uniform too' (vii). Although textbooks continue to be written, Sappenfield has in mind a more or less closed body of texts. Around 1928 this textbook tradition came to a close. In that year The Reinterpretation of American Literature was published by Foerster et al., which Sappenfield perceives as a landmark in American literary scholarship. The Reinterpretation introduces a new approach to literary history which it borrows chiefly from the social sciences. It stresses the need for scientific collaboration and attempts to free American Studies from the elitist college lecture room. It propagates mass literature as a worthy object of study and draws attention to the societal factors underlying literary production and consumption. The book was a response to the democratization of the educational system in the USA and the gradual institutionalization of American Studies within that system. Also, it confronted the rise to political and economic dominance of the USA at the outset of the twentieth century and the concomitant need to balance this position on the cultural plane.

A Call for a Literary Historian

The first essay of The Reinterpretation is F. L. Pattee's 'A C all for a Literary Historian.' This title already makes clear that The Reinterpretation is in the first instance a 'call' for a new method to literary history, but does not present us with actual conclusions or new findings. In the 1959 preface to the book Robert P. Falk shows how The Reinterpretation grew out of the 'general warfare of ideas' (vii) in and around the universities during the postwar period. C onsequently, the work has a high programmatic caliber. Messianic statements such as 'it is high time...' etc. are legion. However, the individual contributions differ considerably as to the weight accorded to criticism or contextual factors. They are primarily united by their shared rejection of the textbook tradition. The dissatisfaction with textbook histories is expressed by Pattee in the following manner: 'I have nearly a hundred histories of American literature on my shelves, and I am still adding more - a hundred volumes to tell the story of our literary century, and all of them alike, all built upon the same model!' (Foerster 3). To the authors of The Reinterpretation, the textbooks' approach to American literature is sectionalist and idealistic. It is idealistic, because such textbooks fail to appreciate the importance of economic factors. It is sectionalist, because they organize their object of study on the basis of geographic and political units which fail to account for both the singularity of American literature and its relation to Europe. Pattee explicitly links the physical uniformity of the textbook to its uniformity of approach: 'But the really stereotyped thing about these histories is their critical method: always the same list of biographical facts with emphasis upon the picturesque, always the repetition of a standard series of well-worn myths' (Foerster 3). The aim of the textbook is didactic rather than scientific. It is designed for the transmission of values. According to Pattee, scientific literary histories should take such valuational hierarchies as their object of study. Also, textbook histories address a readership that consists primarily of students. Scientific histories, on the other hand, are written for peers. Whereas scientific histories are the product of the concerted effort of a group of specialists, textbooks more often than not are the lifework of a pioneering dilettante. A short reference to C airns's history can illuminate Pattee's point. Even by looking at the type page, it becomes clear that A History of American Literature is primarily designed as a juxtaposition of important facts. If, for example, one
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follows the narrative of C aptain John Smith - 'the first American writer (...) known to every schoolboy' (2) - as composed by the marginal notations summarizing each paragraph, one can see how C airns moves from C aptain Smith's Achievements, over Smith's First Book and Smith's Later Writings towards Smith's Veracity and Smith's Literary Merits. This miniature story line is repeated for more or less every author or group of authors. As a consequence, major movements and their interconnections, their relation to the political and economic environment etc. are in all senses pushed to the background. But not only the format and the method of textbooks are criticized in The Reinterpretation. Their use of illustrations too seems to be incommensurate with the exigencies of professional scholarship. Textbooks often include maps, book lists, 'questions to answer' and 'things to do.' They also tend to enclose many and long excerpts from the primary texts so as to familiarize the student with the material. It should not surprise, therefore, that the textbook's generic properties tend to intersect with those of the anthology. Both textbooks and anthologies are explanatory rather than exploratory in kind. This finality affects their use of illustrations. I would like to show that illustrations not only help to imagine American literature, but also legimitize certain ways of writing literary history.

Literature in America
Having briefly situated the textbook tradition, I will now discuss C onn's Literature in America in relation to that tradition. In more than one respect, the work goes back to the early textbooks. I have already mentioned at the outset that Literature in America seems to go against the grain of much present-day American literary scholarship, which is a cooperative enterprise. This impression is confirmed if one observes that C onn's history contains numerous illustrations: portraits, frontispieces, titlepages, drawings, cartoons, autographs, etc., most of which are integrated in the main body of text. In the American context, scientific histories do not normally contain illustrations (as in the case of the Columbia Literary History ), because of their rejection of the coffee table book. If they do contain illustrations, then these are limited in number and remain confined to a central quire. Next to illustrations in the strict sense, C onn makes use of marginal texts accompanying the figures as well as handy captions above the main text. The index is preceded by a literary chronology, a chronology of American events and a list with books of further reading. The work contains no footnotes or page citations. All of this aligns Literature in America with the textbook tradition and separates it from the scientific literary history. The first line of the preface says: 'Literature in America is addressed to all readers who are interested in the history and variety of literary achievement in the United States' (ix). This rather vague opening sentence indicates that C onn does not restrict his readership to peers, but envisions a fairly large audience. The preface continues: 'In a time of energetic cultural debate, when the assumptions that govern literary preferences and interpretations are being subjected to unprecendented scrutiny, a one-volume history of American literature requires a word or two of explanation' (ix). Such an explanation is not explicitly given, but is hinted at by the anticipated critique in the subordinated clause. The canon debate concerning the political and other implications of the existing curricula has resulted in extreme fragmentation within the field of American Studies. C onn offers a comprehensive view of American literature, which nevertheless leaves room for difference: 'While the contents of any one-volume history will necessarily be selective, my aim has been to offer a relatively spacious account of American literature, a survey that acknowledges both the diversity and the excellence that have typified America's literary experience' (ix).

The Grand Overview, With Pictures

Thus, in contradistinction to, for example, the Columbia Literary History of the
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United States, which does not attempt to integrate the divergent viewpoints of its contributions into a unified story, C onn attempts to reconcile the recent developments in American Studies with the reader's need for explanation and integration. This attempt, however, is not without criticism. In a New York Times review of Literature in America , ironically titled 'The Grand Overview, With Pictures,' Susan Gubar admits that there is 'something almost noble' about C onn's endeavor, something 'admirably quixotic.' But she goes on to assert that Literature in America is suited study material for neither the sophisticated nor the general reader. First of all, any scholar of whatever conviction (new historicist, Marxist, feminist, etc.) would find the book 'naive or superficial.' Maybe, Gubar concedes, this reveals more about the present overspecialization of American Studies than about the inherent qualities of C onn's history. But, however this may be the case, the book would not appeal to the less informed readers either. Graduate students would need footnotes and page citations for their research. Undergraduates would be better off studying the primary texts than resorting to C onn's 'sophomoric platitudes,' his 'breezy historical generalizations,' and his 'trite critical tags.' In short, the book would enrage the specialist and mislead the general reader: 'Have Mr. C onn's labors been inspired by a dream of a common reader who, alas, may no longer estist? Did that reader ever exist?' Gubar concludes that C onn has written 'a Baedeker of America's literary geography' for which there is no (longer a) market. The flaws that Gubar attributes to C onn's Literature in America are all aspects that one would associate with traditional textbooks: its format, its detailing of the familial and geographic backgrounds of the authors, the superficiality of its method, its classroom intent and its appeal to the common reader. However, Gubar's picture of C onn's book is somewhat caricatural. C onn does not conform entirely to the textbook tradition. One important difference lies in the finality given to illustrations.

The ideological Function of illustrations

When from the 1870's onwards American literature was first taught as a course in its own right, textbook histories satisfied the need for adequate course materials. Also, they served to promote American Studies as a worthy field of scholarly activity. Illustrations played an important role in this process. Next to an explanatory function, therefore, they also had an ideological function in that they contributed to the creation of a literary heritage. Let us take The Cyclopaedia of American Literature (1865) by the Duyckinck brothers as an example. This work contains a number of engravings from portraits of the selected authors. In most instances, these engravings are accompanied by the author's autograph, which evokes authenticity and authority. Interestingly, most engravings were based on photographs made by Matthew Brady, a successful pioneer of the new medium. He is remembered for the renowned battlefield photographs of the C ivil War (although these were not his) and for his Gallery of Illustrious Americans (1850), which portrayed a number of notable contemporaries. Brady's photographs (and the ones that were attributed to him) doubtlessly contributed to the making of the American national identity. A flattering pre-election picture of Abraham Lincoln was even credited by the latter with 'having helped him win the presidential election' (Encarta). The portraits in the Duyckincks' Cyclopaedia served a comparable function. They created a national literary pantheon.

All Merry, All Happy, and Bright

The illustrations in C onn's Literature in America are not of this kind. Here, the illustrations precisely draw attention to their ideological capacity. A good example of this double functionality is C onn's inclusion of Eastman Johnson's Old Kentucky Home . This painting depicts the back of a rural house where a group of AfroAmericans is enjoying an odd moment. On the right, a richly dressed AngloAmerican girl enters the peaceful scene, lured by the music and merriment. The
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painting is a 'classic' in its genre and is to a lesser or greater extent engraved in the collective memory of the United States. Perkins and Perkins include it in their American Tradition in Literature . The footer accompanying the illustration describes it in neutral terms as 'a depiction of the pre-C ivil War south.' This neutral description confirms the fact that Johnson's sentimental portrayal of life in the South can be seen as a received image which does not incite further explanation. C onn's use of Johnson's painting differs from that of Perkins and Perkins in two respects. C onn does not describe the painting in neutral terms, but sees it as 'a pleasant scene of racial harmony from which the brutality of lash and forced labor have conveniently disappeared' (109). Further, in Perkins and Perkins the painting belongs to a quire containing mostly portraits of authors together with pictures of places that inspired them. C onn, conversely, integrates Johnson's painting into the main text, which relates it to a discussion of John Pendleton Kennedy's Swallow Barn. This book belongs to the in its time popular genre of the plantation novel which more or less legitimized slavery by turning it into 'a sunny daydream of white benevolence and black loyalty' (107). Through the confrontation of text and image C onn thus exposes the ideological function of both.

Overview Old Kentucky Home While in several aspects aligning itself with the textbook tradition, Literature in America clearly distances itself from this tradition by means of its use of
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illustrations. Through the juxtaposition of text and image C onn's history reflects upon itself. In the earlier textbooks this self-reflexivity is blatantly lacking. From our present-day perspective, the portraits in Rufus W. Griswold's Prose Writers of America (1832), for example, which is commonly looked at as a prototypical representative of the textbook tradition, are all profoundly romanticizing. This relates to certain historical conceptions about literary authorship and the function of fiction in relation to life. In his time, Griswold could claim in all honesty about Swallow Barn that '(...) none of our pictures of local manners surpass, in truthful minuteness or easy elegance of diction, these transcripts of life in Virginia' (342). He further admits that there are 'some inequalities' in John Pendleton Kennedy's oeuvre, 'but his faults are upon the surface, and could be easily removed' (343). Now, such claims appear to us as profoundly dated. As opposed to Griswold, C onn exploits the gap between reality and the way we imagine it. He does not praise textual or pictorial representations for their truthfulness to life, but he looks for the fissures and inequalities they display on their surface. Obviously, this position is as historical as the sentimentalism that we find in Johnson's paintings or in Kennedy's novels. It reflects the gradual professionalization of the genre of literary history in the United States and the shifts of focus that this development entails. In conclusion, C onn's Literature in America both draws on and extends the genre of textbook histories. The basic purpose of early textbooks was explanatory, in that they created an image of American literature for the student to process. Literature in America displays this explanatory function through the interrelation of text and illustrations. It evinces how text and image build a shared repository of songs, myths, stories, etc. that together make up the national character of the United States. It is the aim of scientific literary histories to study the structure of such repositories, the way they grow and shrink under the influence of contextual determinants. At the same time, scientific histories continuously interfere with the production and circulation of cultural repertoires. Maybe to hide this function as well as to emphasize their scientific outlook, American literary histories have made little use of illustrations. C onn's Literature in America , although in various respects a regression to the idealism and sectionalism of the textbook tradition, seems to provide a corrective to this tendency to separate text from image. What this article has meant to show is that something as trivial as illustrations and the way they are used reflects the changes within and the conflicting purposes of the genre of literary history.

Works Cited
'Brady, Mathew B.,' Microsoft@ Encarta@ Online Encyclopedia 2001. C AIRNS, William B.; James A. SAPPENFIELD. 1969. A History of American Literature . New York; London: Johnson Reprint C orp. C ONN, Peter. 1989. Literature in America: An Illustrated History . C ambridge UP. DUYC KINC K, Evert A.; George L. DUYC KINC K. 1877. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. Philadelphia: William Rutter & C o. ELLIOT, Emory. 1988. Columbia Literary History of the United States. C olumbia UP. FOERSTER, Norman; Robert P. FALK. 1959. The Reinterpretation of American Literature . New York: Russell & Russell. GRISWOLD, RUFUS W. 1847. The Prose Writers of America. Philadelphia: Carey and Hart. GUBAR, Susan. 'The Grand Overview, With Pictures.' New York Times 8 Oct. 1989, late ed. sec. 7: 28. PERKINS, George; Barbara PERKINS. 1994. The American Tradition in Literature . New York: McGraw-Hill, inc.
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Michael BOYDEN

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