William Rodney Herring

[For the William Dean Howells Society at the 2007 American Literature Association Conference. Also, it may help to know that Elsa Nettels was moderating the panel.]

As the Coreys adjust to the knowledge that their son loves Penelope Lapham, Bromfield asks, “what have I done nothing for, all my life, and lived as a gentleman should, upon the earnings of somebody else, in the possession of every polite taste and feeling that adorns leisure, if I’m to come to this at last?” (268). The “this” to which Bromfield Corey has at last descended, of course, is the marriage of his aristocratic family to the nouveau riche Laphams. And Corey’s lament here offers important grounds of distinction between the Coreys and the Laphams: whereas all his life, he has “done nothing,” Silas has worked hard—has done something. Indeed, this distinction isn’t unimportant in the values of the characters. When Corey pays a visit to Colonel Lapham’s office, Lapham by way of praising Tom tells his father: “His going through college won’t hurt him,—he’ll soon slough all that off,—and his bringing up won’t; don’t be anxious about it. I noticed in the army that some of the fellows that had the most go-ahead were fellows that hadn’t ever had much more to do than girls before the war broke out. Your son will get along” (142). So clearly, the difference between the Coreys and the Laphams is predicated upon the distinction between doing nothing and doing something—or, since doing nothing, insofar as it can be thought of as in some sense affirmative, means manifesting leisure: the difference between just being and doing. Certainly, Old Corey’s occupation reinforces this distinction: since “he had plenty of money…It was absurd for him to paint portraits for pay, and ridiculous to paint them for nothing; so he did not paint them at all” (70). In other words, to the extent that Bromfield Corey has an occupation, he is a painter, but one who doesn’t paint.

So the four most common searches this site gets correspond to the four "all time" most popular posts to the left.

Just within the last 48 hours, for instance, people have reached here by searching:
Silas Lapham,
mimetic desire
McTeague, and
Walter Benn Michaels new historicism (though I get a lot of WBMs without the "new historicism").

Now, I'm especially unhappy with what people find when they search for Silas Lapham, so forthcoming will be my paper from ALA on that novel.

But also, I suspect that people searching for Michaels often are looking for information about his newest book. Since I've reviewed it for Rhetoric Society Quarterly (Spring 2007), here's a preview and a link to the review:

My friend Greg the other day in the forgotten context of some conversation pointed out the small irony that the city has somehow got the stereotype of being a rude place with all the busy-ness and congestion. But of course our whole notion of politeness is based (etymologically, at the very least) on the concept of the polis--or so it would seem. As I paused to look this up, I discovered that in fact polite derives from the Latin word (politus) meaning to polish (hence: to be polite is to be polished--to be well-mannered). Here's the etymological explanation from the OED, whose link is too complex to be of any use.

[<classical Latin politus, past participle of polire to smooth, to polish (see POLISH v.), also as adjective in figurative senses (of people, their manners, or their appearance, or of writings or activities) polished, elegant, accomplished, refined, cultivated, courteous. Cf. Old French, Middle French, French poli smooth, shiny (c1160), (of words) careful, well-chosen (late 12th cent.), (of words) cultured (1580), (of a people or country) civilized (1681), (of a person) courteous, well-mannered (1694), Old Occitan polit (of a word in a poem) well-chosen (c1160), smooth, shiny (13th cent.), Catalan polit (14th cent.), Spanish pulido polished (literally and figuratively), refined (late 13th cent.), Italian polito smooth, shiny, (of writing or speech) well-chosen, polished, refined (a1327).

I guess two points are worth making. (1) there's a note under the etymology for policy that suggests that the confusion of the roots has led to semantic blurring over the years. (2) we could probably make the same link between civil and civis, though of course being civil is a little less difficult for an actor (and a little less comforting for the recipient), so it doesn't really matter what the roots of polite are--there's a link between politeness and the cosmopolis.

Scott’s loss—though it’s now been found—had me thinking as I read through Annie Kilburn this weekend. During the pivotal delivery of Rev. Peck's sermon, he claims:

There is an evolution…in the moral as well as in the material world, and good unfolds in greater good; that which was once best ceases to be in that which is better.

This is really quite extraordinary, as is Peck’s argument moments later, “There has been much anxiety in the Church for the future of the world abandoned to the godlessness of science, but I cannot share it.” He finds no anxiety because in contrast to the hypocritical churchgoers who profit by their relation to “monopolies...founded upon ruin” and that “prophesy the end of competition,” at least the evolutionist—the religious “sceptic”—even if his “words perhaps deny Christ” “affirm Him” with his “works.” For Peck, monopoly is just one more step to be churned in the dialectical process (though of course he doesn’t use that taxonomy). This is what separates him from the capitalist—who sees monopoly (or the elimination of competition) as a sort of telos. (Note that this also separates him from Bellamy [or Leete]—albeit in a different way—who tells us that monopoly was the solution, if we could only have seen it—it just needed to be controlled by the state. State capitalism! Too bad Bellamy didn’t live to see the Soviet version…) And this is Peck's twist on the scripture, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” Evolution equals resurrection and more life.

"it is difficult to help others when we cease to need help ourselves. A man begins poor, or his father or grandfather before him—it doesn’t matter how far back he begins—and then he is in accord and full understanding with all the other poor in the world; but as he prospers he withdraws from them and loses their point of view. Then when he offers help, it is not as a brother of those who need it, but a patron, an agent of the false state of things in which want is possible; and his help is not an impulse of love that ought to bind us all together, but a compromise proposed by iniquitous social conditions, a peace-offering to his own guilty consciousness of his share in the wrong.”

I've added the emphasis, but really, this needs little commentary. These are the words of the minister Julius Peck in William Dean Howells's little read novel Annie Kilburn. And they say it far better than mine.

This is really just an excuse, recognizing how much I'd written in an email predicting the AI winner, to make my energy a little less wasted. Somehow.

So in a rant against American Idol, I emailed Doug to say:

Since I still have a conference paper to write before Thursday, I'll confine myself to short scathing commentary: Since America has voted...and once again has shown that it has no appreciation for talent, but does have its finger on the pulse of sales--or rather, has its sense of voting precisely calibrated to sales, which is precisely what consumer capitalism has made available and ineluctable--my guess, very much to my disappointment, is that Jordin sells better in the American Idol format than Blake. Now that's not to say that (a) the American Idol format is the same as record sales format (which is why Daughtry, e.g., has sold better than Taylor Hicks--and why this week's results will tell us little about who will sell the most records), (b) that I'm happy about my choice, or (c) that I'm sure about my choice.

I sorta think Blake's a punk, but I find him a helluva lot more interesting and talented than Jordin. And I sorta blame her for Melinda's departure because I think given two singers of the same genre, America chose (1) the whiter of the two and (2) the prettier of the two. And I know America chose the more mediocre of the singers.

But I think Jordin will prolly pick up nearly all of Melinda's votes--and that she's prolly already picked up all of LaKisha's votes. And given that she's never been in the bottom three, Blake wouldn't seem to stand a chance. Though I'd be highly surprised if Jordin's even in the same league as Blake when it comes to entertainment value Tuesday, sadly, that won't matter, if I'm right.

I'm at the American Literature Association Conference in Boston, and I presented my paper (A Grammar of Marriage: Love in Spite of Syntax in Silas Lapham) yesterday. Surprisingly(!), there's not a lot of youth in the William Dean Howells Society, except perhaps his great-granddaughter Polly whom I met.

Highlights so far:

• Meeting Elizabeth Renker. I attended a Melville Society panel she chaired, and about 10 of us went to dinner afterward. I found out about her new book, an institutional history of American literature (1870-1950), and we talked about our different ways of coming at the same problem--er, discipline (American literature for her and rhet/comp for me).
• Seeing Paul Lauter again. Unfortunately, I missed his panel about working-class literature, since it occurred at the same time as mine on Howells and marriage. But he was generous enough to tell me what happened, to ask about my project, and to encourage me to email him about joining the Society for the Study of Working Class Literature's listserv.
• A paper by Robin Blyn reading "Those Extraordinary Twins" in the context of the 1886 Santa Clara decision and the consequences for thinking individuals as corporations. Too much reliance on Michaels and Trachtenberg for me not to be fascinated.
• [And an update:] Wai Chee Dimock. I introduced myself and, because I found her short 1990 article on Silas Lapham to be so compelling and so present in subseq
  

In "The Man of Letters as a Man of Business," which we'll be reading in a few weeks in my Literature & Business course, William Dean Howells writes:

Perhaps, then, and as a matter of business, it would be well for a serious author, when he finds that he is not pleasing the women, and probably never will please them, to turn humorous author, and aim at the countenance of the men. Except as a humorist he certainly never will get it, for your American, when he is not making money, or trying to do it, is making a joke, or trying to do it.

I wonder if he had Al Swearengen in mind. There is, of course, a link, but I'm too tired to flesh it out at this point. Too much course planning -- syllabus mapping, etc., etc.

The Business of Marriage in The Rise of Silas Lapham

In a novel so intimately about, in small but intense moments,[1] true love's importance over the preservation of social status (from the Coreys' perspective) or self-sacrifice (which Penelope and periodically her mother and father seem committed to make), it's odd that romantic union is permitted to be figured under the trope of "business." As Silas instructs Penelope, when he first invites Corey over after the latter has revealed his love for Penelope, "Recollect that it's my business, and your mother's business, as well as yours, and we're going to have our say."[2] And if there's one thing the Coreys share with the Laphams, it's this metaphor for marriage (even if they take the opposite position): discovering the confusion everyone has over Irene and Penelope, Mrs. Corey says, "I could almost wish the right one, as you call her, would reject Tom. I dislike her so much," to which Bromfield Corey responds, "Ah, now you're talking business, Anna" (268). Is this why when the marriage finally happens, since Silas has lost his business, it is merely enervated denouement?