American literature contains its projected series on new literary history (See the May 1985 issue, pp. 290-307) and again invites presentation of any point of view, stated primarily on its own merits rather than as a rebuttal to previous essays.
American Things/ Literary Things: The problem of American literary history
WILLIAM C. SPENGEMANN
Dartmouth college
1
The announcement of two new compendious histories of American literature, by the university presses of Columbia and Cambridge, ought to evoke some sensation more agreeable than a sinking of the heart. As the editors of these projected volumes reminded their audience at the last M.L.A. convention, the time is ripe: nearly four decades of original research into the history of American culture and literature lie between us and the last comprehensive survey of the subject, Robert E. Spiller's literary history of the United States. What is more, teh Great Theoretical Awakening of recent years has revived from its new critical slumbers of the subject of literary hsitory itself, generating new conceptions of the discipline and new methods for its conduct. And yet, neither this warehouse of accumulated materials, nor all our updated theoretical machinery, nor even the designers' excited claims for their forthcoming new models have quite managed to convince prospective consumers that the delivered goods will be free of the bugs that have plagued their predecessors. unless some