Other Things Worthy of Your Time
The Test of Time
1/9/03
Something any author can hope for, successful or still aspiring, is a popularity that lasts the test of time, even long after they are dead and gone. Those that succeed in this are the ones remembered, no matter when they lived, where they came from, or what their ideas were. Not only are they remembered, but many times their work is a model for what was written after them, what is written today.
Two hundred years ago, in the first U.S. census (1790), just after the Revolutionary War, there were about 4 million people in the United States that spanned from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River. Compare that to more than 280 million people spanning from the Pacific to the Atlantic, sea to shining sea, and those outside the lower 48, the people that live today. There are seventy times as many people today as there were 200 years ago. This also means that for every would-be author in 1800, there are sixty-nine others looking to get in their way, just to be noticed themselves.
A lack of material and a lack of competition was a major factor in the success of writers during the American Romantic Period. Today many of those same minds would get lost in the ocean of untapped talent and overbearing egomaniacs.
Many, of course, saw success because of the events surrounding them. If not for the interest and tension with Indians—Native Americans as they would be called today—James Fenimore Cooper may have never been inspired to chronicle the adventures of the Deerslayer or the Pathfinder. If not for the religious fear and intolerance that existed and released in events such as the Salem witch hunts, Hawthorne or Irving may never have had the chance and mainstream success because, even if people were interested in the gothic, they wouldn’t have any hint of it. Harriet Beecher Stowe would have even been a Nobody if not for slavery and then the abolitionist movement. Imagine that. Not to mention that a Union might not have been tested and ripped apart in a Civil War that could have changed the way everything is today. You can’t look at it all like that though, because had history been different, Thomas Jefferson and the Committee of Five wouldn’t have been known for anything and there wouldn’t have been any American Romantic Period anyway.
Like the events that sparked the success of many early American Literary artists, many of these people deserve acknowledgement simply by the way they affected the shape of Literature to come after them.
A perfect example is Edgar Allen Poe, a man who saw little commercial success in his own time for his work because of either the lack of interest, or the shaky subject matter. His work in horror, suspense, and mystery led the way in the way describing these subjects in the form of writing is approached today. This is much of the reason he has been called the “Father of the Modern Day Mystery” and the “Father of the Modern Day Detective Story”, not to mention any paternal ties to something called a short story. Besides the affect on others, there is also much respect in the actual quality of his work. There is a poem, by this author, entitled “The Raven” that is quite fancied.
Another example of future inspiration and the beginning of a new kind of story was from the likes of H.G. Wells. Although he came 50 years removed from the American Romantic Period, his work is a perfect instance on the effect one has. His views of the future had effect on the future. Based on science, although sometimes loosely, he wrote stories from the imagination that people hadn’t seen and few had pondered. There wouldn’t be Science Fiction today without its beginnings back then.
Anyone that came up with something new and revolutionary either saw success or deserved it. Emerson and Thoreau had radical ideas, and while some of which regarding government—or the suggested benefit of a lack of one—a certain someone disagrees with, they were smart and innovative enough to have those opinions. I say this because, while everyone has opinions and ideas, only those smart—and lucky—enough, publish them.
Authors whose work influenced the work that came after them should really be taken out of the equation that, if successful writers from 200 years ago lived today, they wouldn’t see as much success because of the competition. Had these authors like Poe or Wells lived today, without there being the equivalent of what they were in the time before them, maybe they would have simply done what they did over again, today. Poe wouldn’t have been mixed up in the mystery and suspense of his competitors because where would their ideas have come from? Wells would still be able to write his War of the Worlds because maybe, without those like him to influence our world, we wouldn’t have leaped out towards the stars and searched to see what life really did lay in the other reaches of the known universe. Would we know any of the universe? Without these first minds who asked what if? there wouldn’t be any competition and the world, overall, would be a much different place. Besides lasting success, what more can one ask for than to change the world?
Works Cited
United States Census Bureau. “Profile of General Demographic Characteristics for the United States: 2000.” United States Census 2000. 16 Nov. 2001. <http://www.census.gov/PressRelease/www/2001/tables/dp_us_2000.PDF>
“H.G. Wells Biography.” H.G. Wells. <http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/8169/>
The United States in Literature. 1st Ed. Ed. James E. Miller Jr., Wood, Kerry M., and Cardenas de Dwyer,Carlota. Glenville: Scott, Foresman Company, 1991.
“Poe’s Enduring Fame.”
E. A. Poe Society of Baltimore. 29 Mar. 2000.
<http://www.eapoe.org/geninfo/poesfame.htm>
NOTES
This was a paper under Dr. Bridger in Junior English, who always had us write a purpose letter. Here's what I wrote:
Besides the fact it seemed short (it fit only the minimum requirement—4 pages) I was satisfied with this paper. I had the ideas running through my head since the beginning and even before that when reading the works over the semester. From the time the paper was assigned though, to now, I wrote only 2-3 paragraphs. Of course now, just getting done, it’s 12:42 in the morning on the day it’s due, and I started it only about an hour and a half ago, so this was, as usual, a total winger of a paper. But that’s what I’ve improved on as this semester went on. All but a handful of the papers I wrote the night before or even the morning before they were to be handed in. I’ve gradually gotten better at writing and (lately) proofreading (fully) a paper quickly. I feel that either the topics to write on improved, my attitude improved, or at least my approach did. I think this was the most decent of all the papers so far and so I have faith in it.
Really, as far as a Research paper, I didn’t research much. I used authors I knew and had read up on recently. All of my papers are always based on my ideas, that way I don’t have to conflict with my previous idea that no idea is unique and fresh. Anything I write in a paper, in this paper, is my own. The only things that need citing are dates and figures I wouldn’t have known otherwise.
As with the Montana Lit Final, I’m confident in getting my point across in the paper and so am including the purpose for the sole purpose of including it.
I will add one more thing. As far as changing my approach, it has helped drastically in finding my rhythm in writing these papers. Early on, if I didn’t like the topic I tried to find the dirtiest dirt on it and use that as my base. Finally I forgot about personal prejudices or developing them and simply went with what came off my mind. Even with this paper, I started off wanting to bury every author and subject I didn’t care for with one stone by asking the question if they’d be successful and popular today mixed with who’s successful and popular now. Sticking with this, I probably would have run out of runway fast. Like the coach says: “Make the easy play.” I figured out, about a sentence into the essay what I wanted to do. While there are many more people in the world today, there would be fewer enlightened by literature to write their own if no one had written it in the first place. Amazing authors could become amazing in any time. Their minds are what pass the test.
Just a paragraph ago I did the same thing. I proudly said I wasn’t going to use the ‘purpose letter’ to state my purpose, but I did, and the page now looks fuller and completed because of it.