Blackwell Reference Online

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I shall be even with you and you shall be even with me.(Whitman, “Song of the Answerer”)In the second part of his Democracy in America (1840), Alexis de Tocqueville includes a chapter on “Literary Characteristics of Democratic Times.” Like many commentators on both sides of the Atlantic, Tocqueville could not fail to notice the rather lackluster record of artistic accomplishment in the New World, though that does not deter him from predicting that America will generate a literature “peculiarly its own” and from speculating on the likely form it will take. As always, his analysis is guided by the fundamental contrast between aristocratic and democratic cultures.By and large the literature of a democracy will never exhibit the order, regularity, skill, and art characteristic of aristocratic literature; formal qualities will be neglected or actually despised. The style will often be strange, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, almost always strong and bold. Writers will be more anxious to work quickly than to perfect details. Short works will be commoner than long books, wit than erudition, imagination than depth. There will be a rude and untutored vigor of thought with great variety and singular fecundity. Authors will strive to astonish more than to please, and to stir passions rather than to charm taste.(Tocqueville 1969: 474)Tocqueville's prophecy may be encountered in any number ... log in or subscribe to read full text