Emerson’s essay, Europe and European Books, appeared in the April, 1843 edition of the Dial. For some reason the editor of the edition I read chose to leave out the first three and half pages of the essay in which Emerson writes about European intellectual culture and go straight to the books. But the removed pages are reprinted in the notes.

There is nothing of particular interest to say about those pages, or the rest of the pages for that matter. I truly am down to the Emersonian dregs. Emerson is no literary critic. He was not much of a reader of novels because novels so often did not instruct our moral being, reveal truth, or uplift the soul in the way poetry did, or at least the poetry that Emerson valued did. Emerson’s fault as a literary critic I think lies in his belief of the purpose of reading. For him, it was always to learn and improve oneself. He rarely read for pleasure or pure entertainment. Therefore the literature he critics he judges from his personal view of the purpose of reading regardless of whether the work was written to meet that purpose.

As a result almost every writer fails to meet his criteria. Once again, Emerson deals harshly with Wordsworth. He accuses Wordsworth of being satisfied with only suggesting a mood, exaggerating the value of his compositions, and “confounding his accidental with the universal consciousness.” While on the other hand he praises him for being a master of the English language and for the man and the writer being one and the same person (as opposed to Wordsworth, say, living in London and writing about daffodils).

Tennyson fairs even worse. Emerson says that Tennyson’s poetry is more of a study of poetry, that he lacks “rude truth” and is too “fine.” Emerson wants poetry to be more robust and manly and finds Tennyson “quaint and elegant.” Though an editorial note indicates Emerson later decided that Tennyson was better than his original assessment of him.

Bulwer Lytton must have been torture-reading for Emerson, yet he manages to say Lytton’s novels have “great energy” and “courage of experiment.” But Lytton provides Emerson with the opportunity to divide novels into two kinds. The first, the category into which Lytton falls, are “novels of costume or of circumstance.” These novels are shallow and all pretty much the same. Still, Emerson marvels:

It is curious how sleepy and foolish we are, that these tales will so take us. Again and again we have been caught in that old foolish trap.

The second category of novel, and by far the better kind according to Emerson, is the novel of character. The novel of character, Emerson praises Wilhelm Meister, “treats the reader with more respect,” allows the reader to participate in the success of the character, and all that is good in such a book tends to remain with the reader even after the book is closed presumably acting as guide for our own character development.

There you have it. Next week’s Emerson: Past and Present

Now, on the celebratory lead up to next Sunday’s blogiversary. The first giveaway is an advance reading copy of Every Book Its Reader by Nicholas A. Basbanes. Having bought the hardcover, this paperback ARC has never been read and is in perfect condition. It has the whole text, notes and full bibliography. The only thing it lacks from the published edition is the index. In case you are wondering what I thought, you can read that here. And, yes, I realize this book has been out for quite some time so the advanced reader is no longer advanced, but hey, it’s a book and it’s free!

Everyone is welcome to play. The book will go to the one who can answer this question:

Who described memory as

some old aunt who goes in and out of the house, and occasionally recites anecdotes of old times and persons which I recognize as having heard before, and she being gone again I search in vain for an trace of the anecdotes.

Don’t think too hard about this one. Keep in mind what day it is. Leave the answer in the comments. If there is more than one correct answer, a name will be drawn from among them. You have until tomorrow evening.