Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v2.djvu/164

CHAPTER XIX Early Humorists ALTHOUGH American literature was, even at the begin- ning, not without its humour, much of the early writing which seems to us whimsical and amusing may have had no humorous appeal for contemporary readers. From an early period, however, we can discern symptoms of the two kinds of humour which were to be represented by American writers: the one following closely English models, especially Addison, Steele, Defoe, and Goldsmith in the eighteenth century, and Lamb, Hood, Jerrold, and Dickens in the nine- teenth century; the other springing from American soil and the new conditions of American life, and assuming a character as new to the world as the country that produced it. Franklin, ' Irving,^ Holmes 3 belong to what we may caU the classical tradi- tion; the present chapter is concerned with those aspects of American humour which are more essentially native, at least in form and tone. The great period of American humorous writing has been the last three quarters of the nineteenth century. For all the preceding periods a very brief sketch must here suffice. In the seventeenth century the conditions of colonial life were not propitious * to any sort of writing, humorous or other. To secure the means of a livelihood was a practical problem which left little time for the cultivation of the more genial side of life. In bleak surroundings where there was little phy- sical comfort, and under the gloom of Puritanism, most writers were practical and serious. But there are a few exceptions. New England's Annoyances (1630), a piece of anonymous ' See Book I, Chap. vi. * See Book II, Chap. rv. 5 See Book II, Chap, xxiii. * See Bibliography to Book I, Chap. ix. 148