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Simms and the British Dramatists
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
That the works of William Godwin, Sir Walter Scott, and to some degree James Fenimore Cooper contributed significantly to the patterns, structures, and plots of William Gilmore Simms' novels has been generally accepted. It has not been pointed out, however, that one of the shaping influences on his handling of character and situation within the framework these writers contributed was the drama of the English Renaissance and Restoration. Its influence on his diction and on the uninhibited gusto of his writing has been noted,1 and the assumption that his greatest comic character, Porgy, was a direct imitation of Shakespeare's Falstaff has been made frequently.2 However, an examination of Simms' methods of characterization in his seven connected Revolutionary romances3—his most serious and ambitious novelistic project—reveals that the British dramatists were his tutors in more than diction and that Porgy, rather than being an exception to Simms' usual practice in characterization, is actually in keeping with his method and has but superficial similarities to Falstaff.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1950
References
1 Vernon L. Parrington, Main Currents in American Thought (New York, 1927), II, 130-133.
2 See note 18 below. Hampton M. Jarrell, “Falstaff and Simms's Porgy”, AL, III (May, 1931), 204-212, gives the most detailed statement of this view.
3 The Partisan (1835); Mellichampe (1836); The Kinsmen (1841), renamed The Scout in all later editions; Katharine Walton (1851); The Sword and the Distaff C1852), renamed Woodcraft in all later editions; The Forayers (1855); and Eutaw (1856). Further references to these books are to the editions published in New York by A. C. Armstrong in 1882.
4 William P. Trent, William Gilmore Simms, “American Men of Letters” (Boston, 1892), pp. 135, 310.
5 A Supplement to the Plays of William Shakspeare (New York, 1848).
6 Trent, Simms, pp. 71, 145.
7 For a detailed study of drama in Charleston before 1860, see W. Stanley Hoole, The Ante-helium Charleston Theatre (Univ. of Alabama, 1946).
8 See Jay B. Hubbell, The Last Years of Henry Timrod (Durham, N. C, 1941), pp. 54, 76.
9 “A Note on Simms's Novels”, AL, II (May, 1930), 173-174.
10 “Modern Prose Fiction”, Southern Quarterly Review, xv (April, 1849), 62.
11 Simms, p. 109.
12 The Yemassee, “American Fiction Series” (New York, 1937), p. 5.
13 “History for the Purposes of Art”, Views and Reviews in American Literature, History and Fiction (New York, 1845), I, 60, 63.
14 “Induction”, Every Man in Bis Humour.
15 Confession; or, The Blind Heart (New York, 1882), pp. 5-10. Here Simms also warns that the controlling passion employed must not be used to the exclusion of all else in the character.
16 In Etherege's The Man of Mode; he affects disgust for England after traveling in France, believes himself to be an invincible lady-killer, and delights in his clothing. He became a model for a long line of fops in Restoration comedy.353
17 Pages 223-225. Cf. School for Scandal, I, i, and II, ii.354
18 See Hampton M. Jarrell, op. cit., for the most detailed statement; see also Parrington, II, 131-132; Carl Van Doren, The American Novel 1789-1939, rev. ed. (New York, 1940), p. 54; Alexander Cowie, The Rise of the American Novel (New York, 1948), pp. 233-234, 790 n.; and for an early statement, Edward F. Hayward, “Some Romances of the Revolution”, Atlantic Monthly, LxIv (Nov., 1889), 632.356
19 See Parrington, II, 130-131.
20 Trent, Simms, p. 203.357
21 See particularly Woodcraft, pp. 278-287.
22 Cf. his criticism of Cooper's novels in “The Writings of James Fenimore Cooper”, View and Reviews, I,210-238, with his own practice in the historical novel.358
25 Review of The Partisan in Complete Works, ed. by James A. Harrison (New York, 1902), vIII, 151; originally published, Southern Literary Messenger, II (Jan., 1836), 117-121.
24 Leading American Novelists (New York, 1910), p. 153. Since Porgy's conversational method changes little after his first appearance in 1835, it could not be derived from, but would have to anticipate, the minstrel show. Carl Wittke, Tambo and Bones: A History of the American Minstrel Stage (Durham, N. C, 1930), p. 41, says, “Probably the first public presentation of what may be called a real minstrel show took place in the Bowery Amphi- theatre in New York City in 1843.”
25 Maule's Curse: Seven Studies in the History of American Obscurantism (Norfolk, Conn., 1938), p. 44.