"the Great American Novel" 1852

[Jonathan Lighter]

Stephen, you make a solid case that De Forest may have been directly
inspired by the sight of advertising (hence the initial caps) for Uncle
Tom's Cabin, especially De Forest himself regarded UTC as the nearest
approximation to his mystical concept.

But there's no evidence that UTC was thought by anyone in 1852, much less
Stowe's London publisher, to be "the" great American novel as we understand
it.  Now if the phrase could be attested in the USA as early as 1852, that
certainly would be significant and more persuasive.

Not even De Forest used the phrase with quite the overblown nuance it has
developed since. His "GAN" was "the picture of the ordinary emotions and
manners of American existence."  He explicitly meant "the" great American
*realistic* novel.  (He might have loved Dos Passos' _USA_  [1930-36], if
he could have handled the politics.)

In the twentieth century, as realism waned in critical popularity, it was
no longer the sine qua non of the hypothetical GAN.

Moreover, my American Lit Spidey Sense tells me that if the idea of "the"
realistic or (in those days) romantic "Great American Novel" had existed
among critics and writers in 1852 or earlier, it would have appeared in the
writings of one of them rather than on the title page of a London edition
of an American bestseller.



JL


On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 10:55 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Stephen Goranson <goranson at DUKE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "the Great American Novel" 1852
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Maybe so, Jon, to some extent. I will merely note that it is in quotes and
> capitals. And that the 1868 nation article that further popularized the
> phrase was written by someone who was in Europe at the time Uncle Tom's
> Cabin was published in an 1852 edition as Uncle Tom's cabin, the great
> American Novel....(London: Vickers). And that the Nation author did select,
> as the closest candidate, well, Uncle Tom's Cabin.
>
> SG
>
>
> Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> Good find, but it seems to mean something quite different from later usage.
>
> _UTC_ in 1852 is "the American novel of stature that you've probably heard
> about"
>
> It isn't "the greatest, most all-encompassing novel of American life
> possible."
>
> Which is how I interpret the lexicalized phrase.
>
> JL
>
>
> On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 8:32 AM, Stephen Goranson <goranson at duke.edu>
> wrote:
>
>
> >
> > Lawrence Buell, The Dream of the Great American Novel (Harvard UP 2014)
> > 23,=
> >  471 traces the phrase to 1866.
> >
> >
> > Nov. 18, 1852, Pennsylvania Freeman [Phil.] v.IX iss. 47 page 187 col. 2,
> > [=
> > America's Hist. N.] Foreign Correspondence of the Pa. Freeman,
> > G=F6ttingen,=
> >  10th mo. 17, 1852
> >
> > ....In England...."Uncle Tom's Cabin"....At the bookstore you see large
> > pla=
> > cards announcing "the Great American Novel," as it is called....
> >
> >
> > Stephen Goranson
> >
> > http://people.duke.edu/~goranson/
> >
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