Rebecca Harding Davis and American Realism by Sharon M. HarrisReview by: Jane Atteridge RoseLegacy, Vol. 9, No. 2 (Fall 1992), pp. 157-159Published by: University of Nebraska PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25684466 .

Accessed: 18/06/2014 13:26

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

University of Nebraska Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Legacy.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.44 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 13:26:53 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Jane Atteridge Rose

no longer hidden, no longer unseen"

(301). Because of its brevity, Lane's discus

sion of Gilman's fiction is rather disap pointing. However, in her examination

of "The Yellow Wallpaper," the work she calls "the only genuinely literary piece" Gilman ever created (an opinion I disagree with), Lane skillfully details the pattern on the wallpaper in the form of "inanimate, sleeping babies, who

sleep like the dead, and then instantly

are awake, crying, demanding, assert

ing their wants" (127, 129-30). With this biography, Lane most def

initely succeeds in the goal of having her readers "participate actively in the

process of discovery" (xii). The dia

logues that Lane begins between author

and subject, between subject and life, and between Charlotte and her readers

show no signs of abating?dialogues made possible because Lane has shared

"her Charlotte" with us.

Rebecca Harding Davis and American Realism

By Sharon M. Harris

Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991 357 pp. $39.95/$15.95 paper

Reviewed by Jane Atteridge Rose, Georgia College

In Rebecca Harding Davis and Ameri can Realism, Sharon M. Harris offers a

"critical reassessment" that moves Da

vis from the margins of the canon to a

central position, demonstrating that

Davis's work illustrates the literary transition from romanticism to realism

(1-2). Harris does so by reconceptual

izing American literature, particularly the evolution of literary realism (6).

Her perspective illuminates Davis's

texts, as well as those of many other

mid-nineteenth-century women wri ters.

To emphasize the lack of uniformity among writers of this period, as well as

their lack of strict adherence to later realistic principles, Harris describes the

precursors of early realism?Davis, as

well as writers like Sedgwick, Hale,

Stowe, Kirkland, Jackson, Alcott,

Phelps, and Freeman?as "metareal ists." Differing from later realists like

Howells and James, metarealists "typi

cally synthesize several modes (roman ticism, sentimentalism, regionalism)"

with realism (19). Harris shows that Davis's metarealistic texts demonstrate

how the various literary "isms" of the

nineteenth century were not, in prac tice, alternative competing perspectives. She refutes this conventional perspec tive, arguing that Davis's writing dem onstrates coherence and control.

Harris opposes the view of Davis as an unconscious writer. Rather, she

points out that Davis's writing was al

ways shaped by a well-developed "the ory of the commonplace" that "ex

posed the quotidian realities of life and

LEGACY, Vol. 9, No. 2 Copyright ? 1992 The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA

157

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.44 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 13:26:53 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Legacy

challenged contemporary literary modes and values" (9). All Harris's

readings of Davis's texts demonstrate

the continued impact of this theory. Beginning with her reading of "Life in the Iron Mills," Harris argues that

"problems" noted by previous critics

reflect a "failure to understand Davis's awareness of the changing modes she

was advocating" (28). The conventional feminist position

regarding Davis sees her as a writer of

great promise who was essentially vic

timized by her womanhood, and who turned to writing potboilers to supple

ment her husband's income when she

could find time from family responsi bilities. Even as Harris argues against this attitude, she manages to maintain a

sympathetic awareness of the cultural

and ideological realities that did shape Davis's world. Looking at the full cor

pus, she attempts to demonstrate that Davis continued to write strong, realis tic social criticism throughout her ca reer. Her point is well made with John

Andross, Davis's fictionalized expose of the Whiskey Ring, published in 1870

while the corruption of William Tweed's syndicate still thrived.

At times, however, Harris's assess

ment overlooks undeniable weaknesses in some of Davis's writing. Few modern

readers, for example, would agree that Frances Waldeaux, regardless of several

masterly satiric strokes, is "well writ ten" (264). If Harris does not entirely succeed in promoting all of Davis's

texts, she provides productive readings of many and convincingly reveals the erroneous oversimplifications in previ ous views.

One of the richest aspects of this study is Harris's use of Davis's corre

spondence. These letters give the mod ern reader a glimpse into the writer's life: personal and family concerns, po litical and social opinions, publication issues, daily events. They provide par ticular insight into the nineteenth-cen

tury publishing world?its policies and its personalities. Some of these docu

ments, unearthed for the first time by Harris, are important contributions to

Davis studies. Davis's correspondence with Archibald W. Campbell, editor of the Wheeling Intelligencer, provides new insight into Davis's personal and

professional development in the years

prior to publication of "Life in the Iron Mills."

Harris demonstrates Davis's signifi cance as a metarealist through discus sion of approximately fifty texts?nov

els, stories, and essays. The volume is

arranged chronologically in seven chap ters. While her focus is literary rather than biographical, she treats Davis's life as it affected her half-century-long ca reer. The first chapter discusses Davis's

development as a writer and her dra matic burst onto the national literary scene. The second chapter covers Dav is's critical view of the Civil War and her indictment of the tendency on both sides to romanticize it, a view that shocked the more partisan Northeast ern literary establishment. Next, Harris examines the fiction written during the rest of the 1860s, years that brought a

variety of personal changes for Davis that affected her writing in many ways. After this, she considers the writing of the 1870s, the years when Davis began her career as an essay journalist; the

1880s, a period of lessened literary pro ductivity for Davis; and the 1890s, a decade of renewed creative energy, end

158

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.44 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 13:26:53 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Jane Atteridge Rose

ing with Davis's death in 1910, while she was still publishing.

Harris's study is sound scholarship well presented. She does not totally re

fute the traditional view of Davis as a writer whose career failed to fulfill its

early promise. However, she does pres ent convincing evidence that the tradi

tional views do not illuminate the true

significance of Davis's work. Harris's assessment of Davis as a metarealist

committed to developing a "fiction of the commonplace" in order to "expose the harsh realities of life and to demand

change" (11) reveals that Davis played an integral part in the development of American literary realism.

159

This content downloaded from 91.229.229.44 on Wed, 18 Jun 2014 13:26:53 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions