CHRONOLOGICAL CHART NO. II. = AMERICAN LITERATURE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY Length of life, as far as included in this century CHAPTER XXV THE WEST IN JOAQUIN MILLER (1841-1913) SUGGESTED READINGS JOAQUIN MILLER. The Last Taschastas, Kit Carson's Ride, Crossing the Plains, Westward Ho! The Sioux Chief's Daughter, At our Golden Gate, Columbus, Adios. Also passages as found in such collections as the following: BOYNTON, P. H. American Poetry, pp. 555-567. Charles Scribner's Sons. BOYNTON, P. H. Milestones in American Literature, pp. 550–570. Ginn and Company. CALHOUN, M. E., and MACALARNEY, E. L. Readings in American Literature, pp. 618-621. Ginn and Company. STEDMAN, E. C. An American Anthology, pp. 426-430. Houghton Mifflin Company. What is the relation of Miller's story "The Last Taschastas" to the last section of Longfellow's "Hiawatha" ("The Departure of Hiawatha") and to Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans" (see pages 273 and 131)? Compare "Kit Carson's Ride" with Browning's "How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." How do they resemble each other (1) in form, and (2) in story outline? Is one a better story than the other? What two contrasting comments does Miller make on war in "Westward Ho!" and in "At our Golden Gate"? Do they necessarily contradict each other? Tell the story of "The Sioux Chief's Daughter" in four or five sentences. What is the surprise at the end? What is the relation of the gray hawks to the story? Can you see the relationship of this story to the conventional fairy tale or love story in the elements from which it is made and the way it turns out? Compare Miller's "Columbus" with Lanier's "Sonnets on Columbus." Are the stories and the central ideas different? Which appeals to you the more? CHAPTER OUTLINE Miller's long residence in the West The early life of Joaquin Miller Boyhood and young manhood First authorship, and repulse at home The middle period of authorship Use of primitive frontier material The closing period Sweeping revision of earlier work Life and teachings on "The Hights" Comparison with Mark Twain and Walt Whitman Miller's long residence in the West. In the development of a Western literature Joaquin Miller (1841-1913), like Bret Harte and Mark Twain and like all the other adult Californians in the pioneer period, was imported from the East; but he lived on the Coast longer than the two prose writers. Of the three men Joaquin Miller was the most completely and continuously Western. He went out almost as early as Mark Twain did, lived during boyhood in THE GOLDEN GATE far more primitive circumstances, and, after varied travels in the East and in Europe, returned to the West for his old age, dying on "The Hights," as his place was called, in sight of the Golden Gate. The early life of Joaquin Miller-emigration to the West. Cincinnatus Hiner (Joaquin) Miller was born in 1841. "My cradle was a covered wagon, pointed west. I was born in a covered wagon, I am told, at or about the time it crossed the line dividing Indiana from Ohio." His father was of Scotch immigrant stock-a natural frontiersman, but a man with a love of books. In 1852, moved by the same restlessness that had taken the Clemens family to Missouri seventeen years earlier, the Millers started on the three-thousand-mile roundabout journey to Oregon, finding their way without roads over the plains and mountains in a trip lasting more than seven months. It was from this that the boy gained his lasting respect for the first pioneers. O bearded, stalwart, westmost men Of studied battle, that hath been Your blood's inheritance. ... Your heirs Cleave softly through the mellow loam Where you have made eternal home, And set no sign. Your epitaphs Are writ in furrows. Boyhood and young manhood. After two years in the new Oregon home the two Miller boys ran away to seek gold. They seem to have separated, and in the following years the coming poet survived a most amazing series of hardships among the Indians. One rough comrade, however, "Mountain Joe," a graduate of Heidelberg, helped him with his Latin even in the midst of these adventures. The boy returned to Oregon early enough to earn a diploma at Columbia University there in 1859. In the next ten years he had many occupations. For a while he was express messenger carrying gold dust, but safe from the Indians, who had become his trusted friends. "Those matchless night-rides under the stars, dashing into the Orient doors of dawn before me as the sun burst through the shining mountain pass,-this brought my love of song to the surface." Later he was editor of a pacifist newspaper which was suppressed, as such newspapers are always likely to be, for alleged treason. But the largest proportion of his time was spent at the law. From 1866 until 1870 he held a minor judgeship. First authorship, and repulse at home. Throughout all this time-he was now nearly thirty-Miller's chief passion had been for reading and writing poetry. In 1868 a thin booklet, "Specimens," was issued, and in San Francisco, in 1869, "Joaquin et al." For naming his book in this fashion, instead of "Joaquin and Other Poems," his legal friends repaid him with the nickname that finally became the one by which the world knows him. Bret Harte, then an influential editor, gave the book a fair review, but in general it was slightingly treated. |