SOURCE: Wellek, René. “American Criticism.” In A History of Modern Criticism: 1750-1950, Vol. 3: The Age of Transition, pp. 150-81. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965.

In the following excerpt, Wellek outlines the dominant critical theories of the early and mid-nineteenth century, concentrating on the works of Poe, Emerson, and other transcendentalists.

Introductory

In recent decades American scholars have studied the early history of criticism in the United States closely and have demonstrated that even Colonial times produced some criticism in the sense of literary opinion about authors and the function of literature. In the early 19th century the great bulk of criticism reflected the concern of the new nation with its identity and its definition of a national literature. In the United States, the problem of nationality was possessed of a peculiar character not easily paralleled elsewhere. Here was a new nation that spoke the same language as its...