SOURCE: “American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman,” in American Literature, Vol. 13, No. 4, January, 1942, pp. 432-44.

In the following laudatory review of American Renaissance, Spiller considers its “importance as a contribution to American literary history and to the theory and technique of historical writing.”

I have already reviewed Mr. Matthiessen's book elsewhere in general terms. I should like here to consider its importance as a contribution to American literary history and to the theory and technique of historical writing. Even though its method is nonchronological, American Renaissance seems to me to be an important piece of historical writing, and should influence our concepts of how the history of American literature might be rewritten.

First, what Mr. Matthiessen is not: He is not a passive, objective chronicler. Events pass before his review weighted by values and in interrelationships other than juxtaposition. He has conceived...