In the same way,
Emerson's "English Traits" is an American thing, and it gives categorical
reasons why American things should be. And what is an American novel
except a novel treating of persons, places, and ideas from an American
point of view? The point of view is _the_ point, not the thing seen from
it.
But it is said that "the great American novel," in order fully to deserve
its name, ought to have American scenery. Some thousands of years ago, the
Greeks had a novelist--Homer--who evolved the great novel of that epoch;
but the scenery of that novel was Trojan, not Greek. The story is a
criticism, from a Greek standpoint, of foreign affairs, illustrated with
practical examples; and, as regards treatment, quite as much care is
bestowed upon the delineation of Hector, Priam, and Paris, as upon
Agamemnon, Menelaus, and Achilles. The same story, told by a Trojan Homer,
would doubtless have been very different; but it is by no means certain
that it would have been any better told. It embodies, whether symbolically
or literally matters not, the triumph of Greek ideas and civilization.
But, even so, the sympathies of the reader are not always, or perhaps
uniformly, on the conquering side.
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