Abstract
In 1921 Carl Van Doren coined the phrase “The Revolt from the Village” and applied it to a select group of texts written by American authors between 1915 and 1930. This Revolt literature rejected the construct defined as “The Village.” This Village was a neo-classic pastoral, communal, self-reliant, small-town America myth that relied on stereotypes, nostalgia, and the segregation of urban and rural America to exist. It is my assertion that this movement was an inevitability and nineteenth-century American literature foreshadowed this reactive genre of writing. Critical theory and analysis from Anthony Channell Hilfer, Leo Marx, and Raymond Williams act to define and inform the differences between “The Village,” “The City,” and “The Revolt from the Village.” Primary sources from Colonial America through the early twentieth century contextualize how literature from these periods reflect the analysis of my primary sources. Colonial America through the end of the eighteenth century is represented by John Winthrop, William Bradford, Benjamin Franklin, and John Hector St. John Crèvecoeur. These writers help contextualize how pastoralism and self-reliance embed themselves in American identity. In the nineteenth century, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, George Lippard, and Harriet Prescott Spofford demonstrate how that identity changes as industry, technology, and capitalism threaten, modify, and evolve that identity. Finally, Edgar Lee Masters, and Sherwood Anderson not only exemplify how Revolt literature took form but also how it tried to resolve the divide between country and city through dispelling “the Village” and “the City” myths and stereotypes. It is my assertion that nineteenth-century authors captured and vocalized not only an ongoing debate regarding the socioeconomic separation occurring between rural and urban America but that the anxieties and voices of the general public are voiced as well. Critics such as Hilfer and Van Doren discuss the Revolt as if it is a singular point in literary history; as they define the constructs of “Village” and “City” concretely and analyze how “Revolt” authors reject them. I believe that this fails to fully encapsulate this interesting literary moment because, while the definitions of “Village” and “City” were concrete enough concepts by the twentieth century, they didn’t spontaneously come into being—nineteenth century literature voiced and foreshadowed the growth of these constructs. It is my conclusion, then, that nineteenth-century anxieties are precisely why “The Revolt” had to occur as I believe Revolt authors wished to end the divisive rhetoric this had created socially. While I believe these authors ultimately failed to end the division of rural and urban America, they successfully dispelled the myth of the Village, which is why I believe the Revolt and its pre-history are important.