“ Editha ” (1905)

1. “Editha” (1905) a short story by William Dean Howells (1837-1920)

2. William Dean Howells (1837-1920) • Novelist, playwright, critic, essayist, reviewer, poet, and editor. He was always in the public eye, and his influence during the 1880s and 1890s on a growing middle-class readership was incalculable. • “The Dean of American Letters”: Howells represented both the traditional and the innovative through his promotion of a new American Realism. • In the “Editor’s Study” essays he wrote for Harper’s New Monthly Magazine starting in 1886 (some of which were collected in Criticism and Fiction [1891]), Howells attacked sentimentality of thought and feeling and the falsification of moral nature and ethical options wherever he found them in fiction. • He believed that realism was “nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material”, especially the motives and actions of ordinary men and women.

3. William Dean Howells (1837-1920) • Howells had been finding his way as a novelist during his ten years as editor, publishing 7 novels, beginning with their Wedding Journey (1872). These early novels are short, uncomplicated linear narratives that deliberately avoid the exaggerated characterizations and plots of romantic fiction in favor of a more ordinary realism. • He published his most famous novel, The Rise of Silas Lapham, in 1885, which traces the moral rise (and economic collapse) of Silas Lapham, a typical American entrepreneur who has built a paint manufacturing company out of a combination of sheer luck, hard work, and shady business dealings. • He publicly opposed the Spanish-American War (1898), which was presented by its supporters as an unselfish effort to liberate Cuba from Spain, but which Howells feared was actually about US expansionists’ designs on Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and other Spanish colonial possessions.

4. William Dean Howells (1837-1920) • In “Editha” (1905), Howells characteristically explores the moral failure of individuals who have been corrupted by their culture’s worst values. Though the Spanish-American War is not specifically mentioned in the story, its satire of romantic conceptions of battlefield glory and the rush to war suited the political moment. • In the course of his lifelong career as literary authority, Howells was international in outlook and promoted such European contemporaries as Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, Émile Zola, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. In the constant stream of reviews he wrote over five decades, he also supported many younger American writers and early on recognized and publicized the work of talented African American and women writers, including Paul Laurence Dunbar, Charles Chesnutt, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Edith Wharton, and Emily Dickinson.

5. “Editha” (1905) • What is this short story’s plot? • Who are the characters? • What narrator’s voice is used? • The narrator mentions a “war feeling” (p. 376). What does it mean by that? • The opening scene • The narration also mentions a “duplex emotioning” (p. 376). What is it? • Standpoints on War: EdithaBalcom X George Gearson

6. “Editha” (1905) • GESTURESANDSTAGE DIRECTIONS In this short story, Howells offers us some meaningful gestures and actions, and they serve as directions to better grasp the characters. For instance: “…he returned, languidly” / “…she returned, fervidly” (p. 377) “… she entreated him” (p. 377) “… she seized his hand in her two hands, and poured her soul from her eyes into his” (p 377)

7. “Editha” (1905) • “He was very nearly perfect as he was” (p. 376). What’s Editha’s sense of perfection? • How did they start dating? IDEOLOGIES: Idealism X Realism • The American flag • Men • Women • Religion • War

8. “To Lucasta, Going to Warres” (1649)by Richard Lovelace (1618-1658) Yet this inconstancy is such As thou too shalt adore; I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honor more. Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind That from the nunnery Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind To war and arms I fly. True, a new mistress now I chase, The first foe in the field; And with a stronger faith embrace A sword, a horse, a shield

9. “Editha” (1905) • Description: Mrs. Gearson’s house • Conversation: Editha X Mrs. Gearson • Closing scene: "To think of your having such a tragedy in your life!" the lady said. She added: "I suppose there are people who feel that way about war. But when you consider the good this war has done – how much it has done for the country! I can't understand such people, for my part. And when you had come all the way out there to console her – got up out of a sick-bed! Well!" (p. 385)