Hawskypng Literrairey Tradishin

It must be said that the entirety of this response depends on the subjective and controversial definition of the American literary tradition. The basis of this essay on the American Literary Tradition of Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping will be supported by the views of T.S. Elliot in “Tradition and the Individual Talent” and Ralph Waldo Emerson in “The American Scholar”.

Elliot states that in order to be traditional, a writer must have a “feeling that the whole if literature... of his own country… has a simultaneous existence and composes a simultaneous order” (Elliot 1). Only by knowing where he stands in “relation to the dead poets and artists” can a writer achieve significance (Elliot 1). Because of the inescapable reality that others have come before him, a writer must consider and react to existing literature. A writer can truly benefit from developing a “historical sense” and knowing what has come before him (Elliot 1).

However, contemplating the past does not mean copying the works of others. “Novelty is better than repetition” (Elliot 1). In order to gain true significance in the literary tradition, a writer must study “the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have give” but understand that these views are “nothing but to inspire” (Emerson 3). The writer must know about the views of the men before him and then form his own ideas and opinions. The most important attribute is the ability to produce originally.

On the basis of this definition of literary tradition, Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping fits in perfectly. Robinson provides a completely new perspective on the extensively explored topic of the American hero. In the novels before her, the American hero has usually been male but Robinson broadens that one-sided definition by portraying a female protagonist. Instead of having a strict set of convictions that lead him to glory, Robinson’s hero defies the typical portrayal of a hero. Through Ruth, Robinson suggests that a hero is one who defies social conventions, with or without a set of morals herself. By means of Ruth’s decision to forgo the standards of Fingerbone and become a transient with Sylvie, Robinson argues that heroism is individualism and the freedom to travel the open frontier. This new heroic behavior is illustrated when Ruth decides to skip school, when she breaks away from Lucille’s attempt to change her, and symbolically when Ruth walks blindly over the bridge and away from normal society.

Robinson is successful in contributing to the American literary tradition because her novel provides an original viewpoint on a historic topic. Through Housekeeping’s different standpoint, Robinson has altered and added to the vast literary past about American heroes. This is what Elliot and Emerson would argue is the basis of literary tradition —employing the ideas of previous writers to inspire new and original pieces of art. Robinson adopted the ideas of so many writers before her and wrote from her own perspective. The ideas of Housekeeping are derived from the past, but what makes Housekeeping a part of the literary tradition is the new contemporary spin that Robinson provides.