Stanley T. Williams

Stanley Thomas Williams (born 1888 in Meriden , Connecticut ; died February 5, 1956 in New Haven ) was an American literary scholar.

Life

Williams studied at Yale University (BA 1911, Ph.D 1915), to which he remained connected throughout his life. From 1915 he taught here at the Faculty of English Literature. From 1932 he held a full professorship, was Colgate Professor from 1934, then Sterling Professor from 1944 ; 1939-1945 he was chairman of his department. While his first publications dealt with English literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, from the mid-1920s he concentrated on American literature , which at the time was treated as little more than a young offshoot of the long English literary history. At first Williams took over the only course in this field from William Lyon Phelps , from 1933 he offered the undergraduate course American Thought and Civilization together with the historian Ralph Henry Gabriel . The course is considered to be one of the first courses in the field of American studies , but it was not until the 1950s that it broke away from English studies as an independent discipline . Stanley retired in 1953; he was followed to the chair of American literature by his student Charles Feidelson, Jr.

Stanley's greatest achievement is his two-volume Washington-Irving biography, published in 1935 , which is still considered a standard work today. However, it is characterized by such a pronounced aversion to Irving's person and work that later Irving exegetes often asked themselves why Williams dedicated so much of his life to this author. Williams himself answered this question in the introduction to the first volume: Even if Irving was an author of manageable talent, it was precisely his success that illustrates the petty sensitivities and needs of his time:

"His works were the epitome of the bourgeois culture of his compatriots, flattered their longing to feel like gentlemen, to emulate English style models, to make money, to exploit the West, to establish traditions, to be respected abroad."

Irving thus appears as an icon of an imitative “cult of elegance” born of inferiority complexes towards Europe, which American literature emulated in the 19th century until it was “destroyed” by authors such as Walt Whitman and Mark Twain after the American Civil War . Williams' Irving biography is one of a series of "disrespectful" biographies that appeared after the success of Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians and particularly targeted the Victorian Mores; In this context, the early works of Van Wyck Brooks or George Santayana's attacks on the “ Genteel Tradition ” should be mentioned.

In the 1940s, Williams turned to Herman Melville in particular, encouraging many of his students to write their dissertations on Melville, so that Williams is the doctoral supervisor of numerous leading Melville researchers of the following generation of Americanists, including James Baird , Walter E. Bezanson , Merrell R. Davis , Elizabeth A. Foster , Charles Feidelson, Jr. , William H. Gilman , Harrison Hayford , Tyrus Hillway , Henry F. Pommer , Merton M. Sealts, Jr., and Nathalia Wright .

Works

Richard Cumberland, His Life and Dramatic Works (1917)
Studies in Victorian Literature (1923)
The American Spirit in Letters (1926)
American Literature (1937)
The Life of Washington Irving (1935)
Beginnings of American Poetry, 1620–1855 (1951)
The Spanish Background of American Literature (1955)

Secondary literature

Nathalia Wright: Melville and STW at Yale: Studies under Stanley T. Williams . In: Melville Society Extracts 70, September 1987, pp. 1-4.

Individual evidence

↑ Biographical information according to: ST WILLIAMS, 67, EDUCATOR, IS DEAD; Sterling Professor at Yale Introduced Formal Study of American Literature. In: The New York Times, February 6, 1956. p. 23; Kermit Vanderbilt: American Literature and the Academy. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia 1986. pp. 446-448.
↑ Cf. for example Mary Weatherspoon Bowden: Washington Irving. Twayne, Boston 1981. p. 193; Edward Wagenknecht: Washington Irving: Moderation Displayed. Oxford University Press, New York 1962. pp. Xiii.
↑ His writings epitomized his compatriots' bourgeois culture and flattered their aspirations to be gentlemen, to write according to English models, to make money, to exploit the West, to found traditions, to be respected abroad. In: The Life of Washington Irving , Vol. I, p. Xiv; To understand Irving's hold upon his generation is to understand a dominating tendency of American literature prior to the Civil War, which, beginning only two years after Irving's death, helped to destroy the cult of elegance and made comprehensible the voices of a Whitman or a Clemens . ibid.
↑ James W. Tuttleton: Washington Irving . In: Earl N. Harbert, Robert A. Rees: 15 American Authors before 1900. Revised Edition. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1984. pp. 339-340.
↑ Wyn Kelley: A Companian to Herman Melville . Blackwell, Oxford 2006. p. 523. See also the article by Nathalia Wright: Melville and STW at Yale: Studies Under Stanley T. Williams. In: Melville Society Extracts 70, 1987. pp. 1-4.

personal data
SURNAME	Williams, Stanley T.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Williams, Stanley Thomas (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	American literary scholar
DATE OF BIRTH	1888
PLACE OF BIRTH	Meriden , Connecticut
DATE OF DEATH	5th February 1956
Place of death	New Haven

[1] Biographical information according to: ST WILLIAMS, 67, EDUCATOR, IS DEAD; Sterling Professor at Yale Introduced Formal Study of American Literature. In: The New York Times, February 6, 1956. p. 23; Kermit Vanderbilt: American Literature and the Academy. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia 1986. pp. 446-448.

[2] Cf. for example Mary Weatherspoon Bowden: Washington Irving. Twayne, Boston 1981. p. 193; Edward Wagenknecht: Washington Irving: Moderation Displayed. Oxford University Press, New York 1962. pp. Xiii.

[3] His writings epitomized his compatriots' bourgeois culture and flattered their aspirations to be gentlemen, to write according to English models, to make money, to exploit the West, to found traditions, to be respected abroad. In: The Life of Washington Irving , Vol. I, p. Xiv; To understand Irving's hold upon his generation is to understand a dominating tendency of American literature prior to the Civil War, which, beginning only two years after Irving's death, helped to destroy the cult of elegance and made comprehensible the voices of a Whitman or a Clemens . ibid.

[4] James W. Tuttleton: Washington Irving . In: Earl N. Harbert, Robert A. Rees: 15 American Authors before 1900. Revised Edition. University of Wisconsin Press, Madison 1984. pp. 339-340.

[5] Wyn Kelley: A Companian to Herman Melville . Blackwell, Oxford 2006. p. 523. See also the article by Nathalia Wright: Melville and STW at Yale: Studies Under Stanley T. Williams. In: Melville Society Extracts 70, 1987. pp. 1-4.