116 WILLIAM BARTRAM 



tuai in him, for it is not, in his case, " due to lack of imagina- 

 tion " or " to a lack of close observation of nature." ^^ Bartram 

 added both imagination and careful observation to nature 

 description, and, above all, he is emotionally genuine and sin- 

 cere. The fact is that while he was born and reared in the neo- 

 classic period he came to maturity and did his writing in the 

 period when Romantic tendencies were beginning to dominate. 

 " Reason " and " rational " frequently appear in his pages, but 

 also " imagination," " sublime," " sensibility." His very enthu- 

 siasm, his unrestrained enjoyment of nature, is what has come 

 to be termed Romantic. Even his periphrases are not always the 

 objectionable neo-classic circumlocution, " vague, unnatural, and 

 mechanical . . . attempts to be elegant and poetical in an arti- 

 ficial way." ^* On the contrary, they are often imaginative and 

 original attempts to convey an emotional response to the scene 

 he describes. They are figurative evocations which transcribe 

 not only the objects he saw but the mood which they engen- 

 dered within him. Thus, to take a representative example, he 

 translates his vision of the beating surf into a personification: 

 " the dashing of yon liquid mountains, like mighty giants, in 

 vain assail the skies; they are beaten back, and fall prostrate 

 upon the shores of the trembling island " {Travels, 61). This 

 is periphrastic description, to be sure, but it is founded upon accu- 

 rate observation and effectively conveys the dramatic quality of 

 the scene. Incidentally, the quotation at the same time indicates 

 Bartram' s sense of prose rhythm and his use of onomatopaeia 

 and even alliteration — stylistic devices that come naturally to 

 one whose sight is clear and whose emotion is genuine and 

 spontaneous. 



One other element in Bartram' s art needs consideration, his 

 narrative ability. The dynamic nature of his description has al- 

 ready been indicated, its movement and animation, but Bar- 

 tram's gifts as a story-teller are largely responsible for this live- 

 liness of his landscape. His Travels is primarily a narrative and 

 Bartram never permits it to drag. His description is woven, in 

 comparatively small increments, into the account of his move- 

 ments and experiences. The very first three pages of his book 



^= R. D. Havens, op. cit., p. 440. " Ibid., p. 442. 



