Democracy in America — Volume 2 by Alexis de Tocqueville
Chapter XVIII: Of The Inflated Style Of American Writers And Orators
502 words | Chapter 19
I have frequently remarked that the Americans, who generally treat
of business in clear, plain language, devoid of all ornament, and so
extremely simple as to be often coarse, are apt to become inflated
as soon as they attempt a more poetical diction. They then vent their
pomposity from one end of a harangue to the other; and to hear them
lavish imagery on every occasion, one might fancy that they never spoke
of anything with simplicity. The English are more rarely given to a
similar failing. The cause of this may be pointed out without much
difficulty. In democratic communities each citizen is habitually engaged
in the contemplation of a very puny object, namely himself. If he ever
raises his looks higher, he then perceives nothing but the immense form
of society at large, or the still more imposing aspect of mankind. His
ideas are all either extremely minute and clear, or extremely general
and vague: what lies between is an open void. When he has been drawn out
of his own sphere, therefore, he always expects that some amazing object
will be offered to his attention; and it is on these terms alone that he
consents to tear himself for an instant from the petty complicated cares
which form the charm and the excitement of his life. This appears to me
sufficiently to explain why men in democracies, whose concerns are in
general so paltry, call upon their poets for conceptions so vast and
descriptions so unlimited.
The authors, on their part, do not fail to obey a propensity of which
they themselves partake; they perpetually inflate their imaginations,
and expanding them beyond all bounds, they not unfrequently abandon
the great in order to reach the gigantic. By these means they hope to
attract the observation of the multitude, and to fix it easily upon
themselves: nor are their hopes disappointed; for as the multitude
seeks for nothing in poetry but subjects of very vast dimensions, it
has neither the time to measure with accuracy the proportions of all the
subjects set before it, nor a taste sufficiently correct to perceive
at once in what respect they are out of proportion. The author and the
public at once vitiate one another.
We have just seen that amongst democratic nations, the sources of poetry
are grand, but not abundant. They are soon exhausted: and poets, not
finding the elements of the ideal in what is real and true, abandon
them entirely and create monsters. I do not fear that the poetry of
democratic nations will prove too insipid, or that it will fly too near
the ground; I rather apprehend that it will be forever losing itself in
the clouds, and that it will range at last to purely imaginary regions.
I fear that the productions of democratic poets may often be surcharged
with immense and incoherent imagery, with exaggerated descriptions and
strange creations; and that the fantastic beings of their brain may
sometimes make us regret the world of reality.
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