*The original text that follows this introduction is from The Works of
William E. Channing, D. D., 6 vols. (Boston: James Munroe, 1841-43),
1:243-80.

America's political independence preceded its cultural independence,
and the sense of the young nation's intellectual subservience to Europe, and
especially to England, hung oppressively over American intellectuals of the
early nineteenth century. Not only was there resentment of the sneering de-
precation of American literature among English critics, but worse, a sus-
picion that the English critics were right. Channing's essay on "National
Literature, " published in the Christian Examiner in 1830, was one of the
most important early articulations of this crisis in the nation's intellect,
notable both for its frank condemnation of America's lack and its confident
appeal for change. With this essay, and several which had preceded it, no-
tably the essay on Milton, Channing had begun to contribute to the mo-
mentum for change. He was an important precursor to the "American
Renaissance" of the 1840's and 1850's. Even though Channing himself
had his share of abuse from English critics, he was generally accorded a
place with James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving as one of the
three most important American authors, and his essays were extensively re-
viewed abroad. Robert E. Spiller commented in 1930 that Channing's
"historical position in American literary history" was "underestimated"
and the last half-century does not seem to have altered that situation. ^1.
Channing's misfortune, at least for his modern literary reputation, was that
he worked in the medium of the genial, wide-ranging essay, a form which
with a few exceptions has lacked historical longevity. Nevertheless, it spoke
to his own age, and especially to his countrymen who aspired to a richer
literary culture for the nation.

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