find quotations from the Divina Commedia1 and allusions to Dante's profound love for Beatrice." Henry Calvert, a native of Baltimore, who was educated at Harvard in Ticknor's time, in his dissertation on "Alfieri and Dante" touches upon Dante's life experiences and woes, which he defines as "the soil that fed and ripened his conceptions." He also gives us to understand that he read the Commedia in the original, so as not to miss the freshness and unworn vigor which are there alone in Dante's Italian, and makes us feel that his criticism of the poem is the result of a careful, conscientious and critical study. Richard Henry Wilde, who spent the greater part of his life in Georgia and North Carolina and passed a number of years in Italy, wrote a Life of Dante, which however was never published, and he was largely responsible for the discovery and restoration in the Bargello of a portrait of Dante by Giotto,16 which through carelessness or inadvertence had been covered with whitewash.17 14 In "Lord Byron's Character and Writings," speaking of the frightful views of human destiny as expressed by some of the foremost writers in the world, Legaré quotes Dante's description of his arrival in Hell. Quivi sospiri, pianti ed alti guai Voci alte e fioche, e suon di man con elle. (Inferno, III, 22) In the same essay he compares Manfred's woeful words, with the line "non hanno speranza di morte" which suggests a similar thought and is used by Dante in depicting the consuming "ennui" of the souls in limbo who are shut out from the beatitude of heaven and endure no other punishment than the total lack of all interest and enjoyment. 15 Byron's love for Miss Chaworth is likened by Legaré to Dante's ardent devotion for Beatrice, whose spirit dwelt in heaven and inspired him with holy hopes and aspirations. In his "Roman Literature" the author refers to the distant, mysterious, and adoring love which inspired Dante's muse, and compares it with the sensuality of the amatory poetry of Catullus. 16 Whether Wilde or Kirkup was the real discoverer of this portrait is a question which is not yet definitely settled. For interesting information on the matter see Holbrook, Portraits of Dante. 17 This discovery of a veritable portrait of Dante in the prime of his days," says Washington Irving, "produced throughout Italy some such sensation as in England would follow the sudden discovery of a perfectly well authenticated likeness of Shakespeare, with a difference in intensity proportioned to the superior sensitiveness of the Italians."' Brief mention should also be made here of Estelle Anna Lewis of Maryland, who in a poem, "My Study," alludes to Dante's description of the infernal world; to Mrs. Margaret J. Preston of Virginia, whose verses on "Dante's Exile" refer to the poet's undying love for his native Florence and to his constant failure in finding on earth the peace and tranquillity which he so eagerly longed for; and finally to Mrs. Sarah A. Dorsey of Louisiana, who in her "Recollections of Henry Watkins Allen" (1856) speaks of the fair Beatrice who guided Dante upward into the resplendent regions of everlasting light. In summing up, we may say that the cult of Dante, which was originally brought to America from England, received its first notable impulse from the American reprint of Carey's translation of the Divina Commedia; it was further developed by the united and untiring efforts of Ticknor, Longfellow, Lowell, and Norton, eminent Dante teachers as well as scholars, who succeeded in making of Cambridge and Boston the great centre of Dante studies. Then again, through the publication of new editions of the Commedia, through the noteworthy contributions by members of Longfellow's circle and others, through the gradual introduction of Dante courses in all the leading American colleges and universities, this interest became so widespread that by the end of the nineteenth century no one could have any claim to culture without showing some acquaintance at least with Italy's foremost poet, Dante Alighieri. A WORD-LIST FROM PIONEER IOWA AND AN INQUIRY INTO IOWA DIALECT ORIGINS By FRANK LUTHER MOTT When the Border Ruffians wished to stop Yankee immigration into Kansas in 1854, they were hard put to it to devise adequate means of determining whether a given immigrant was of Yankee origin or not. Cross-examining the "newcomer" on the subject was useless, for what mere Border Ruffian could expect to cope with Yankee guile? Informed as they were upon the Kansas situation, the Yankees did not hesitate to aver that they were loyal Missourians, or had come directly from the bluegrass region of Kentucky. The Border Ruffians, being good philologists, however, were not long in hitting upon a satisfactory test. They stationed guards at all the Missouri River crossings, and instructed them to ask every traveller to utter the single word "cow." If anyone said "keow" he was to be turned back. The plan worked, and history records the victory of the slavery party at the Kansas elections that year.1 Such means of determining the geographical origins of men have been employed, no doubt, ever since the Gileadites said to the Ephraimites, "say now 'shibboleth,' " and they said "sibboleth." There are no habits more tenacious than speech-habits. Today the student of American dialects can go into any homogeneous midwestern community and with very little trouble determine from what sections of the United States the early settlers of the community came. It follows that it should be possible to determine the geographical origins of a people historically removed from our times by a considerable period through a study of dialect words used by their writers. This is the task proposed in the present study. The task was suggested by a question as to whether Iowa was 1 Todd, Rev. John, The Early Settlement and Growth of Western Iowa, p. 111; Caldwell, J. P., The Rationale of Slang, Overland Monthly, Vol. 4, p. 189, Feb. 1870; DeVere, Schele, Americanisms, p. 189. Of course there is also a southern variation of the sound [au]. 2 Judges xii, 6. settled from New England or from the South. John Fiske once stated that the movements of population follow the parallels of latitude. If that is true, Iowa's population should have come from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and northern Pennsylvania. The impression is general that Iowa was settled from New England, via New York and Ohio. On the other hand, Professor Frank I. Herriott of Drake University, basing his conclusion upon statements of early settlers, a consideration of the nativity of pioneer leaders, and census reports of nativity, believes that "Iowa was settled first by the sons of the Old Dominion, interspersed with the vigor of New England." Here, then, is a fair issue, toward the decision of which the student of dialects may expect to contribute some evidence. It should be remarked that there were no definite lines of settlement in Iowa. The Missourians on the southern border, the Kentuckians along the Mississippi River, and the few colonies of Yankees, Kentuckians, Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians in the interior afford the only clear-cut and direct speech influences. These factors are probably of no more than local importance. Iowa speech as a whole is of decidedly mixed ancestry; it is too confused in origin to map satisfactorily. Even when one determines where a certain family came from, one has by no means pigeonholed its speech. It may have dipped into half a dozen sets of speech-peculiarities or dialects on its "pioneering" path to the permanent Iowa home. We have the case of the Quaker Aaron Streets in Newhall's "Sketches of Iowa," published in 1841. The elder Aaron Street "emigrated from Salem, N. J., to Salem, Ohio; from Ohio father and son came and built up Salem, Ind. ;" and there the elder Street was buried; from Salem, Ind., the younger Aaron Street came to Iowa and founded Salem, Iowa.5 Whither the progeny of this family continued its western march, deponent saith not, but doubtless other Aaron Streets have founded more 3 Fiske, John, Civil Government in America, p. 81. 4 Herriott, Frank I., Whence Came the Pioneers of Iowa? Annals of Iowa, 3rd series, Vol. 7, pp. 367 ff., 446 ff. The issue raised by Professor Herriott really extends to settlement subsequent to statehood, but I have chosen to deal with the first period of Iowa settlement-that from 1833 to 1846. After Iowa's admission into the union as a free state, southern immigration fell off greatly, while Northerners poured in by increasing thousands. 5 Newhall, J. B., "Sketches of Iowa," page 142, footnote. Monette's Valley of Miss., Vol. 2, p. 562. Salems in far-western states before this. This progressive "pioneering" was not uncommon; it was almost the rule. Of the twenty-four Woodbury County pioneers studied by Professor Garver, nine came directly to Iowa, while fifteen came by way of other states, as follows: Seven by way of Illinois, four by way of Wisconsin, and one each by way of Massachusetts, Ohio, Vermont and Montana. Readers of Hamlin Garland's Son of the Middle Border will recall the successive moves recorded of the "pioneering" father. 6 The immediate problem proposed in this study was to determine, from an examination of speech peculiarities in use in Iowa before 1846, approximately what proportion of all Iowans of that period were of Yankee origin, and what proportion came from the South. The method was, first, to form a list of usages belonging to the time and place and to the non-literary level. Obviously, this must be secured from an examination of guidebooks, newspapers, reminiscenses, and the literature of travel, biography, and history. The second step, the classification of the dialectal loanwords according to their geographical origins, was much more difficult. After the publication of the proposed American dialect dictionary, it will be possible to do such work with fair completeness and accuracy, but until then inexactitude and incompleteness in the determination of dialect origins cannot be avoided. Only two sections were considered in the investigation of speech origins the South, including Missouri; and New England, including New York state, which was settled almost wholly from New England. My chief printed authorities on origins have been the lists of dialect words published from year to year in Dialect Notes. The various dialect dictionaries are of little help in such an investigation. I am indebted for the identification of Southernisms persisting to later times, to Professor George Summey, Jr., of North Carolina State College, and Professor Ludwig Lewisohn, who was reared in Charlestown, S. C. The identification of Yankeeisms was made by Mrs. Sallie Wright Farrar, formerly 6 Garver, Frank H., Settlement of Woodbury County, in Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. 9, pp. 359-384. 7 Roberts, E. H., New York, pp. 358-9; Dwight, Timothy, Travels in New England and New York, Vol. 4, p. 527; Mathews, Lois, The Expansion of New England, pp. 153-169. |