[In the following essay, Kimball reads Lanier's only novel, Tiger-Lilies, for its realism, arguing that had Lanier's use of realism been more consistent, the novel would have been more effective and more successful.]

Although Tiger-Lilies has been referred to as a Civil War novel, it can hardly meet the qualifications of that genre. It is concerned in part with accounts of some of Lanier's experiences in the war. But it is concerned with other things, too. When it appeared in 1867 critics were “baffled or smothered by the jumble of its contents, by the disquisitions, by the digressions, by the oddity or strain of phrasing or fancy, by the literary allusions, by the music and musical talk, by the intrusions of the author,” and by what has been called the “tropical luxuriousness of beauties.”¹ Yet, there are some redeeming qualities, and Lanier had considerable justification for noting that few reviews “were not on the whole favorable.”²

The “tropical luxuriousness” is found mainly in Book I, which is highly imitative of the German romance, a form that had captured Lanier's fancy, and with the possible exception of introducing most of the characters who are met again in Books II and III, it could be considered a separate entity. In a classic understatement Lanier himself admitted, “I am better pleased with the later ‘chapters’ of my book than with any others.”³

The plot is certainly slight; the atmosphere of Book I especially remote, and such movement as there is is sluggish. The background of the first book is the mountainous country of eastern Tennessee. A deer hunt brings together Philip Sterling and Paul Rübetsahl, two young transcendentalists; Cain Smallin, a native of the region; John Sterling, Philip's father; and John Cranston, a Northerner whom Rübetsahl had met in Germany, his native country. After the hunt the group repairs to the Sterling home, an incongruous palace of art, called Thalberg, to enjoy good friendship, music, and high thought. They hold a masquerade party in which they represent various characters from Shakespeare's plays and Knights of the Round Table. The gaiety of the masquerade party is shattered by an inconclusive duel between Cranston and Rübetsahl, both of whom love Felix, Philip's sister. The duel was prompted by a girl named Ottilie, formerly the lover of Rübetsahl, who was offended by Cranston in Germany. Ottilie has come to Tennessee where she becomes identified with the Sterling family. The “high talk” on music, poetry, philosophy and nature which constitutes Book I is dramatically interrupted by the outbreak of the Civil War. Book II opens at Burwell's Bay late in the war and with a minimum of transition depicts several scenes on the lower James, and the Federal prison at Fortress Monroe, and returns again to the scene of Book I. Book III includes some scenes in besieged Petersburg and occupied Richmond in which the romance accelerates and the tale is brought to a perfunctory and incredible close. The realistic scenes are primarily in Book II.

The characterization, on the whole, is weak and most of the characters are only tenuously connected with a real world. Although young Sterling and Rübetsahl are somewhat hardened by an active army life, they never relinquish their transcendental thoughts or manner of expression. Cain Smallin, a mountaineer, is unique in that he alone emerges as an identifiable character in all three books. He certainly deserves better support than this entire work affords him. When Cain encounters his brother, Gorm, a deserter, his reaction creates a scene of some dramatic power:

Gorm Smallin, you has cheated me, an' ole father an' mother an' all, out of our name which it was all we had; you has swore to a lie, for you swore to me 'at the colonel sent you down here to go a-scoutin' amongst the Yankees; you has stole our honest name, which it is more than we can ever make to give to your wife's baby; you has sneaked out f'om on a fight that we was fightin' to keep what was our'n an' to pertect them that has been kind to us an' them that raised us; you has deserted f'om your regiment which it has fought now gwine on four year an' fought manful, too, an' never run a inch.

(121-122)

While Cranston, the villainous Northerner, and Gorm, the deserter, attain some degree of self-realization, it is Cain Smallin who carries off a rather commendable realistic character portrayal. The soldiers are for the most part believable, owing doubtless to the fact that Lanier knew the life of the soldier from his own experiences.

It is especially when Lanier depicts the actualities of warfare that he gives evidence of the kind of realistic writing that, had it been his main purpose, might have enabled him to surpass any other work of his time with the exception perhaps of Miss Ravenel's Conversion and would have served to introduce a reading public to the realism of warfare which it met in The Red Badge of Courage almost thirty years later.

It cannot be claimed that the realistic accounts even of Book II are consistent, but the better ones are certainly worthy of attention as the following excerpt illustrates:

Their line is formed, in the centre floats the cross-banner, to right and left gleam the bayonets like silver flame-jets, unwaving, deadly; these, with a thousand mute tongues, utter a silent yet magnificent menace.

“Charge! Steady, men!”

The rags flutter, the cross-flag spreads out and reveals its symbol, the two thousand sturdy feet in hideous brogans, or without cover, press forward. At first it is a slow and stately movement; stately in the mass, ridiculous if we watch any individual leg, with its knee perhaps showing an irregular hole in such pantaloons!

The step grows quicker. A few scattering shots from the enemy's retiring skirmishers patter like the first big drops of the shower.

From the right of the ragged line now comes up a single long cry, as from the leader of a pack of hounds who has found the game. This cry has in it the uncontrollable eagerness of the sleuth-hound, together with a dry harsh quality that conveys an uncompromising hostility. It is the irresistible outflow of some fierce soul immeasurably enraged, and it is tinged with a jubilant tone, as if in anticipation of a speedy triumph and a satisfying revenge. It is a howl, a hoarse battle-cry, a cheer, and a congratulation, all in one.

They take it up in the centre, they echo it on the left, it swells, it runs along the line as fire leaps along the rigging of a ship. It is as if some one pulled out in succession all the stops of the infernal battle-organ, but only struck one note which they all speak in different voices.

The gray line nears the blue one, rapidly. It is a thin gray wave, whose flashing foam is the glitter of steel bayonets. It meets with a swell in the ground, shivers a moment, then rolls on.

Suddenly thousands of tongues, tipped with red and issuing smoke, speak deadly messages from the blue line. One volley? A thousand would not stop them now. Even if they were not veterans who know that it is safer at this crisis to push on than to fall back, they would still press forward. They have forgotten safety, they have forgotten life and death; their thoughts have converged into a focus which is the one simple idea,—to get to those men in blue, yonder. Rapid firing from the blue line brings rapid yelling from the gray.

(133-134)

Even so, the realism of Tiger-Lilies is not confined to character portrayal and scenes of combat. It is evident in the portrayal of the mere existence of men confined to the slow death of the war prison. It can be seen in the privation and want of civilians dedicated to a cause for which no sacrifice is too great. It is caught in the talk among the soldiers, and the hijinks and seriousness of scouting, pursuing, retreating, and waiting.

Tiger-Lilies is by no means free of the pseudo-literary conventions which were the warp and woof particularly of Southern war fiction of its time. The stock figures repeatedly credited to the Southern tradition—the first old gentleman of the plantation home; the scions, accustomed to the genteel manner, who are marshaled to the colors; the proud and determined ladies of the house; the faithful Negro servants—all of these are present. Other conventions are the divided family, the Northern man seeking the affections of the Southern girl, the practically defenseless home subject to attacks by wandering marauders, the idealized leaders, exalted chivalry, and more. But, when one considers that Tiger-Lilies is not primarily a war novel and that it was written by a man who was basically a romantic poet and at heart a pacifist (“If war was ever right, then Christ was always wrong.” p. 95), it is all the more remarkable that Lanier recollecting the tranquility in his own personal experiences imbued them with as powerful a sense of actuality as he did. If the acknowledged theme of Tiger-Lilies had not been love and if the author had not been prompted to imitate his own conception of the German romance, one can only conjecture what literary form his wartime experiences would have taken. It is enough to say, perhaps, that even as they appear to be undisciplined segments of a unique literary structure, his realistic scenes are very impressive.

Notes

1. Garland Greever, ed., The Centennial Edition of the Works of Sidney Lanier, vol. 5 (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins Press, 1945), pp. xi-xii. The page references to the novel are to this edition.

2. Ibid., p. xii.

3. Greever, p. xv.