{"id":40802281777,"date":"2024-05-09T16:01:38","date_gmt":"2024-05-09T20:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/?p=40802281777"},"modified":"2024-05-17T11:01:24","modified_gmt":"2024-05-17T15:01:24","slug":"prof-blair-presents-the-literature-of-sandy-hook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/prof-blair-presents-the-literature-of-sandy-hook\/","title":{"rendered":"Prof. Blair Presents “The Literature of Sandy Hook”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stanley Blair, Ph.D., associate professor of English, recently presented “The Literature of Sandy Hook<\/a>” at the Middletown Township Historical Society<\/a>. Blair was introduced by Monmouth County historian Randall Gabrielan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Blair, few authors have been born or have lived on Sandy Hook, part of Middletown Township, but many visitors have written about it. During the presentation, he mentioned some recent literary works before moving on to his more historical \u201ctop 10\u201d list, drawn from a previous graduate course he taught. Among Blair\u2019s students in attendance was sophomore English\/secondary education major Drew Burnett, who remarked, \u201cThe discussion of literature was interesting because he decided to do it in a top ten list rather than broadly summarize the literature!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blair’s top 10 list started with an 1898 poem by Thomas Fleming Day, a 1791 poem by Poet of the American Revolution Philip Freneau, two 1869 poems by Atlantic Highlands poet George Arnold, and three 1893 poems by William Lawrence Chittenden from Texas. Middletown native Henry Morford published an 1859 poem that indicated how for many years Sandy Hook was sometimes a peninsula and sometimes an island, separated from the mainland by now-closed Shrewsbury Inlet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jaquelin Deitrick\u2019s 1930 \u201cParade Ground\u201d is a coming-of-age novel, and was the favorite of Gianna Olsen, a junior communication major, because Deitrick was \u201cthe odd one out, having lived on Sandy Hook compared to the other authors mentioned. I loved that the novel depicts the real Fort Hancock through its fictional base, Fort Jonathan Wayde. That is such a cool connection the author created.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1879, Long Branch florist George Houghton wrote about Sandy Hook in a poem as well as in an illustrated essay in Scribner\u2019s Magazine. Between 1878 and 1881, poet Walt Whitman repeatedly visited the area and wrote several prose passages about Sandy Hook in his 1882 book \u201cSpecimen Days,\u201d as well as an 1885 poetic sequence titled, \u201cFancies at Navesink,\u201d later incorporated into his famous book \u201cLeaves of Grass.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In James Fenimore Cooper\u2019s 1830 novel \u201cThe Water-Witch,\u201d a brigantine by that name traverses Shrewsbury Inlet to smuggle European goods into the British Province of New Jersey. As shown in an 1879 Harper\u2019s Magazine article by Miss F. E. Fryatt, interest in Cooper\u2019s novel persisted for decades. Residents named a northeastern section of Middletown Township, a fashionable club there, and three streets, Water Witch, Barberie, and Sea Drift Avenues, after Cooper\u2019s novel and two of its characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final author, a surprise to the audience, was Frank R. Stockton. Based on historical works that recounted Penelope Stout\u2019s family folklore, in 1896 Stockton published a short story about her, which starts with a Native American attack on Dutch shipwreck survivors on Sandy Hook and later moves to Middletown Village, where peace is negotiated. Stockton\u2019s 1879 best-selling novel \u201cRudder Grange\u201d is the name of a fictional couple\u2019s canal boat that they converted into their home. Blair showed that, like the novel\u2019s fictional couple, the Stocktons had published a book on home improvement. The novel\u2019s word play includes the fictional \u201cScoldsbury River\u201d as the real Shrewsbury River, and a nearby fictional hotel named \u201cGinx\u2019s\u201d as the real Jenkinson\u2019s Hotel. This and other textual evidence, as well as an 1879 magazine illustration of \u201cA \u2018Rudder Grange\u2019 on Sandy Hook,\u201d all suggest the novel\u2019s setting as locally inspired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blair\u2019s approach to \u201cRudder Grange\u201d was persuasive for junior biology major Julia Rice: \u201cThis has given me a real appreciation for literature. I have seen the relevance to everyday current life in books from centuries prior. By building the case with the Stocktons writing a home improvement book, to the geography of the town in the time period, it is quite baffling that Blair is able to put all the pieces together and so clearly paint a picture of world-building, the strings that tie everything together. Bravo!\u201d Burnett also started thinking about applying a similar approach to his home area: \u201cThis now has me interested in what literature includes Hazlet or Lincroft in them, and how they are portrayed or what stories are told in those kinds of settings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The presentation was followed by a lively question and answer period. Middletown Township Historical Society President Thomas Valenti said, \u201cDr. Blair’s breadth of knowledge continues to impress. He is one of our most engaging speakers, and his presentation on the literature of Sandy Hook did not disappoint. The research he conducted that led him to lesser known texts is commendable, appreciated, and important.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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A. B. Frost\u2019s 1885 illustration of the fictional canal-boat in the revised edition of Frank R. Stockton\u2019s “Rudder Grange,” set on the fictional Scoldsbury River<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Excerpt from Houghton\u2019s 1879 article, showing a real-life \u201c\u2018Rudder Grange\u2019 at Sandy Hook\u201d near the real Shrewsbury River<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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1784 map showing Shrewsbury Inlet, now closed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Before the attack on Middletown village, a Native American provides Penelope Stout and her two children a canoe to escape to New Amsterdam, as depicted in Stockton\u2019s 1896 book \u201cStories of New Jersey.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Walt Whitman, frontispiece of “November Boughs,” 1888<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Real ruins of what locals claimed to be the fictional villa in Cooper\u2019s novel, as illustrated in Fryatt\u2019s 1879 article<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stanley Blair, Ph.D., associate professor of English, recently presented “The Literature of Sandy Hook” at the Middletown Township Historical Society. Blair was introduced by Monmouth County historian Randall Gabrielan. According to Blair, few authors have been born or have lived on Sandy Hook, part of Middletown Township, but many visitors have written about it. During […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2302,"featured_media":40802281781,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[188,444,423,170],"tags":[],"person":[861],"audience":[],"school":[110,26],"program":[],"class_list":["post-40802281777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-great-location","category-monmouth-now","category-faculty-perspectives","category-research","person-sblair","school-english","school-school-of-humanities-and-social-sciences"],"squareimage":{"id":40802279713,"rendered":"\"Professor","original":{"url":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/16\/2024\/02\/Stanley-Blair-Headshot_20221007_AD_08.jpg","width":6720,"height":4480}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802281777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2302"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802281777"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802281777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802281835,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802281777\/revisions\/40802281835"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40802281781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802281777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802281777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802281777"},{"taxonomy":"person","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/person?post=40802281777"},{"taxonomy":"audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/audience?post=40802281777"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=40802281777"},{"taxonomy":"program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program?post=40802281777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}