John Gneisenau Neihardt | Biography

John G. Neihardt is most widely known for his book about a Sioux holy man, Black Elk Speaks (1932), but he considered himself a poet and designated as his masterwork the five-part epic, A Cycle of the West, begun in 1913 and completed in 1941. In his early years he wrote a long mystic poem, The Divine Enchantment (1900), and three volumes of lyrics-- A Bundle of Myrrh (1907), Man-Song (1909), and The Stranger at the Gate (1912)--that received enthusiastic reviews. In the same period he produced numerous short stories about the West, later collected in two volumes, The Lonesome Trail (1907), and Indian Tales and Others (1926). From 1912 to 1920 Neihardt edited a literary page for the Minneapolis Journal, and later, after a period of intensive work on the epic, served as literary editor for the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch from 1926 to 1938. To the body of critical writing in the newspaper reviews he added a book on literary theory, Poetic Values: Their Reality and Our Need of Them (1925). His canon also includes an account of his boat trip down the Missouri River, The River and I (1910), two verse plays, Two Mothers (1921), a biography of Jedediah Smith, The Splendid Wayfaring (1920), and two autobiographical volumes about his youth, written in his last years: All Is But a Beginning appeared in 1972, and the completed portion of the second volume, Patterns and Coincidences, in 1978, with an epilogue by Neihardt's daughter, Hilda Petri.

Neihardt's early life in Kansas and Nebraska grounded him in the exigencies of western rural life, fixed his delight in the rugged country, and taught him respect for the heritage of pioneers and explorers. His long acquaintance with Indians--the Omahas on the reservation outside his home town in Nebraska, the Sioux at Pine Ridge Reservation, where he met Black Elk, and at Agate Springs Reservation--gave him materials for his Indian books and for parts of the epic. During World War II he served for two years as Director of Information for the Office of Indian Affairs, from 1944 to 1946, and remained on call for special assignments until 1948, when he became a lecturer in English at the University of Missouri. After he ceased teaching classes in the late 1950s the courses were continued on television tape.

The central theme of all Neihardt's writing is that all people carry the potential for heroism. Without discounting the fallibility of human nature or the actuality of ugliness and evil in the world, he believed in the power of the human spirit to refine itself. He thought the function of literature was to teach people how to live together decently, and to recognize the interrelation of all nature and all living things in the universe. Neihardt's books received respectful, often superlative, reviews, but his decision to remain in the West denied him the attention of major critics, as has been the experience of many Western writers. Because of his years of lecturing in all parts of the country, however, he retained a surprisingly loyal audience, even when all his books were out of print.

Black Elk Speaks, Neihardt's most famous book, about the vision of a Sioux holy man and its effect on his life, was a neglected classic until Carl Jung engendered excitement about its mystic and psychological implications. In the introduction of the newest edition (1979) Vine Deloria suggests that it may become a central document in a new theology.

Neihardt's early novels-- The Dawn Builder (1911) and Life's Lure (1914)--do not represent his best work; he wrote them in his period of experimentation when he had renounced lyrics and was casting about for a genre suitable for mature talents. He tried his hand at two novels and discovered that he had not yet found his metier. The basic weakness lay in his structuring: he composed each novel by fusing two short stories, using almost verbatim sections, somewhat jerkily interlaced without full concealment of the seams. The Dawn Builder joined the realistic, wryly witty tale of Mr. Waters, wooden-legged, one-eyed hero of an excellent story, "The Discarded Fetish" (Smart Set, July 1907) and a romantic fantasy with overtones of Poe, "Beyond the Spectrum" (Smart Set, April 1907). The realism of Waters and his homespun good sense seems out of key with the fantasy characters of the Island Girl, reminiscent of William Henry Hudson's Rima in Green Mansions (1904) and her old father, who is obsessed with destroying the misguided world with sonic vibrations. The themes of the novel are intelligent enough to justify Henry Holt's comment that Neihardt had "talent to burn," but the book founders on incompatible strands of story. Still, Mr. Waters's wistful courtship of a motherly widow, and his romance with the fragile Island Girl, who declines after being transported into the rough world and dies after childbirth, brings originality to the death-of-innocence motif when Waters recognizes something of the Girl's beauty in the kindly widow. His own struggle for self-respect flowers in his Aristotelian conclusion that destruction solves no problems; the key to acceptance is making what is, better. The story is frequently enlivened by authentic, sometimes hilarious scenes of small-town life--men drinking in the tavern, and the ladies' aid society lamenting determinedly and self-righteously over sinners.

Life's Lure, the second novel, also based on two stories published in Smart Set --"The Lure of Woman" (February 1908) and "The Parable of the Sack" (April 1908)--presents a darker picture of the West. Both stories feature the Faustian theme that lust for riches brings damnation; the tempter in the story is fittingly named Devlin. In the successful corruption of the two "heroes," the unhappy wastrel who has squandered his fortune and the callow farm boy with dreams of wealth, Neihardt employs the ancient motif of evil's tempting through human susceptibilities. Life's Lure has less appeal than the earlier novel; the characters seem stereotyped, and the picture of a gold-rush town is not entirely convincing. The setting is well done; Neihardt knew the Spearfish Canyon area and had done a little placer mining himself, but the style is more ejaculatory than Neihardt's other work, and the total effect suggests early Western movies. Some scenes reveal flashes of Neihardt's genuine talent, for example, the awkward antics of the callow youth trying to impress old-timers in the bar. Such characters as the good-natured, managing Ma Wooliver, possibly based on Neihardt's mother, create authenticity. Neither of the novels attracted critical attention.

When the Tree Flowered (1951), Neihardt's third novel, written in his sixties, is one of his best books, the last of his major works. Based on materials gleaned at Pine Ridge, particularly from Eagle Elk, the novel shows Neihardt at the top of his form. His extraordinary rapport with Indians enabled him to texture the story richly with Indian myths, legends, and folk tales along with creating a picture of life and customs, and firsthand glimpses of battles in the Indian Wars. The novel is loosely based on the life of Eagle Elk--Eagle Voice in the book--but the story line is less important than the view of Indian society, enriched with the interpolated legends and tales that explain Sioux philosophy and religion. Neihardt's perfected style and his skillful use of the frame structure worked to point up subtle humor and to infuse warmth into the mellow wisdom of the Indians. Descriptions of women rubbing their warriors' tired feet after battle, men telling funny stories with carefully deadpan faces, riding out on a hunt or to a battle bring the Indians to life with dignity and charm. The pathos of their defeat is not hammered, but comes out in the scenes of battle aftermath. This last novel was not widely reviewed, but the attention it received was favorable; comments stressed Neihardt's excellent prose and realistic view of Indians. The British press praised it lavishly; one review compared it to the Old Testament. The book has not received the attention it merits; in some ways it is a better book than Black Elk Speaks.

Neihardt's reputation will not and should not ultimately rest on his novels, but they are useful as guides to his development as a writer, and When the Tree Flowered merits respect both for its perceptive revelation of Indian culture and for its undeniable literary distinction.