To make a work of art, it is necessary to take a piece out of life and round it off; and, so long as the piece is perfectly rounded off and complete in itself, so long as the chosen group of characters are perfectly proportioned in relation to one another, there is no need to introduce an artificial chain of action.
To make a work of art, it is necessary to take a piece out of life and round it off; and, so long as the piece is perfectly rounded off and complete in itself, so long as the chosen group of characters are perfectly proportioned in relation to one another, there is no need to introduce an artificial chain of action.
5. Howells’s style has often been admired. Try to analyze it into its elements. Consider Mark Twain’s judgment:
For forty years his English has been to me a continual delight and astonishment. In the sustained exhibition of certain great qualities—clearness, compression, verbal exactness and unforced and seemingly unconscious felicity of phrasing—he is, in my belief, without his peer in the English-writing world.
For forty years his English has been to me a continual delight and astonishment. In the sustained exhibition of certain great qualities—clearness, compression, verbal exactness and unforced and seemingly unconscious felicity of phrasing—he is, in my belief, without his peer in the English-writing world.
6. Can you make any judgment now as to Howells’s future place in American literature?
Bibliography
For complete bibliography, seeCambridge, III (IV), 663.
Studies and Reviews
James Gibbons Huneker—critic.
Born at Philadelphia, 1860. Graduate of Roth’s Military Academy, Philadelphia, 1873. Studied law five years at the Law Academy, Philadelphia. Studied piano in Paris and was for ten years associated with Rafael Joseffy, as teacher of piano at the National Conservatory, New York. Musical and dramatic critic of theNew York Recorder, 1891-5; of theMorning Advertiser, 1895-7; also musical, dramatic, and art critic of theNew York Sun. Died in 1921.
For an understanding of Mr. Huneker’s criticisms, it is well to begin with his autobiography (Steeplejack).
Bibliography
Studies and Reviews
Fannie Hurst(Missouri, 1889)—short-story writer, novelist.
Has studied especially the lives of working girls. For bibliography, seeWho’s Who in America.
Wallace Irwin(New York, 1875)—short-story writer.
Most characteristic material life in California and the Japanese there. For bibliography, seeWho’s Who in America.
Henry James—novelist.
Born in New York City, 1843. Younger brother of William James, the psychologist. Educated largely in France and Switzerland. Studied at the Harvard Law School. After 1869, lived for the most part abroad, chiefly in England. Spent much time at Lamb House, Rye, a beautiful eighteenth century English house which he purchased in order to live in retirement. Just before his death, to show his sympathy for the part played by England in the War and his criticism of what he considered our backwardness, he became naturalized as a British citizen. In 1916, received the Order of Merit (O. M.), the highest honor for literary men conferred in England. His death in 1916 was attributed to overstrain caused by the War and his efforts to help the sufferers.
Suggestions for Reading
1. A good approach to the work of Henry James is through the three articles from theQuarterly Reviewlisted below. Mr. Fullerton sums up the material scattered through theprefaces to the definitive edition of 1909. Mr. Percy Lubbock writes as the editor of theLetters. Mrs. Wharton adds to criticism of theLettersilluminating personal reminiscences.
2. One of the importantPrefaceson James’s theory of the novel and his method of work is that to thePortrait of a Lady, from which the extract below is taken. In speaking of Turgenev’s attitude toward his characters, James says:
He saw them, in that fashion, as disponible, saw them subject to the chances, the complications of existence, and saw them vividly but then had to find for them the right relations, those that would most bring them out; to imagine, to invent and select and piece together the situations most useful and favourable to the sense of the creatures themselves, the complications they would be most likely to produce and to feel.“To arrive at these things is to arrive at my‘story,’he said, “and that’s the way I look for it. The result is that I’m often accused of not having ‘story’ enough....”So this beautiful genius, and I recall with comfort the gratitude I drew from his reference to the intensity of suggestion that may reside in the stray figure, the unattached character, the imageen disponible. It gave me higher warrant than I seemed then to have met for just that blest habit of one’s own imagination, the trick of investing some conceived or encountered individual, some brace or group of individuals, with the germinal property and authority. I was myself so much more antecedently conscious of my figures than of their setting—a too preliminary, a preferential interest in which struck me as in general such a putting of the cart before the horse. I might envy, though I couldn’t emulate, the imaginative writer so constituted as to see his fable first and to make out his agents afterwards: I could think so little of any situation that didn’t depend for its interest on the nature of the persons situated, and thereby on their way of taking it....The question comes back thus, obviously, to the kind and the degree of the artist’s prime sensibility, which is the soil out of which his subject springs. The quality and capacity of that soil, its ability to “grow” with due freshness and straightness any vision of life, represents, strongly or weakly, the projected morality. That element is but another name for the more or less close connexion of the subject with some mark made on the intelligence, with some sincere experience.On one thing I was determined; that, though I should clearly have to pile brick upon brick for the creation of an interest, I would leave no pretext for saying that anything is out of line, scale or perspective. I would build large—in fine embossed vaults and painted arches, as who should say, and yet never let it appear that the chequered pavement,the ground under the reader’s feet, fails to stretch at every point to the base of the walls....The bricks, for the whole counting-over—putting for bricks little touches and inventions and enhancements by the way—affect me in truth as well-nigh innumerable and as ever so scrupulously fitted together and packed-in. It is an effect of detail, of the minutest; though, if one were in this connexion to say all, one would express the hope that the general, the ampler part of the modest monument still survives....So early was to begin my tendency toovertreat, rather than undertreat (when there was choice or danger) my subject. (Many members of my craft, I gather, are far from agreeing with me, but I have always held overtreating the minor disservice.) ... There was the danger of the noted “thinness”—which was to be averted, tooth and nail, by cultivation of the lively.... And then there was another matter. I had, within the few preceding years, come to live in London, and the “international” light lay, in those days, to my sense, thick and rich upon the scene. It was the light in which so much of the picture hung. But thatisanother matter. There is really too much to say.
He saw them, in that fashion, as disponible, saw them subject to the chances, the complications of existence, and saw them vividly but then had to find for them the right relations, those that would most bring them out; to imagine, to invent and select and piece together the situations most useful and favourable to the sense of the creatures themselves, the complications they would be most likely to produce and to feel.
“To arrive at these things is to arrive at my‘story,’he said, “and that’s the way I look for it. The result is that I’m often accused of not having ‘story’ enough....”
So this beautiful genius, and I recall with comfort the gratitude I drew from his reference to the intensity of suggestion that may reside in the stray figure, the unattached character, the imageen disponible. It gave me higher warrant than I seemed then to have met for just that blest habit of one’s own imagination, the trick of investing some conceived or encountered individual, some brace or group of individuals, with the germinal property and authority. I was myself so much more antecedently conscious of my figures than of their setting—a too preliminary, a preferential interest in which struck me as in general such a putting of the cart before the horse. I might envy, though I couldn’t emulate, the imaginative writer so constituted as to see his fable first and to make out his agents afterwards: I could think so little of any situation that didn’t depend for its interest on the nature of the persons situated, and thereby on their way of taking it....
The question comes back thus, obviously, to the kind and the degree of the artist’s prime sensibility, which is the soil out of which his subject springs. The quality and capacity of that soil, its ability to “grow” with due freshness and straightness any vision of life, represents, strongly or weakly, the projected morality. That element is but another name for the more or less close connexion of the subject with some mark made on the intelligence, with some sincere experience.
On one thing I was determined; that, though I should clearly have to pile brick upon brick for the creation of an interest, I would leave no pretext for saying that anything is out of line, scale or perspective. I would build large—in fine embossed vaults and painted arches, as who should say, and yet never let it appear that the chequered pavement,the ground under the reader’s feet, fails to stretch at every point to the base of the walls....
The bricks, for the whole counting-over—putting for bricks little touches and inventions and enhancements by the way—affect me in truth as well-nigh innumerable and as ever so scrupulously fitted together and packed-in. It is an effect of detail, of the minutest; though, if one were in this connexion to say all, one would express the hope that the general, the ampler part of the modest monument still survives....
So early was to begin my tendency toovertreat, rather than undertreat (when there was choice or danger) my subject. (Many members of my craft, I gather, are far from agreeing with me, but I have always held overtreating the minor disservice.) ... There was the danger of the noted “thinness”—which was to be averted, tooth and nail, by cultivation of the lively.... And then there was another matter. I had, within the few preceding years, come to live in London, and the “international” light lay, in those days, to my sense, thick and rich upon the scene. It was the light in which so much of the picture hung. But thatisanother matter. There is really too much to say.
3. Remember the following clues in reading James’s, work: “His one preoccupation was the criticism, for his own purpose, of the art of life.” The emphasis is on the wordart. Hispurposeis suggested by his own claim to have “that tender appreciation of actuality which makes even the application of a single coat of rose-color seem an act of violence.”
4. There is suggestion of Mr. James’s limitations in the facts that he was tone deaf and so could not appreciate music, and that he is said not to have written a line of verse, and also in the fact that although his method of presentation in the novels is dramatic throughout and he strongly desired to write plays, the eight plays that he wrote (three of which were presented) were failures.
5. Mr. James’s place in the sequence of great European novelists is as a follower of Balzac, Flaubert, De Maupassant, and Turgenev, and as a predecessor of Conrad (whose study of him listed below should be read).
6. Early in the nineties, a great change in method came about in James’s work (cf.Cambridge, III, 98, 103). Judge separately typical books written before this change and others written after; then read several books of the period of changeand decide what happened and whether or not it enhanced the value of his work.
7. One of the remarkable facts about James’s style is its influence upon the critics who write about him. A close analysis of its qualities—sentence length, the order and placing of the parts of the sentence, punctuation, vocabulary, etc., might bring a more definite understanding of the reasons for this influence.
8. A comparison of the work and qualities of Henry and William James might be made a valuable contribution to criticism.
9. For a student familiar with Europe, a study of the reasons for James’s affinity with Europe and dislike for American life would make an interesting study.
10. What different types of reasons can you bring to show that Henry James is likely to be a permanent force in American literature?
Bibliography
For further bibliographical references, seeCambridge, III (IV), 671.
Studies and Reviews
Orrick Johns—poet.
Born at St. Louis, Missouri, 1887. Trained as an advertising copy writer. Won the prize of theLyric Year, 1912, for hisSecond Avenue.
Bibliography
Studies and Reviews
Owen McMahon Johnson(New York City, 1878)—novelist short-story writer.
Best known for studies in college life and in the psychology of the young woman (The Salamander, 1913). For bibliography, seeWho’s Who in America.
Robert Underwood Johnson—poet.
Born at Washington, D. C., 1853. B. S., Earlham College, 1871. Has many honorary higher degrees and decorations. Joined the staff of theCentury, 1873; associate editor, 1881-1909; editor, 1909-13. Father of Owen McMahon Johnson (q. v.).
Ambassador to Italy, 1920-1.
For Mr. Johnson’s many activities outside his work as poet and as editor, seeWho’s Who in America.
Bibliography
Collected Poems. 1919.
Studies and Reviews
Mary Johnston(Virginia, 1870)—novelist.
Historical material, especially colonial Virginia. For bibliography, seeWho’s Who in America.
Charles Rann Kennedy—dramatist.
Born at Derby, England, 1871. Largely self-educated. Office boy and clerk, thirteen to sixteen. Lecturer and writer to twenty-six. Actor, press-agent, and miscellaneous writerand theatrical business manager to thirty-four. His play,The Servant in the House, established his reputation.
Bibliography
Studies and Reviews
(Alfred) Joyce Kilmer—poet, essayist.
Born at New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1886. Of mixed ancestry, Irish, German, English, Scotch. A. B., Rutgers, 1904; Columbia, 1906. Married Miss Aline Murray, step-daughter of Henry Mills Alden, editor ofHarper’s Magazine(cf.Aline Kilmer). Taught a short time, then held various editorial positions onThe Churchman, theLiterary Digest,Current Literature, theNew York Times Sunday Magazine, among others. In 1913, he and his wife were converted to Catholicism. In 1916, he was called to the faculty of the School of Journalism, New York University, succeeding Arthur Guiterman (q. v.). Enlisted as a private in the War and was killed in action, 1918.
Suggestions for Reading
1. Kilmer wished to be judged by poetry written after October, 1913, and to discard all earlier work. Why?
2. The following influences are traceable in his poetry:(1) Francis Thompson, Coventry Patmore, and earlier Catholic poets; (2) his mother’s musical talent; (3) his journalistic work; (4) the War.
3. Kilmer’s letters illustrate and explain the qualities of his work.
Bibliography
Studies and Reviews
Aline Murray Kilmer—poet.
Step-daughter of Henry Mills Alden. Married in 1909 to Joyce Kilmer (q. v.).
Bibliography
Studies and Reviews
Grace Elizabeth King—novelist.
Born at New Orleans, 1852, and educated there and in France. Her stories and novels furnish material for an interesting comparison with the work of G. W. Cable (q. v.). Her writing grew out of the desire to present from the inside the Creole Society in which she had grown up, to which she felt that Mr. Cable, as an outsider, had not done justice.
Bibliography
For reviews, seePattee; alsoBook Review Digest, 1916.
Harry Herbert Knibbs(Ontario, Canada, 1874)—poet.
His material is cowboy life. For bibliography seeWho’s Who in America.
Alfred Kreymborg—poet.
Born in New York City, 1883, of Danish ancestry. Educated at the Morris High School. A chess prodigy at the age of ten, and supported himself from seventeen to twenty-five by teaching chess and playing matches. Had several years of experience as bookkeeper.
In 1914, founded and editedThe Glebe, which issued the first anthology of free verse. In 1916, 1917, 1919, publishedOthers—three anthologies of radical poets. In 1921, went to Rome to edit, in association with Harold Loeb, an international magazine of the arts calledThe Broom(cf.Dial70 [’21]: 606), but shortly after resigned.
Suggestions for Reading
1. Mr. Kreymborg is a rebel against all conventions of form and content in poetry. Consequently, the one thing to be expected in his work is the unexpected. How far his utterances are sincere and how far posed, each reader must judge for himself.
2. The following quotation fromPoetry(9 [’16]: 51) mayserve as a starting-point in discussing Mr. Kreymborg’s qualities: “An insinuating, meddlesome, quizzical, inquiring spirit; sometimes a clown, oftener a wit, now and then a lyric poet ... trips about cheerfully among life’s little incongruities; laughs at you and me and progress and prejudice and dreams; says ‘I told you so!’ with an air, as if after a double somersault in the circus ring; grows wistful, even tender, with emotions always genuine ... always ... as becomes the harlequin-philosopher, entertaining.”
3. The new movements in art—Futurist, Cubist, Vorticist—should be remembered in studying Mr. Kreymborg’s verse.
4. What is to be said of his economy in words?
Bibliography
Studies and Reviews
Peter Bernard Kyne(San Francisco, 1860)—novelist.
The inventor of Cappy Ricks in stories of business life in California. For bibliography, seeWho’s Who in America.
Stephen Butler Leacock—humorist.
Born in Hampshire, England, 1869. B. A., Toronto University; Ph. D., University of Chicago. Honorary higherdegrees. Head of the department of economics, McGill University.
Bibliography
For study, see Bookm. (Lond.) 51 (’16): 39; alsoBook Review Digest, 1914-7, 1919, 1920.
Jennette (Barbour Perry) Lee (Mrs. Gerald Stanley Lee)—novelist.
Born at Bristol, Connecticut, 1860. A. B., Smith, 1886. Taught English at Vassar, 1890-3; at Western Reserve, 1893-6; instructor and professor of English at Smith, 1901-13.
Bibliography
Studies and Reviews
Edwin Lefevre(Colombia, South America, 1871)—novelist, short-story writer.
Uses Wall Street as material. For bibliography, seeWho’s Who in America.
Sinclair Lewis—novelist.
Born at Sauk Center, Minnesota, 1885. Son of a physician. A. B., Yale, 1907. During the next ten years was a newspaper man in Connecticut, Iowa, and California, a magazine editor in Washington, D. C., and editor for New York book publishers. During the last five years has been traveling in the United States, living from one day to six months in the most diverse places, and motoring from end to end of twenty-six states. While supporting himself by short stories and experimental novels, he laid the foundation for his unusually successfulMain Street. His first book,Our Mr. Wrenn, is said to contain a good deal of autobiography.
Suggestions for Reading
1. Do you recognize Gopher Prairie as a type? Is Mr. Lewis’s picture photography, caricature, or the kind of portraiture that is art? Or to what degree do you find all these elements?
2. Is the main interest of the book in the story? in the characterization? in the satire? or in an element of propaganda?
3. What is to be said of the constructive theory of living proposed by the heroine? Is it better or worse than the standard that prevailed before she went to Gopher Prairie to live?
4. Explain the success of the book. What, if any, elements of permanent value do you find? What conspicuous defects?
Bibliography
Studies and Reviews
Am. M. 91 (’21): Apr., p. 16 (portrait). Bookm. 39 (’14): 242, 248 (portrait); 54 (’21): 9. (Archibald Marshall.) Freeman, 2 (’20): 237. Lit. Digest, 68 (’21): Feb. 12, p. 28 (portrait). New Repub. 25 (’20): 20. Sat. Rev. 132 (’21): 230. See alsoBook Review Digest, 1920.
Ludwig Lewisohn—critic.
Born at Berlin, Germany. 1882. Brought to America, 1890. A. B., and A. M., College of Charleston, 1901 (Litt. D., 1914); A. M., Columbia, 1903. Editorial work and writing for magazines, 1904-10. Translator from the German. College instructor and professor, 1910-19. Dramatic editor ofThe Nation, 1919—.
Bibliography
Studies and Reviews
Joseph Crosby Lincoln(Massachusetts, 1870)—novelist.
Writes of New England types, especially sailors. For bibliography, seeWho’s Who in America.
(Nicholas) Vachel Lindsay—poet.
Born at Springfield, Illinois, 1879. Educated in the public schools. Studied at Hiram College, Ohio, 1897-1900; at the Art Institute, Chicago, 1900-3, and at the New York School of Art, 1904-5. Member of the Christian (Disciples) Church. Y. M. C. A. lecturer, 1905-09. Lecturer for the Anti-SaloonLeague throughout central Illinois, 1909-10. Makes long pilgrimages on foot (cf.A Handy Guide for Beggars).
In the summer of 1912, he walked from Illinois to New Mexico, distributing his poems and speaking in behalf of “The Gospel of Beauty.”
Suggestions for Reading
1. Read for backgroundA Handy Guide for BeggarsandAdventures while Preaching the Gospel of Beauty.
2. An important clue to Mr. Lindsay’s work is suggested in his own note on reading his poems. Referring to the Greek lyrics as the type which survives in American vaudeville where every line may be two-thirds spoken and one-third sung, he adds: “I respectfully submit these poems as experiments in which I endeavor to carry this vaudeville form back towards the old Greek presentation of the half-chanted lyric. In this case the one-third of music must be added by the instinct of the reader.... Big general contrasts between the main sections should be the rule of the first attempts at improvising. It is the hope of the writer that after two or three readings each line will suggest its own separate touch of melody to the reader who has become accustomed to the cadences. Let him read what he likes read, and sing what he likes sung.”
In carrying out this suggestion, note that Mr. Lindsay often prints aids to expression by means of italics, capitals, spaces, and even side notes and other notes on expression.
3. What different kinds of material appeal especially to Mr. Lindsay’s imagination? How do you explain his choice, and his limitations?
4. What effect upon his poetry has the missionary spirit which is so strong in him? Is his poetry more valuable for its singing element or for its ethical appeal? Do you discover any special originality?
5. How does his use of local material compare with that of Masters? of Frost? of Sandburg?
6. Study his rhythmic sense in different poems, the verseforms that he uses, the tendencies in rhyme, his use of refrain, of onomatop[oe]ia, of catalogues, etc.
7. Does Mr. Lindsay offend your poetic taste? If so, can you justify his use of the material you object to?
8. Do you judge that Mr. Lindsay is likely to write much greater poetry than he has hitherto produced?
9. Mr. Lindsay’s drawings are worth study for comparison with his poems.
10. Compare Mr. Lindsay’s development of the idea of the “poem game” with the “poem dance” of Bliss Carman (q. v.).
11. Consider Mr. Lindsay as the “poet of democracy.” What is he likely to do for the people? for poetry?
Bibliography
Studies and Reviews
Philip Littell—critic.
Born at Brookline, Massachusetts, 1868. A. B., Harvard, 1890. On staff ofMilwaukee Sentinel, 1890-1901, andNew York Globe, 1910-13. OnThe New Republicsince 1914. His one volume isBooks and Things, 1919.
Studies and Reviews
Jack London—novelist.
Born at San Francisco, 1876. Studied at the University of California, but left college to go to the Klondyke. In 1892, shipped before the mast. Went to Japan; hunted seal in Behring Sea. Tramped far and wide in the United States and Canada, in 1894, for social and economic study. War correspondent in the Russian-Japanese War. Traveled extensively. Socialist. Died in 1916.
His work is very uneven; but the following books are regarded as among his best:
For an account of his life and work, seeThe Book of Jack London, by Charmian London, 1921 (cf.Freeman, 4 [’22]: 407). For reviews, cf. theBook Review Digest, especially 1903-7, 1911, 1915.
Robert Morss Lovett—man of letters.
Born at Boston, 1870. A. B., Harvard, 1892. Taught English at Harvard, 1892-3; at Chicago, since 1893; professor since 1909. Editor ofThe Dial, 1919. On the staff ofThe New Republic, 1921—.
Bibliography
Studies and Reviews
Amy Lowell—poet, critic.
Born at Brookline, Massachusetts, 1874. Sister of President Lowell of Harvard, and of Percival Lowell, the astronomer. Distantly related to James Russell Lowell. Educated at private schools. Traveled extensively in Europe as a child. Her visits to Egypt, Greece, and Turkey influenced her development. In 1902, she decided to become a poet and spent eight years studying, without publishing a poem. Her first poem appeared in theAtlantic, 1910.
She is a collector of Keats manuscripts and says that the poet who influenced her most profoundly was Keats. She has also made special study of Chinese poetry.
Suggestions for Reading
1. As Miss Lowell is the principal exponent of the theories of imagism and free verse in this country, careful reading of some of her critical papers leads to a better understanding of her work. Especially valuable are her studies of Paul Fort in her volume entitledSix French Poets, of “H. D.” and John Gould Fletcher in herTendencies in Modern American Poetry, the prefaces to different volumes of her poems and to the anthologies published under the titleSome Imagist Poets(1915, 1916), and her articles in theDial, 64 (’18): 51 ff., and in Poetry, 3 (’13): 213 ff.
2. In judging her work, consider separately her poems in regular metrical form and those in free verse. Decide which method is better suited to her type of imagination.
3. To what extent does her inspiration come from cultural sources—travel, literature, art, music?
4. Consider especially her presentation of “images.” How far do these seem to be derived from direct experience? Test them by your own experience. What principles seem to determine her choice of details? Which sense impressions—sight, sound, taste, smell, touch—does she most frequently and successfully suggest? Note instances where her figures of speech sharpen the imagery and others where they seem to distort it. In what ways is the influence of Keats perceptible in her work?
5. It is worth while to make special study of the historical imagery of the poems inCan Grande’s Castle.
6. If you are familiar with the impressionistic method of painting, work out an analogy between it and Miss Lowell’s word pictures.
7. Study separately her varieties of free verse and polyphonic prose (cf. her study of Paul Fort and the preface toCan Grande’s Castle). Choose several poems in which you think the free verse form is especially adapted to the content and draw conclusions as to the problems of development of this kind of verse or of its possible influence upon regular metrical forms.
8. Use the following poem by Miss Lowell as a basis for judging her work: