Shadowland (Mar-Aug 1923)

WWO*»LA\J Vmerican life, is added thai of the superficial knowledg« of America possessed by the average Englishman and Englishwoman (and Continental, for that matter), it must be admitted that there are cogent causes for the neglect of American fiction on the part of English readers. The average European knows almost nothing of how Americans live. Ice-water, overheated rooms, baseball, easy divorce, big business, movie queens, "flivvers" and stupendous wealth are the things the United States more or less vaguely call to his mind. It is not his fault ; t is simply that his newspapers and magazines do not *ive him a very great deal of information concerning \meriea — at least, so far as it is a question of social, iterary, scientific or artistic America. , Whether this lack of information is the fault of the English publications or whether it lies with the quality of he information itself (and here we come back to our irst point — the relative colorlessness of American life) t is beside the point to discuss ; the fact remains that he average Englishman, thru no fault of his own, is not n possession of this information. On the other hand, the average American has a fair knowledge of the English social picture, derived mainly from the study of the English classics, and in a lesser degree from the information which his native publications afford him. The majority of American newspapers deal at some length with the scandals of "high life" ' in England, and appear to be anxious to describe the extravagances of the aristocracy and to dwell on the social side of fashionable life in London. And, in addition to all this, there are the society weeklies and fortnightlies which write extensively on such questions, as English houseparties, presentations at court, the brilliancy of Ascot (illustrated with photographs of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York), and the great ball of the London season. And when it is also borne in mind that thou An American novelist trying to acquire the English contemporaries sands upon thousands of Americans visit Europe, wherea few Europeans visit America, except for restricted busi ness purposes, the immense advantage of the American in the matter of initial knowledge, cannot be denied. And then there comes the question of tradition. The cultivated English reader starts his fiction-reading with an accumulated mass of literary tradition behind him. The American opinion, no doubt, is that the Bnrisher is much hampered by such tradition ; the English ( and Continental) view, on the contrary, is that it constitutes a valuable standard and reliable guide in literary taste. American fiction, therefore, whether consciously or unconsciously, is judged by the European according to the standard set by tradition, and when an American novel crosses the Atlantic heralded as a work of art, that novel is judged by the standards of literary art set by a Balzac, a Dickens, a Hardy, a Turgenev, a Thackeray or a Flaubert. Not so very long ago I read an article by a well-known American critic, in which he proved that American poets had done more vital work than English poets — provided Keats Shelley Swinburne, Tennyson, Browning, Wordsworth, and other first rank English poets were eliminated ! This is a method of criticism which hardly seems fair to English poetry and is by no means complimentary to American poetry , and it is one which most assuredly all foreign critics will refuse resolutely to adopt when called upon to express an opinion on American art and .literature. It is asking too much of a French critic, for instance, to expect him to agree to the proposition thai American novelists have done more vital worl than French novelists . — pro vided that Vic tor Hugo, Gau tier, Georgeir Sand, Balzacf Flaubert, Daudet, de Maupassant, Bourget, Anatole France, Pierre Loti and a few others be eliminated from consideration! His answer (Continued on page 65) 'grand manner" of his Page Nineteen