Colby.
By democratic literature I mean all honest writing, whether crude
or carefully wrought, that endeavors to interpret the American
scene in typical aspects for all who care to read. I mean Walt
Whitman and Edgar Lee Masters; I mean a hundred writers of short
stories who, lacking perhaps the final touch of art, have
nevertheless put a new world and a new people momentarily upon the
stage. I mean the addresses of Lincoln and of President Wilson.
With dilettante literature I come to a very different and less
important classification: the vast company--how vast few even
among natives suspect--of would-be writers, who in every town and
county of the United States are writing, writing, writing what
they hope to be literature, what is usually but a pallid imitation
of worn-out literary forms. More people seem to be engaged in
occasional production of poetry and fiction--and especially of
poetry--in America, than in any single money-making enterprise
characteristic of a great industrial nation. The flood pours
through every editorial office in the land, trickles into the
corners of country newspapers, makes short-lived dilettante
magazines, and runs back, most of it, to its makers.
Pages:
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153