Or like the poets mentioned above they are moved by the
pathos, the injustice, the confused beauty, the promise, not of
some land of the past, but of the country under their feet, and
write of what stirs them in terms that fit.
It is only when one understands this new American writing to be a
literature of protest, that one begins to sympathize with its
purposes, admire its achievements, and be tolerant of its
limitations. For such a literature has very definite limitations.
It is preparative rather than ultimate. The spaciousness of great
imagination is seldom in it, and it lacks those grand and simple
conceptions which generalize upon the human race. It is cluttered
with descriptions of the enemy, it is nervous, or morbid, or
excited, or over-emphatic. That it strikes out occasional sparks
of vivid beauty, and has already produced masterpieces in poetry,
is to be wondered at and praised.
But some one had to begin to write of the United States as it is.
We could not go on with sentimental novels and spineless lyrics
forever. Some writers had to refocus the instrument and look at
reality again. And what the honest saw was not beautiful as
Tennyson knew beauty, not grand, not even very pleasant.
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