In
all such instances definition is the prophylactic, and often the
cure.
Writers, most of all, need to define their tasks. I do not mean
their technical problems merely, although I cannot conceive that a
dramatist or playwright, who has his subject well in mind, can
possibly be hurt by thinking out his methods with the most
scrupulous care. Lubbock's recent book on "The Craft of Fiction"
has emphasized an art of approach and point of view in the great
novelists which was thoroughly conscious, even though they may
never have tried to formulate it in words. I mean particularly the
defining of their themes, their objectives. Many modern novels of
the better class, and a great many modern poems, seem to me awash
and wallowing like derelicts on the high seas. They are successful
enough in this, excellent in that, but they get nowhere, because
the writers had felt the emotion that made them, or suffered the
experience, but never defined it in terms of all emotion, all
experience, never considered its end. The three dots...of modern
literature are significant. We break off our efforts, partly no
doubt because we seek effects of impressionism, more often because
imagination went no further.
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