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i _ · l_Q;;.February.24, 1932 THE NEW REPUBLIC 50,
K ’ ·VV··_ · _,; ·~-,*‘ ‘ 44 A ` demolished the old idols. Now the dirt work has all been
. ~     ,_`‘ L _'=\ Peace)   When There done: American criticism can begin toybrcathc naturally:
W _ A  ig I ; J ,  S NO Peaccv something good is in all these schools, and at last, in what
_ V ·   I. j   · Mr. Macy calls “a fusion of values," we can proceed
;p   ccrlcs t   Warm   Anreriean La,.a,,.e, EM `by ;ga;;gg§€j;{;;‘;§;g awyjagggjgigoficggt *;;;*1 gjjggérggg
i ” s i     J?h"‘Mdcy' _New Y0"/lf Lzwrwhh Im' 539 Pages' $5 harvest of so much struggle and sweat.
  VV__   L_ [ACCORDING to the worn Coleridgean saw, the first On the surface, l\Ir. l\*Iacy’s Three Power Treaty of
(gf   — ’ ‘° ) · _ critical question is, What is the author aiming Americancriticism would seem to be a real triumph of
  ’ Y to do? and the question can be asked as pointedly diplomacy. It is true that, from the old point of view of
i       about criticism as about the thing criticized. Here is a ten or fifteen years ago, the most incongruous bedfellows
    iv  Cofipcrative volume on American letters that forces a reader are here assembled—Har0ld de VVolf Fuller and Hartley
.   _ ` ; veryiquicltly to ask, \Vhat are these critics aiming to do? Grattan, H. VV. Boynton and Gilbert Seldes, james Op-,
- Q V What, ifor that matter, is M1'. l\Iacy, as editor, aiming penheim and Brand VVhitl0ck; and that they lie here smil-
    at? One obvious answer can be disposed of at once. This ing blandly irf one another’s faces. Even hir. R. l\I.
  ‘ volume is not a serious attempt, certainly not a successful Lovett, generally regarded as a radical, writes on the Tory,
»   Q - attempt, to make available for ordinary readers the fruits Lowell, in a vein not easily to be distinguished from that
  , _ of the last industrious decade in the scholarly study of in which thc reactionary Fuller writes of Holmes. Hart-
_ Ve American literature. Not that there is no excellent schol- ley Grattan on l\“Iark Twain is reminiscent of Stuart Sher-
  _ iarship in the volume: such names as those of K. B. l\/Iur— man on the same subject, and Henry Hazlitt’s finished es—
I   » dock, R. M. Lovett, Raymond VVeaver, Allan Nevins, say on Emerson would hardly be repudiated (for its sen-
" i-»  S. T. Williams and G. F. Whicher would give the lie to- timents) by Mr. Percy H.' Boynton. If “amenity," to
~·  K any stricture so sweeping as that. But sound scholarship cite lVIr. l\Iacy’s word, is a prime virtue in criticism, there
  can hardly have been the prime desideratum, or the book is one point in which this volume is not to be surpassed. ·
  would not be graced by so many chatty, wandering and Yet amenity, on reflection, seems too fair a word for the
lj  ‘ marrowless essays as it is:.Louis Bromfield on Hawthorne, neutral good-breeding with which most of these essays _
  VV. D. Howe on Whittier, Edwin hiarkham on Poe, are written. Something is amiss somewhere. lf the new
`  VVilliam Allen VVhite on post—Civil VVar fiction, james harmony in American criticism of which l\·Ir. l\1acy
 e Oppenheim on Whit1nan—these contributors would hardly speaks were a positive thing, if it were a fruit of old
  have been called in if mere research had been in question. quarrels and not merely an evasion of them, then surely
  Few of them, it is true, are so actively unseholarly as this would be an exhilarating volume: these are eminent
  _ Louis Bromnelcl, who credits Hawthorne with begetting names that Mr. Macy has summoned to his side, and in .
  but two children, says that he was patronized by the most of their subjects there is plenty of latent electricity.
  "slightly older" Longfellow, obgeyveg that he died Uuiheu But these writers strike out no sparks: instead we have
,  he was still a young man, as life goes,” and indeed that he pleasant panegyrics (such as Carl Van D0ren’s) on the
died not only prematurely but "alone, as he perhaps wished remote radicalism of Thomas Paine, appeals (such as
’   to die.” But, if few of these writers treat the facts so Howard l\Iumford ]0nes’s) to reconsider the value of
li _ jauntily, too many of them have been content with “ap- Longfcll0w’s "serene faith in goodness," and songs of
‘ · preciati0n" not to lower the academic tone of the whole. praise (such as Hamlin Garland’s) for W. D. Howells be-
ii \V0rse things could certainly be said against a book, T he cause hc “remains the true American" and "most of us in .
` !‘ truth is, hir. Macy has outlined his own intentions pretty A1`¤€1'i€3 HFC 3 PYCYFY dfiuim $01* of f€ll0“"$·” lf this is ,
it explieitlyijn the introduction; and he doubtless speaks more Mr. Macy’s new wjnc, Mr ¤s a weak and W¤f€1‘Y Mutage-
4 or less faithfully for his contributors. Dissatisfied with YU all th€$€ WY¤Y€Y$» SWS h€» “$P€ak from and Y0? dm
— _ any of the extant surveys of American literature, says l\/lr. year 1930.7, As a matter of fact, they speak "from and
§ W Macy, hehoped to be able to assemble a group of eollabo- f¤r" no such dangerous date. They speak for I920, Some l
ii rators united only “by their common interest in the art of of them; tl1€Y $D€¤k, for €h€ m0$Y Part, for TQIOS R {CW OY _
_   writing,” and determined to “a;;proach literature primarily them $P€¤k VCYY ¤d€q¤¤t€lY {OY 1890- NO? Z1 Single Voice
  from a literary point Of View/’ Bu; not gnly th{s_ All here speaks with any authority for 1930, or 1931, or 1932.
  these writers, varied as they are, represent together the Mr. Macy’s pacihst program, if nothing else, puts this
4   "poim; gf vicyv gf tOday_" All Of thgjnj, the most ven- out of the question. For what would it mean to speak.
`   , erable as well as the youngest, "speak from and for the even on literary, even on historical subjects, "irom and
°   year ;g3O," Fortunately, Says l\·iy_ Ixiacy, Since "Amcyi. f0r" the year IQ30? It would mean to speak irom and
  can criticism is better today than it has ever- been be£oi·e," for Il year in which a decaying social order entered Hnally
§ to And why? Largely because it has learned the lessons gf on its last dismal phase of disintegration, a year in which
p _ i the last twenty years—years during which the tameness Am€1`i€¤¤ iml>; l V
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