Contemporary American Literature Part 14

Liv. Age, 248 ('06): 188. (W.H. Hudson.) Nation, 112 ('21): 531.

New Repub. 26 ('21): 186.

No. Am. 214 ('21): 177.

Outlook, 66 ('00): 351 (portrait); 109 ('15): 224 (portraits); 127 ('21): 580 (portrait), 582; 129 ('21): 344.

R. of Rs. 63 ('21): 517 (portrait).

Review, 4 ('21): 338.

+Richard (Eugene) Burton+--critic, poet.

Born at Hartford, Connecticut, 1861. A.B., Trinity College, 1883; Ph.D., Johns Hopkins, 1888. Three years of teaching, editorial work, and travel abroad. Editor of the _Hartford Courant_, 1890-7. a.s.sociate editor of _Warner's Library of the World's Best Literature_, 1897-9. Head of the English department at the University of Minnesota, 1898-1902 and 1906--.

Besides his critical work, he has written a novel, a play, and a number of volumes of poetry. For complete bibliography, cf. _Who's Who in America_.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Literary Likings. 1898.

Forces in Fiction. 1902.

Literary Leaders of America. 1904.

The New American Drama. 1913.

How to See a Play. 1914.

Bernard Shaw--The Man and the Mask. 1916.

STUDIES AND REVIEWS

Rittenhouse.

Bookm. 47 ('18): 348.

Chaut. 38 ('03): 82 (portrait).

Lond. Times, Mar. 17, 1910: 95.

R. of Rs. 55 ('17): 214 (portrait).

+Witter Bynner+--poet, dramatist.

Born at Brooklyn, 1881. A.B., Harvard, 1902. a.s.sistant editor of _McClure's Magazine_, 1902-6. Literary adviser to various publishing companies. Has recently traveled in the Orient. Under the pseudonyms "Emanuel Morgan" and "Anne Knish," Bynner and Arthur Davison Ficke (q.v.) wrote _Spectra_, a burlesque of modern tendencies in poetry, which some critics took seriously.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

An Ode to Harvard. 1907. (=Young Harvard, 1918.) Tiger. 1913. (Play.) The Little King. 1914. (Play.) The New World. 1915.

Spectra. 1916. (Under pseudonym "Emanuel Morgan," with Arthur Davison Ficke, q.v.) Grenstone Poems. 1917.

A Canticle of Praise. 1919.

The Beloved Stranger. 1919.

A Canticle of Pan and Other Poems. 1920.

Pins for Wings. 1920. (Under pseudonym "Emanuel Morgan.")

STUDIES AND REVIEWS

Boynton Untermeyer.

Acad. 86 ('14): 687.

Bookm. 47 ('18): 394.

Dial, 67 ('19): 302.

Forum, 55 ('16): 675.

Freeman, 1 ('20): 476.

Mentor, 7 ('19): supp. (portrait).

Nation, 109 ('19): 440.

New Repub. 9 ('16): supp. p. 13. (Review of _Spectra_, Bynner.) Poetry, 7 ('15): 147; 12 ('18): 169; 15 ('20): 281.

See also _Book Review Digest_, 1914, 1920, 1921.

+James Branch Cabell+--novelist, critic.

Born at Richmond, Virginia, 1879, of an old Southern family. A.B., William and Mary College, 1898, where he taught French and Greek, 1896-7.

Newspaper work from 1899-1901. Since then he has devoted his time almost entirely to the study and writing of literature. His study of genealogy and history has an important bearing upon his creative work.

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

1. Before reading Mr. Cabell's stories, read his _Beyond Life_, which explains his theory of romance. He maintains that art should be based on the dream of life as it should be, not as it is; that enduring literature is not "reportorial work"; that there is vital falsity in being true to life because "facts out of relation to the rest of life become lies," and that art therefore "must become more or less an allegory."

2. Mr. Cabell's fiction falls into two divisions:

(1) Romances of the middle ages.

(2) Comedies of present-day Virginia.

Both elements are found in _The Cream of the Jest_ (cf. with Du Maurier's _Peter Ibbetson_). The romances ill.u.s.trate different aspects of his theory of chivalry; the modern comedies, his theory of gallantry (cf.

_Beyond Life_).

3. In his romances he has created an imaginary province of France, the people of which bear names and use idioms drawn from widely diverse and incongruous sources. His effort to create mediaeval atmosphere by the use of archaisms does not preclude modern idiom and slang. Through all this work, elaborate pretense of non-existent sources of the tales and frequent allusions to fict.i.tious authors are a part of the method. After reading some of these stories, consider the following criticism from the _London Times_ quoted by Mr. Cabell himself at the end of _Beyond Life_: "It requires a nicer touch than Mr. Cabell's, to reproduce the atmosphere of the Middle Ages ... the artifice is more apparent than the art...."

4. An interesting study is to isolate the authors for whom Mr. Cabell expresses particular admiration and those for whom he expresses contempt in _Beyond Life_ and to deduce from his att.i.tudes his peculiar literary qualities.

5. Mr. Cabell's style is notable for the elaboration of its rhythm, its careful avoidance of _cliches_, its preference for rare, archaic words and its allusiveness. Consider it from the point of view of sincerity, simplicity, clarity, and charm. Does it intensify or dull your interest in what he has to say? Study, for example, the following exposition of his theory of art:

For the creative artist must remember that his book is structurally different from life, in that, were there nothing else, his book begins and ends at a definite point, whereas the canons of heredity and religion forbid us to believe that life can ever do anything of the sort. He must remember that his art traces in ancestry from the tribal huntsman telling tales about the cave-fire; and so, strives to emulate not human life, but human speech, with its natural elisions and falsifications. He must remember, too, that his one concern with the one all-prevalent truth in normal existence is jealously to exclude it from his book.... For "living" is to be conscious of an incessant series of less than momentary sensations, of about equal poignancy, for the most part, and of nearly equal unimportance. Art attempts to marshal the shambling procession into trimness, to usurp the role of memory and convention in a.s.signing to some of these sensations an especial prominence, and, in the old phrase, to lend perspective to the forest we cannot see because of the trees. Art, as long ago observed my friend Mrs. Kennaston, is an expurgated edition of nature: at art's touch, too, "the drossy particles fall off and mingle with the dust" (_Beyond Life_, p.

249).

In summing up Mr. Cabell's work, consider the following:

(1) Has he a definite philosophy?

(2) Has he a genuine sense of character or do his characters repeat the same personality?

(3) Is he a sincere artist or "a self-conscious att.i.tudinizer?"