AMERICAN LITERATURE.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 205, 23 May 1908, Page 12

AMERICAN LITERATURE.

Ono of the encouraging signs in the present literary development of America (says " Current Litoraturo") may bo found in tho fact that our novelists for tho most part aro rostless, aspiring, and in an attitudo of hopeful discontent. Wo took occasion to. record in thoso pages two months ago tho spirited protosts of Gertrude Atherton and David Graham Phillips against tho "tamolioss" of much of tho contemporary literary output. Thoir remarks have been widely reprinted and discussed, and seem to reflect a very general attitude.

In a "Survey of' Contemporary Amoricari Literature" . lately published in "The Arena," Mr. Francis Lamont Picrco expresses views similar to thoso held by tho two novelists montioned. "When we escape from our self-satisfied provincialism," ho declares, "and disregard the predilections born of patriotic enthusiasm, wo find'that in the eyos of European criticism American literature consists chiefly of the works of Edgar' Allan, Poo, Walt Whitman, Hawthorne and Emerson. \Ve find that in : tho opinion of candid, ■ unprejudiced, cultured observers, contemporary America has practically no real literature at all." Mr. Pierce recalls the flood of "historical romance", that deluged tho country a few years ago, and asks: "Who now remembers its multitudinous products? Or in that field of economic portrayal and analysis in which, it might be supposed, tho American novelist would be supremo, what lias been, accomplished ?, Wo havo' Frank Norris's 'Octopus,' but it cannot bo ranked among tne masterpieces. Upton Sinclair and Jack London have made a beginning in the right direction. London's ' Sea Wolf' and Sinclair's 'Jungle,' " says ;slr. Pierce, "with all thoir faults upon them, are literature. And this bcca\ise\ there is no triviality in them, because they are novels of convincing power." Mr.. Pierce continues:

"Tho truth is: most of our American writers havo not- livod enough. They have not experienced enough. Their spiritual life is not rich and deep enough. To look at tho 'studies' and 'dens' of literary men as pictured in ' Tho Bookman' and ' Putnam's' is to understand in large measure the (labbiness of American literature.-. These men, with their ease and luxury, do not know life—life in its nakedness and harshness and bitterness, life tho grim ■ and ; Unfeeling roality of which caused Matthew Arnold to cry out that . tho world, which seems ' " To lie before us like a land of dreams, So various,, so beautiful, so new, Hath really neither-joy, nor love, nor light, Nor cortitude, -nor peace, nor help for pain; And we are hero/as on a darkling plain, Swopt with confused alarms of 'struggle and . flight, - . _ . '• Where ignorant armies clash by night. " Amorican literature to : day reminds one of a saying of Oscar Lovell Triggs, sometime professor of English literature in Chicago. University. It was in relation to the university of tho present, and, if memory sorves, went something like this: 'The world swoops iy, with its passion and _its pain, and the university heeds' it not; it is busy! poring over the musty, pages of forgotten' books:' .■ Wo may alter this and say: 'The world sweeps by with its passion and its, pain, arid American.literature heeds it not; it is busy telling to childish intelligences tho puerile, worn-out story of calf-lovo.' "