Definitions: Essays in Contemporary Criticism

Definitions: Essays in
Contemporary Criticism

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Title: Definitions
Author: Henry Seidel Canby
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DEFINITIONS
ESSAYS IN CONTEMPORARY CRITICISM
BY
HENRY SEIDEL CANBY, Ph.D.
Editor of The Literary Review of The New York Evening Post, and a
member of the English Department of Yale University.
NEW YORK

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author wishes to acknowledge the courtesy of _The Atlantic
Monthly, Harper's Magazine, The Century Magazine, The Literary
Review of The New York Evening Post, The Bookman, The Nation,
and The North American Review_ for permission to reprint such of
these essays as have appeared in their columns.

PREFACE
The unity of this book is to be sought in the point of view of the writer
rather than in a sequence of chapters developing a single theme and
arriving at categorical conclusions. Literature in a civilization like ours,
which is trying to be both sophisticated and democratic at the same
moment of time, has so many sources and so many manifestations, is so
much involved with our social background, and is so much a question
of life as well as of art, that many doors have to be opened before one

begins to approach an understanding. The method of informal
definition which I have followed in all these essays is an attempt to
open doors through which both writer and reader may enter into a
better comprehension of what novelists, poets, and critics have done or
are trying to accomplish. More than an entrance upon many a vexed
controversy and hidden meaning I cannot expect to have achieved in
this book; but where the door would not swing wide I have at least tried
to put one foot in the crack. The sympathetic reader may find his own
way further; or may be stirred by my endeavor to a deeper appreciation,
interest, and insight. That is my hope.
New York, April, 1922.

CONTENTS
PREFACE
I. ON FICTION
SENTIMENTAL AMERICA FREE FICTION A CERTAIN
CONDESCENSION TOWARD FICTION THE ESSENCE OF
POPULARITY
II. ON THE AMERICAN TRADITION
THE AMERICAN TRADITION BACK TO NATURE THANKS TO
THE ARTISTS TO-DAY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE:
ADDRESSED TO THE BRITISH TIME'S MIRROR THE FAMILY
MAGAZINE
III. THE NEW GENERATION
THE YOUNG ROMANTICS PURITANS ALL THE OLDER
GENERATION A LITERATURE OF PROTEST BARBARIANS A
LA MODE
IV. THE REVIEWING OF BOOKS
A PROSPECTUS FOR CRITICISM THE RACE OF REVIEWERS
THE SINS OF REVIEWING MRS. WHARTON'S "THE AGE OF
INNOCENCE" MR. HERGESHEIMER'S "CYTHEREA"
V. PHILISTINES AND DILETTANTE
POETRY FOR THE UNPOETICAL EYE, EAR, AND MIND OUT
WITH THE DILETTANTE FLAT PROSE
VI. MEN AND THEIR BOOKS
CONRAD AND MELVILLE THE NOVELIST OF PITY HENRY
JAMES THE SATIRIC RAGE OF BUTLER

CONCLUSION
DEFINING THE INDEFINABLE

I
ON FICTION
SENTIMENTAL AMERICA
The Oriental may be inscrutable, but he is no more puzzling than the
average American. We admit that we are hard, keen, practical, --the
adjectives that every casual European applies to us,--and yet any
book-store window or railway news-stand will show that we prefer
sentimental magazines and books. Why should a hard race--if we are
hard--read soft books?
By soft books, by sentimental books, I do not mean only the kind of
literature best described by the word "squashy." I doubt whether we
write or read more novels and short stories of the tear-dripped or
hyper-emotional variety than other nations. Germany is--or was--full of
such soft stuff. It is highly popular in France, although the excellent
taste of French criticism keeps it in check. Italian popular literature
exudes sentiment; and the sale of "squashy" fiction in England is said
to be threatened