Literature in the Making, by Some of Its Makers

"This theory is true especially in regard to lyric verse. The lyric is nearly always the work of a young man. As a man grows older he sings less and preaches more. Certainly thi...

"I do not agree with him," Mr. Beach replied. "American writers use the English language, so I suppose that what they write belongs to English literature. But there is a distinc...

"I remember my own early experiences, and I know that my writing suffered very much because I could not devote all my time to it. I had to spend ten hours in drudgery for every...

This is the opinion of that shrewd and kindly satirist, Edward S. Martin. I found him not in New York, the city whose lights and shadows are reflected in much of his graceful pr...

"There is a saying that the German novel long ago died of the full moon. To Poe the dead moon was the orb of life. The sun blotted him out."

Until I asked Mr. Tarkington about it I had heard only two opinions as to the probable effect on literature of the war. One was that which William Dean Howells tersely expressed...

"In Michael Angelo's day public interest in solving problems in manufacture and transportation did not overshadow that in painting and sculpture. Leonardo in our day would be bu...

"I should say," she said, "that since Poe's time we have had masters of the short story who have equaled him. Poe is, of course, the legitimate father of the American short stor...

"I certainly do believe that literature has lost through the poverty of poets," said Mr. Robinson. "I don't believe in poverty. I never did. I think it is good for a poet to be...

"If you are going to write poetry you must say to certain phases of the newspapers, 'Get thee behind me, Satan!' A poet can't be developing his gossiping faculty and turning eve...

"I suppose that the term means a novel inevitably associated with the national literature," I said. "You cannot think of English literature without thinking of _Vanity Fair_, fo...

"All the little literary and artistic cults are dead or dying. The idea of literature as a thing distinct from life is dead. Writers can never again think of themselves as a rac...

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