Part 3
Nor in this disproportionate amount of space alone is Mrs. Ward’s superiority indicated. The article contains the most fulsome praise, and we are told that her “eminence among latter-day women novelists arises from her high conception of the art of fiction and her strong grasp on intellectual and social problems, her descriptive power ... and her command of a broad and vigorous prose style.” (The same enthusiastic gentleman who wrote Mrs. Ward’s biography also wrote the biography of Oscar Wilde. The latter is given much less space, and the article on him is a petty, contemptible attack written from the standpoint of a self-conscious puritan.)
Thackeray is given equal space with Balzac, and in the course of his biography it is said that some have wanted to compare him with Dickens but that such a comparison would be unprofitable. “It is better to recognize simply that the two novelists stood, each in his own way, distinctly above even their most distinguished contemporaries.” (Both Balzac and Victor Hugo were their contemporaries, and to say that Thackeray stood “distinctly above” them is to butcher French genius to make an English holiday.)
In Dickens’s biography, which is nearly half again as long as that of Balzac and nearly two and a half times as long as that of Hugo, we encounter such words and phrases as “masterpieces” and “wonderful books.” No books of his surpassed the early chapters of _Great Expectations_ in “perfection of technique or in the mastery of all the resources of the novelist’s art.” Here, as in many other places, patriotic license has obviously been permitted to run wild. Where, outside of provincial England, will you find another critic, no matter how appreciative of Dickens’s talent, who will agree that he possessed “perfection of technique” and a “mastery of all the resources of the novelist’s art”? But, as if this perfervid rhetoric were not sufficiently extreme, Swinburne is quoted as saying that to have created Abel Magwitch alone is to be a god indeed among the creators of deathless men. (This means that Dickens was a god beside the mere mundane creator of Lucien de Rubempré, Goriot, and Eugénie Grandet.) And, again, on top of this unreasoned enthusiasm, it is added that in “intensity and range of creative genius he can hardly be said to have any modern rival.”
Let us turn to Balzac who was not, according to this encyclopædia, even Dickens’s rival in intensity and range of creative genius. Here we find derogatory criticism which indeed bears out the contention of Dickens’s biographer that the author of _David Copperfield_ was superior to the author of _Lost Illusions_. Balzac, we read, “is never quite real.” His style “lacks force and adequacy to his own purpose.” And then we are given this final bit of insular criticism: “It is idle to claim for Balzac an absolute supremacy in the novel, while it may be questioned whether any single book of his, or any scene of a book, or even any single character or situation, is among the very greatest books, scenes, characters, situations in literature.” Alas, poor Balzac!—the inferior of both Dickens and Thackeray—the writer who, if the judgment of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is to be accepted, created no book, scene, character or situation which is among the greatest! Thus are the world’s true geniuses disparaged for the benefit of moral English culture.
De Vigny receives adverse criticism. He is compared unfavorably to Sir Walter Scott, and is attacked for his “pessimistic” philosophy. De Musset “had genius, though not genius of that strongest kind which its possessor can always keep in check”—after the elegant and repressed manner of English writers, no doubt. De Musset’s own character worked “against his success as a writer,” and his break with George Sand “brought out the weakest side of his moral character.” (Again the church-bell _motif_.) Gautier, that sensuous and un-English Frenchman, wrote a book called _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ which was “unfitted by its subject, and in parts by its treatment, for general perusal.”
Dumas _père_ is praised, largely we infer, because his work was sanctioned by Englishmen: “The three musketeers are as famous in England as in France. Thackeray could read about Athos from sunrise to sunset with the utmost contentment of mind, and Robert Louis Stevenson and Andrew Lang have paid tribute to the band.” Pierre Loti, however, in a short biography, hardly meets with British approval. “Many of his best books are long sobs of remorseful memory, so personal, so intimate, that an English reader is amazed to find such depth of feeling compatible with the power of minutely and publicly recording what is felt.” Loti, like de Musset, lacked that prudish restraint which is so admirable a virtue in English writers. Daudet, in a short and very inadequate biography, is written down as an imitator of Dickens; and in Anatole France’s biography, which is shorter than Marryat’s or Mrs. Oliphant’s, no adequate indication of his genius is given.
Zola is treated with greater unfairness than perhaps any other French author. Zola has always been disliked in England, and his English publisher was jailed by the guardians of British morals. But it is somewhat astonishing to find to what lengths this insular prejudice has gone in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. Zola’s biography, which is shorter than Mrs. Humphry Ward’s, is written by a former Accountant General of the English army, and contains adverse comment because he did not idealize “the nobler elements in human nature,” although, it is said, “his later books show improvement.” Such scant treatment of Zola reveals the unfairness of extreme prejudice, for no matter what the nationality, religion, or taste of the critic, he must, in all fairness, admit that Zola is a more important and influential figure in modern letters than Mrs. Humphry Ward.
In the biography of George Sand we learn that “as a thinker, George Eliot is vastly [_sic_] superior; her knowledge is more profound, and her psychological analysis subtler and more scientific.” Almost nothing is said of Constant’s writings; and in the mere half-column sketch of Huysmans there are only a few biographical facts with a list of his books. Of Stendhal there is practically no criticism; and Coppée “exhibits all the defects of his qualities.” René Bazin draws only seventeen lines—a bare record of facts; and Édouard Rod is given a third of a column with no criticism.
Despite the praise given Victor Hugo, his biography, from a critical standpoint, is practically worthless. In it there is no sense of critical proportion: it is a mere panegyric which definitely states that Hugo was greater than Balzac. This astonishing and incompetent praise is accounted for when we discover that it was written by Swinburne who, as is generally admitted, was a better poet than critic. In fact, turning to Swinburne’s biography, we find the following valuation of Swinburne as critic: “The very qualities which gave his poetry its unique charm and character were antipathetic to his success as a critic. He had very little capacity for cool and reasoned judgment, and his criticism is often a tangled thicket of prejudices and predilections.... Not one of his studies is satisfactory as a whole; the faculty for the sustained exercise of the judgment was denied him, and even his best appreciations are disfigured by error in taste and proportion.”
Here we have the Encyclopædia’s own condemnation of some of its material—a personal and frank confession of its own gross inadequacy and bias! And Swinburne, let it be noted, contributes no less than ten articles on some of the most important literary men in history! If the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ was as naïf and honest about revealing the incapacity of all of its critics as it is in the case of Swinburne, there would be no need for me to call attention to those other tangled thickets of prejudices and predilections which have enmeshed so many of the gentlemen who write for it.
But the inadequacy of the _Britannica_ as a reference book on modern French letters can best be judged by the fact that there appears no biographical mention whatever of Romain Rolland, Pierre de Coulevain, Tinayre, René Boylesve, Jean and Jérôme Tharaud, Henry Bordeaux, or Pierre Mille. Rolland is the most gifted and conspicuous figure of the new school of writers in France to-day, and the chief representative of a new phase of French literature. Pierre de Coulevain stands at the head of the women novelists in modern France; and her books are widely known in both England and America. Madame Tinayre’s art, to quote an eminent English critic, “reflects the dawn of the new French spirit.” Boylesve stands for the classic revival in French letters, and ranks in the forefront of contemporary European writers. The Tharauds became famous as novelists as far back as 1902, and hold a high place among the writers of Young France. Bordeaux’s novels have long been familiar in translation even to American readers; and Pierre Mille holds very much the same place in France that Kipling does in England. Yet not only does not one of these noteworthy authors have a biography, but their names do not appear throughout the entire Encyclopædia!
In the article on _French Literature_ the literary renaissance of Young France is not mentioned. There apparently has been no effort at making the account modern or up-to-date in either its critical or historical side; and if you desire information on the recent activities in French letters—activities of vital importance and including several of the greatest names in contemporary literature—you need not seek it in the _Britannica_, that “supreme” book of knowledge; for apparently only modern English achievement is judged worthy of consideration.
Modern Russian literature suffers even more from neglect. Dostoievsky has less than two columns, less space than Charles Reade, George Borrow, Mrs. Gaskell, or Charles Kingsley. Gogol has a column and a quarter, far less space than that given Felicia Hemans, James M. Barrie, of Mrs. Humphry Ward. Gorky is allotted little over half a column, one-third of the space given Kipling, and equal space with Ouida and Gilbert Parker. Tolstoi, however, seems to have inflamed the British imagination. His sentimental philosophy, his socialistic godliness, his capacity to “warm the heart” and “improve the conduct” has resulted in a biography which runs to nearly sixteen columns!
The most inept and inadequate biography in the whole Russian literature department, however, is that of Turgueniev. Turgueniev, almost universally conceded to be the greatest, and certainly the most artistic, of the Russian writers, is accorded little over a column, less space than is devoted to the biography of Thomas Love Peacock, Kipling, or Thomas Hardy; and only a half or a third of the space given to a dozen other inferior English writers. And in this brief biography we encounter the following valuation: “Undoubtedly Turgueniev may be considered one of the great novelists, worthy to be ranked with Thackeray, Dickens and George Eliot; with the genius of the last of these he has many affinities.” It will amuse, rather than amaze, the students of Slavonic literature to learn that Turgueniev was the George Eliot of Russia.
But those thousands of people who have bought the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, believing it to be an adequate literary reference work, should perhaps be thankful that Turgueniev is mentioned at all, for many other important modern Russians are without biographies. For instance, there is no biographical mention of Andreiev, Garshin, Kuprin, Tchernyshevsky, Grigorovich, Artzybasheff, Korolenko, Veressayeff, Nekrasoff, or Tchekhoff. And yet the work of nearly all these Russian writers had actually appeared in English translation before the Eleventh Edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ went to press!
Italian fiction also suffers from neglect at the hands of the _Britannica’s_ critics. Giulio Barrili receives only thirteen lines; Farina, only nine lines; and Giovanni Verga, only twelve. Fogazzaro draws twenty-six lines; and in the biography we learn that his “deeply religious spirit” animates his literary productions, and that he contributed to modern Italian literature “wholesome elements of which it would otherwise be nearly destitute.” He also was “Wordsworthian” in his simplicity and pathos. Amicis and Serao draw twenty-nine lines and half a column respectively; but there are no biographies of Emilio de Marchi, the prominent historical novelist; Enrico Butti, one of the foremost representatives of the psychological novel in modern Italy; and Grazia Deledda.
The neglect of modern German writers in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is more glaring than that of any other European nation, not excluding Russia. So little information can one get from this encyclopædia concerning the really important German authors that it would hardly repay one to go to the _Britannica_. Eckstein—five of whose novels were issued in English before 1890—is denied a biography. So is Meinhold; so is Luise Mühlbach; so is Wachenroder;—all well known in England long before the _Britannica_ went to press. Even Gabriele Reuter, whose far-reaching success came as long ago as 1895, is without a biography. And—what is less excusable—Max Kretzer, the first of Germany’s naturalistic novelists, has no biographical mention in this great English encyclopædia!
But the omission of even these important names do not represent the _Britannica’s_ greatest injustice to Germany’s literature; for one will seek in vain for biographies of Wilhelm von Polenz and Ompteda, two of the foremost German novelists, whose work marked a distinct step in the development of their nation’s letters. Furthermore, Clara Viebig, Gustav Frenssen, and Thomas Mann, who are among the truly great figures in modern imaginative literature, are without biographies. These writers have carried the German novel to extraordinary heights. Mann’s _Buddenbrooks_ (1901) represents the culmination of the naturalistic novel in Germany; and Viebig and Frenssen are of scarcely less importance. There are few modern English novelists as deserving as these three Germans; and yet numerous comparatively insignificant English writers are given long critical biographies in the _Britannica_ while Viebig, Frenssen and Mann receive no biographies whatever! Such unjust discrimination against non-British authors would hardly be compatible with even the narrowest scholarship.
And there are other important and eminent German novelists who are far more deserving of space in an international encyclopædia than many of the Englishmen who receive biographies in the _Britannica_—for instance, Heinz Tovote, Hermann Hesse, Ricarda Huch, Helene Böhlau, and Eduard von Keyserling—not one of whom is given biographical consideration!
When we come to the American literary division of the _Britannica_, however, prejudice and neglect reach their highest point. Never have I seen a better example of the contemptuous attitude of England toward American literature than in the Encyclopædia’s treatment of the novelists of the United States. William Dean Howells, in a three-quarters-of-a-column biography, gets scant praise and is criticised with not a little condescension. F. Marion Crawford, in an even shorter biography, receives only lukewarm and apologetic praise. Frank Norris is accorded only twenty lines, less space than is given the English hack, G. A. Henty! _McTeague_ is “a story of the San Francisco slums”; and _The Octopus_ and _The Pit_ are “powerful stories.” This is the extent of the criticism. Stephen Crane is given twelve lines; Bret Harte, half a column with little criticism; Charles Brockden Brown and Lafcadio Hearn, two-thirds of a column each; H. C. Bunner, twenty-one lines; and Thomas Nelson Page less than half a column.
What there is in Mark Twain’s biography is written by Brander Matthews and is fair as far as it goes. The one recent American novelist who is given adequate praise is Henry James; and this may be accounted for by the fact of James’s adoption of England as his home. The only other adequate biography of an American author is that of Nathaniel Hawthorne. But the few biographies of other United States writers who are included in the Encyclopædia are very brief and insufficient.
In the omissions of American writers, British prejudice has overstepped all bounds of common justice. In the following list of names _only one_ (Churchill’s) _is even mentioned in the entire Encyclopædia_: Edith Wharton, David Graham Phillips, Gertrude Atherton, Winston Churchill, Owen Wister, Ambrose Bierce, Theodore Dreiser, Margaret Deland, Jack London, Robert Grant, Ellen Glasgow, Booth Tarkington, Alice Brown and Robert Herrick. And yet there is abundant space in the _Britannica_, not only for critical mention, but for _detailed biographies_, of such English writers as Hall Caine, Rider Haggard, Maurice Hewlett, Stanley Weyman, Flora Annie Steel, Edna Lyall, Elizabeth Charles, Annie Keary, Eliza Linton, Mrs. Henry Wood, Pett Ridge, W. C. Russell, and still others of less consequence than many of the American authors omitted.
If the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ was a work whose sale was confined to England, there could be little complaint of the neglect of the writers of other nationalities. But unjust pandering to British prejudice and a narrow contempt for American culture scarcely become an encyclopædia whose chief profits are derived from the United States. So inadequate is the treatment of American fiction that almost any modern text-book on our literature is of more value; for, as I have shown, all manner of inferior and little-known English authors are given eulogistic biographies, while many of the foremost American authors receive no mention whatever.
As a reference book on modern fiction, the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is hopelessly inadequate and behind the times, filled with long eulogies of _bourgeois_ English authors, lacking all sense of proportion, containing many glaring omissions, and compiled and written in a spirit of insular prejudice. And this is the kind of culture that America is exhorted, not merely to accept, but to pay a large price for.
III
THE DRAMA
Particular importance attaches to the manner in which the modern drama is treated in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, for to-day there exists a deep and intimate interest in this branch of literature—an interest which is greater and more far-reaching than during any other period of modern times. Especially is this true in the United States. During the past fifteen years study in the history, art and technique of the stage has spread into almost every quarter of the country. The printed play has come back into favor; and there is scarcely a publisher of any note on whose lists do not appear many works of dramatic literature. Dramatic and stage societies have been formed everywhere, and there is an increasing demand for productions of the better-class plays. Perhaps no other one branch of letters holds so conspicuous a place in our culture.
The drama itself during the last quarter of a century has taken enormous strides. After a period of stagnant mediocrity, a new vitality has been fused into this art. In Germany, France, England, and Russia many significant dramatists have sprung into existence. The literature of the stage has taken a new lease on life, and in its ranks are numbered many of the finest creative minds of our day. Furthermore, a school of capable and serious critics has developed to meet the demands of the new work; and already there is a large and increasing library of books dealing with the subject from almost every angle.
Therefore, because of this renaissance and the widespread interest attaching to it, we should expect to find in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_—that “supreme book of knowledge,” that “complete library” of information—a full and comprehensive treatment of the modern drama. The claims made in the advertising of the _Britannica_ would lead one immediately to assume that so important and universally absorbing a subject would be set forth adequately. The drama has played, and will continue to play, a large part in our modern intellectual life; and, in an educational work of the alleged scope and completeness of this encyclopædia, it should be accorded careful and liberal consideration.
But in this department, as in others equally important, the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ fails inexcusably. I have carefully inspected its dramatic information, and its inadequacy left me with a feeling which fell little short of amazement. Not only is the modern drama given scant consideration, but those comparatively few articles which deal with it are so inept and desultory that no correct idea of the development of modern dramatic literature can be obtained. As in the Encyclopædia’s other departments of modern æsthetic culture, the work of Great Britain is accorded an abnormally large amount of space, while the work of other nations is—if mentioned at all—dismissed with comparatively few words. The British drama, like the British novel, is exaggerated, both through implication and direct statement, out of all proportion to its inherent significance. Many of the truly great and important dramatists of foreign countries are omitted entirely in order to make way for minor and inconsequent Englishmen; and the few towering figures from abroad who are given space draw only a few lines of biographical mention, whereas second-rate British writers are accorded long and minutely specific articles.
Furthermore, the Encyclopædia reveals the fact that in a great many instances it has not been brought up to date. As a result, even when an alien dramatist has found his way into the exclusive British circle whose activities dominate the æsthetic departments of the _Britannica_, one does not have a complete record of his work. This failure to revise adequately old material and to make the information as recent as the physical exigencies of book-making would permit, results no doubt in the fact that even the more recent and important English dramatists have suffered the fate of omission along with their less favored confrères from other countries. Consequently, the dramatic material is not only biased but is inadequate from the British standpoint as well.
As a reference book on the modern drama, either for students or the casual reader, the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is practically worthless. Its information is old and prejudiced, besides being flagrantly incomplete. I could name a dozen books on the modern drama which do not pretend to possess the comprehensiveness and authenticity claimed by the _Britannica_, and yet are far more adequate, both in extent and modernity of subject-matter, and of vastly superior educational value. The limited information which has actually found its way into this encyclopædia is marked by incompetency, prejudice, and carelessness; and its large number of indefensible omissions renders it almost useless as a reference work on modern dramatic literature.