Category: American Literature

The Seven Lively Arts

“... _But, beside those great men, there is a certain number of artists who have a distinct faculty of their own by which they convey to us a peculiar quality of pleasure which we cannot get elsewhere; and these, too, have their place in general culture, and must be interprete...

Chapters

1. Part 1

“... _But, beside those great men, there is a certain number of artists who have a distinct faculty of their own by which they convey to us a peculiar quality of pleasure which...

2. Part 2

And all of this is done _with the camera, through action_ presented to the eye. The secret of distortion is in the camera, and the secret of pace in the projector. Regard them f...

3. Part 3

No. I do not mean that. I mean that every art, until recent times, has proposed certain limitations, under which it had to work. Goethe--a poet whom you have yet to introduce to...

4. Part 4

There is a future for him as for others, and it is quite possible that the future may not be as rich and as dear as the past. I write this without having seen _The Pilgrim_, whi...

5. Part 5

The moment Hawaii faded out nothing was left but the South, and here the music began to drive the words with a hard hand and a high check. An observer unfamiliar with the nature...

6. Part 6

Two composers are possible successors to Berlin if he ever chooses to stop. I omit Jerome Kern--a consideration of musical style will indicate why. I am sure of Gershwin and wou...

7. Part 7

But, beside those great men, there is a certain number of artists who have a distinct faculty of their own, by which they convey to us a peculiar quality of pleasure which we ca...

8. Part 8

Mr Lardner pretends still to feel some of the he-man’s contempt for letters, suggesting at the same time the fat-headed pride of a real-estate broker who has had a patriotic poe...

9. Part 9

It was in this show that the Herriman-Carpenter ballet of Krazy Kat was tried and dismissed, and the fault here is the fault of Mr Anderson throughout. Again it was attempted wi...

10. Part 10

Each of the Princess shows had a reasonable, but not serious, plot. The advantage of a plot isn’t, as one often hears, that it gives the appearance of reality to the piece, for...

11. Part 11

I have never seen Elsie Janis better than she was in _The Lady of the Slipper_--with the exception of Gaby Deslys I have never seen any woman comparable to Miss Janis in that pi...

12. Part 12

It will be impossible to communicate even the sense of it unless the material be dissociated from the event. Surely there is nothing exquisite in the roaring charwoman created b...

13. Part 13

Mutt is a _picaro_, one of the few rogues created in America. There is nothing too dishonest for him, nor is there any chance so slim that he won’t take it. He has an object in...

14. Part 14

To put such a character into music was a fine thought, but Mr Carpenter must have known that he was foredoomed to failure. It was a notable effort, for no other of our composers...

15. Part 15

Had I had any doubts about vaudeville as we practice it in the United States they would have been dispelled in the past two years by one great success and one notable failure: t...

16. Part 16

The creator of an American legend--I quote from the advertisements--is certainly a wise man. Don Marquis, who now writes his colyum alone, has always had a good second-rate tale...

17. Part 17

Only about half of these are heresies, and I am quite ready to stand by them as I would stand by my opinion of Dean Swift or Picasso or Henry James or James Joyce or Johann Seba...

18. Part 18

There was very little _acting_ in these films and in the Wild West exhibitions. There was a great deal of _action_. I can’t recall Pearl White _registering_ a single time; I rec...

19. Part 19

Most of the great works of art have reference to our time only indirectly--as they and we are related to eternity. And we require arts which specifically refer to our moment, wh...

20. Part 20

One hears it on the stage, in the drawing-room, in the kitchen, on the streets, everywhere: “Yes; we have no bananas.” A song has been written about it, and is the musical rage...

21. Part 21

That is American movie technique which M Cendrars has evidently learned all too well, because he uses it, in all its tedious detail, in _La Perle Fièvreuse_, for which he is pub...

22. Part 22

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