THE NEW NOTE IN LITERATURE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1294, 24 November 1911, Page 4

THE NEW NOTE IN LITERATURE.

Wlia 1 is 111" iH'iv ii" 1 " in lileral.ur"? I think it i- III" iinliub" l^iwanl c '. lenlily. Hilling the |'fu I li 11 y years literal.'!!" has been In a. (jieat "Xl"iif cnvi-nii'd I'.V arliliie. Unlli iu (Kiell'.V and ill liwt Dm will-ship "f sly I'.' has Inen piednuiiliaiit. 'I'll,, hitler hall' id (lie nineteenth century and III" opening yen is of lb" l,w"nfi"Hi century slmjxml in mut'-iituism. jjU'iaiuif. wa'i iiM'iely tho ornarnfut ot iiros |ierilv* If v.-c i;o nvi-r Teniiysnn. li row ti iii;:, Mnrriii, lUwtti, and bwinIjii rim wo tin 'I iu them a great mass ot purely literary alliclation and 11 very small <1 ua 1111 l.v of original paision. I'ho ih'i-<i|-al IV" "lenient is supieiiic. Tim samo in 11 v be said nl prose writers 111'." Il.tiskin, jMaiaulav. Slevenson, Diikcns, Tlinr.kcniy, Ciu-lyl", 'I'liler-lu naiiio only a few mas-lei-n id' difierent luliiniefs. If in ilisregard the nrtiliivi in thcio writers and try lo test their work by bringini; it into eonlnct with lif", wo find that, very little is left to satisfy our craving for reality. Koinehow or other time has eaten away tho spell they oiuo w«>t upon 11s. They have not altered: it is w r e. wlio have allcred. The poems we om'O found frivsli have suddenly grown stale. Tho stories we shouted over have unexpectedly turned sour. Virtue has gone, out of the Victorian immortals and out of the I'ldwardiait iminorlals, tflii. It is a Kind of hard lalwur to wailo through ""|' r poems, Iheir novels, and their plays. Wo feel like the child who is attacked by tho nausea of the nursery, and who is caught

smashing his toys. The first oonscfiuem«s of this reaction is a savage hatred of literature and l 1 nrv men. \V« can barclv tolerate oldfashioned confectioners like Mr. Alfred Noycs. What we like is Hie. sharp astriugeucy of Syngc, with his fierce contempt for everything that comes out of the inkpot. Not that Syngo has anything foT us to stay our .stomachs with, lie is but a bitter tonic. Our desire is for spiritual food—food that is unsauccd and unspiced with any form of literary hypocrisy. In other words, wo aro in the early stages of a revolt aguinst half a centnry of materialism. AVo turn away from literature that is nothing but tne harp of David in the ear of Saul —tho tinkle of .".rt trying to soothe satiety. We go to tho writers who wsjjross the fever in our blood, the misery in our bones—the refusal to accept things as they are, tho determination to chuilengt established facts and to question the foundations of life. It is not merely against money and luxury that we rebel. It is against the arrogance of opinion and the effrontery ot science. It is against all the forces that crush the little soul of tho meanest man. We demand air to breathe, and wo flock to the writers who give us air. They aro a queer, ragged regiment, when you look at them. At their head are two dead old men—Tolstoy and Ibsen --very , dead in one sense and very much alive'in another. They wero and arc and will be for a long time to eomo tho archmasters of reality. There is also Turgeliiev, and there is Dostoievsky. It ivould bo hard to exaggerate tho influence which these four masters of reality have exerted upon European literature. Be-tween-tliem they , have killed tho old drama and the old novel. They have taught us to demand reality in art. And reality is something far higher and far deeper than realism. Reality is a state of the soul; realism is a trick of the pen. When a man facss bis own nature anu faces the facts of life then he attains reality. This facing of the facts is the new note in literature. Not merely the physical facts—not merely the bewildering irregularities on the surface of life — but the spiritual facts—the life behind life, the soul within the body. In their several ways certain men of our time aro hunting do.wn these realities, which are the oiily elements which givo meaning, to life and to its mirrored .shadow, literature. Whereas the old artificers went'in for self-pleasing, the new realists go in for self-torture.. Their agony is our. agony. ".-Their, passion .is ' our passion: What, we'are trying to. beat out in'our lives.they too are.trying to beat out in" their words. Mr. Bernard Shaw in one, way, Mr. AVells in another way, Mr. Galsworthy in his fashion, Mr. Arnold Bennett in. another fashion—these, are. types of the meii who are'hewing otit. of' our anguish a new literature. In their various ways they are interpreting the unhappy conscience of mankind. They are stammering the darkpain in our spirit. .- Their translation'of our suffering is clumsy.' They cannot keep their vanity out of. their vision. But thoy oase us and help us to go on with our secret purgation. We are oppressed by. the crowds of ignorance sweating and jostling around us, but we feel the clear air above and beyond.' Mr. Masefield has put what I have called tho agony of the best minds into a simple quatrain. -It is not,-. poetry.:, it is merely '• a bit- of-honest eyesight:—.. ;: 0 Beauty, I have wandered far; Peace, I have suffered seeking thee; Life, I have sought to. see thy star, That other men might see. There you havo the new noto in literature—the new quest of the Holy Grail that everybody who really lives is bent on. It is by the prosemco of this spiritual agony that we test tho value of the poet, the -novelist, tho dramatist, the statesman, and the man of public spirit. It is a cruel test, and it lays bare tho aridity and sterility of many well-established reputations. It shrivels up the pretentious poet long before ho has begun to suspect his own spiritual poverty. It compels our most accomplished men of letters to steal mantles from dead prophets and fire from cold altars. But the map who wishes to master spiritual reality must first .walk in it.. What gives life to art is life that' is lived by tho artist. It is this closeness to actual experience that distinguishes the new literature from the old.. In a very deep sense it is religious experience that shapes its revelations. The best minds of our dav live in Getbsemane. They write with their heart's blood. They are not professional martyrs or haloed saints. They are human sorrows and human follies anil human sins. They arc in tho thick of our stupidity, our absurdity, our selfishness, our remorse. They rise with us out of the mire, and they fall with us in„o the mud. They show us our souls in the making, and the sight fills us with fear and shame and wrath and laughter. They make us hate ourselves and pity ourselves. And they help us to love "our t HIS 8 ??? 1 neighbour.—James. Douglass, in Public Opinion."