NON-PROGRESSIVE LITERATURE.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1533, 31 August 1912, Page 9

NON-PROGRESSIVE LITERATURE.

• While tho Progressive.? are scoring triumph. after triumph.- in politics, tho reactionaries are in almost complete control in tho realm of-. literature. Such well-known members of' the Old Guard as Hoiner, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare, although threatened now and then by tlbme rash enthusiast, still sit securely in the seats of the mighty, while the steamroller of the Ojitics remorselessly crushes out all real attempts to supplant them. Undaunted, however, by the failuro of previous efforts in this direction, .1 bold Philadelphian again'- sounds the battlecry. In a pamphlet entitled "The Shifting- of Literary Values," Albert MorileU declares that literature is progressive, that the -ideas of -to-day- are better than the ideas of yesterday, that in a fair contest some, perhaps many, of theso literary reactionaries would go down before their progressive opponents, and thnx tnsy nre thtis-mere usurpers of fame. Ho does not content himself with n general accusation, but gives names and particulars in a way that puts the entire Old Guard on tho defensive.. There is Malory, for instance, wi*th his "Morto D Arthur. Doss not ih.is classic rest upon.a basis as false as that of the notions underlying tho feudal sj'stem? And will anyone in the twentieth century defend feudalism? Then there Is Milton, with his much-lauded Paradise Lost." AVho'any longer believes in its theology, its philosophy, or even its ethics? , ... ■ -l ■ l . But it is not Malory or Milton, it is not even ' such confirnied reactionaries as Homer, Pindar, and .Eschylus, that evoke the bitterest outcry of the champion of the new Order. What really stirs Jus fighting blood is the story of patient Gnselda.. which is to be charged up against that precious pair, Boccaccio and Chaucer. He repeats the horrible details: tha* after ' Iter ■ marriage she consented to be put &wny'-to satisfy her lord; she allowed-mm

to take her two children, to be killed; she I was ready to lot the tervant leavo one of them to bo devoured by thb Jk'us.s and birds it Tier husband commanded it; she mado everything comfortable lor the new wife- whom her lord informed her lie had chosen; and Jinally accepted with joy the explanation that all this hard series iu things had been-only a test 01 her patience and of her fitness to be a model consort. "The impudence ot it. oxnanns our Philadelphia Progressive. Let u> rather have tho Nora of Ibsen than a typo liko hers." And ho turns with a sigh of relief to tho golden age oi the eighteenth century, when there was none ot that diviue superstitious reverence felt ■for Spenser, Bupynn, Pascal; and tho res, that exists in our own degenerate d. >. Ho finds a sentence of tli.it confirms his scorn of bpeuaer: 1 -• of Longland's 'Visions' are worth lnoio than all tho moral in gnne moial hpeii serV seventy-two cantos. In » rhe greatness of art depends, then upoi tho tastes and truth, ot tho subject"itfc'to be feared that this platform is «s*'« t E&zUXXZiSiM Sure reached its climax, and art is not nroercsli™. But "there are seven.great worksof literature in. the WMteeiith century that arc a thesis", notably Fa»st and Gynt." Ideals change, science pio^e^s, tind shall literature stand still. , We know what .will, be sat. this view.' It will be replied that tho definition of truth is too narrow, since# excludes the imagination, and limits criticism to judgment of. the accuracy of the phiiisophy and the ethics presented or implied; and, .further, that stylo is as much of a consideration as subject-mat-terAs for the first part of his reply, did not Madame de Staol say that literature is nothing more than the \ ran script of the social ideas ot the time. Can any careful reader really ndmiro .1 book w'hicli tells him of manners and customs that to his refined taste are 1 arbarous? How is, a believer in arb tation and tho Hague tribunal to sen his children to a school, where they lull learn about Betiwulf and Goliath. deed, we have a duty in the matter: l e should not try .to appreciate these books lest we descend to-the intellectual level of cur- ancestors." Shall it be said of us that we blindly held to the "Iliad and the "Ithigenia in'Aulis until wobecamo oo better than the Greeks. 'And as for style, hear what Cardinal Ivewman said: '•In point of mere style, I suppose many w article in the "Times newspaper, or "Edinburgh Review," is superior to a preface of Dry den's. or a "Spectator, n a pamphlet of Swift s, or one of South s sermons." If it be objected that Aowman ivas apparently speaking of -prese; that [locs no weaken . the fact that if the noral lessons of the great poets are false, 'beautiful phrases cannot avail them. The fight is on. If the Old Guard wins i.gain. true progressives must be prepared :o bolt.—New York-"Nation." .