LITERATURE AND LIFE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 9, 11 January 1941, Page 15

LITERATURE AND LIFE

Some correspondents, not many, but esteemed, occasionally protest that ,this "Supplement" ventures into discussion of the war, says "The Times Literary. Supplement." It would appear that this is a sin against-the light of litera^ ■ ture, which is not concerned with war • and peace,-or"books on those subjects; or hunge? arid thirst, or birth and death. Literature is literature. Life is life. And never the twain shall meet. . This idea goes further in oddity even ; ; than art for art's sake, eating for eat- ? ing's sake, .sleeping for sleeping's sake; 'and .one. correspondent, >who appears to /be unaware of-his own prejudice, goes so far as to say that to express dissent /from the-conclusions of a pacifist who :has written a -book about his convictions is" "an unwarrantable intrusion of individual prejudice into the witness box. of literary judgment." Would he have applauded if the review had -agreed with the sentiment of the book? Or'is: he [really convinced that Jitera- ■' ture is quite divorced from life arid that the sole duty of a reviewer is to * disregard the direction of an author's ideas and to take note only of his power over words and phrases, his grammar, and his punctuation? -

There has. been talk of "pure poetry," "pure prose," and .-"pure thought" These things may have their "pure" meanings; but we believe that "pure art" of any kind, "pure pacifism," and "pure militarism,"' have some. relation to our daily life and must,,in a tJ literary journal, be dealt with in that relation. .