THE POPULAR IN LITERATURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13488, 15 May 1907, Page 6

THE POPULAR IN LITERATURE.

In the course of an article entitled "A Plea for the Popular in Literature,'' which appears in the current number of the Nineteenth Century, Mr. J. A. Spender says: — It is commonly said that board schools arid a cheap press have between them unfitted the mass of people for the reading of good books. We are asked to observe the contrast between the old days when the best of writers appealed to a small but select audience, and these times when mediocre writers pander to the illiteracy of the many. Hence the inference is drawn that the extension of the numbers of those who can read must necessarily depress the standard of what is offered them to read. And thus it is supposed to be impossible for good writers to hold their own against the immense quantity of rubbishy literature which undoubtedly is thrown upon the market in these days. It might almost as well be argued that good speaking, good preaching, or good conversation are impossible because everyone knows I how to talk and can understand when ho is [ spoken to in some fashion. Of course, it is true that .large numbers' of people, who j would not have read at all, entertain them- | selves by reading all manner of things, which i have nothing to 'do with literature—-the odds, the starting prices, the, penny noveletI tes, ■ the shilling shocker, and , so forth. Reading of this kind may be harmless or the reverse, just ■ as' eating • or smoking or any other form of human activity. Nothing can be said about it in general terms. The printed page, thus used, is one means among many of getting contact with life, arid life is of all sorts. But literary people surely flatter themselves far too much when they attribute their own failure to influence the I public to the supposed debasing competition I of this popular, reading. Half of them write down to it, and the other half write over:it, all of them despising it either way. The result is that "Ave have two products equally artificial—-the literature , of the undereducated, and the literature of ■'; the over- [ educatedthe first produced by.'.writers ..who exploit arid thereby create a' vulgar taste, the second by writers who pride themselves on appealing to a few refined persons and dciiberately choose what ;is remote and complicated. And'yet the field of the really great writers lies broad arid sinning between lAese two extremes, and on it is ample scope for all works' that are at once simple and profound. . . . The. public, I believe, is ripe for' a richer arid-.'fuller kind of literature than we have had in recent years;. and we shall hasten its coming if we can banish the, idea that popularity is necessarily a mean ait to be eschewed by good 'writers, and restore the true doctrine that literature' is neither a trade to be pursued by inferior writers nor a secret to be guarded by superior; writers, but the appeal of the best men to the greatest- 1 number of their fellow-countrymen.