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LONG, Terry Lester, 1936- THE RADICAL CRITICISM OF GRANVILLE HICKS IN THE 1930’S.

The Ohio State University in Cooperation with Miami (Ohio) University, Ph.D., 1971 Language and Literature, modern

University Microfilms, A XEROX Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan THE RADICAL CRITICISM OP GRANVILLE HICKS IN THE 1 9 3 0 *S

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By Terry L. Long, B. A. , M. A.

Ohe Ohio State University 1971

Approved by

A d v iser Department of English PLEASE NOTE:

Some pages have indistinct print. Filmed as received.

University Microfilms, A Xerox Education Company TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page I. Hicks and the 1930*s ...... 1

II. Granville Hicks: Liberal, 1927-1932 .... 31

III. Granville Hicks: Marxist, 1932-1939 .... 66 IV. Hicks on the Marxian Method...... 121

V. Hicks as a Marxian A nalyst ...... 157

V I. The B reak With Communism and A f t e r ..... 233 VII. Hicks and Marxist Criticism in Perspective . 258

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 279

i i CHAPTER I HICKS AM5 THE 1930* s

The world was aflame with troubles In the 1930fs. They were years of economic crisis, war, and political upheaval. America, as Tennessee Williams said, "... was matriculating in a school for the blind." They were years of bewilderment and frustration for the common man. For many American writers and thinkers, the events of the decade called for several changes from the twenties; a move to the political left, a concern for the misery of the masses, sympathy for the labor movement, support of the Communist Party, hope for Russia as a symbol of the future, fear and hatred of fascism. This was the Anpry Decade; these were The Fervent Years. Years of Protest. Hard Times; this was Puzzled America; so the books on the thirties tell us. Into this decade stepped an aspiring critic and college

teacher who would be shaped by the events of the coming years and who would help to shape them on the American literary front. He was Granville Hicks j of New England stock and a Harvard graduate of the Class of 1923- Hicks carried with him from the twenties a set of liberal, pacifist, socialist views and a great interest in American literature. He hoped to use criticism as a way of Influencing literature 2

for the good of society. Hicks gradually immersed himself in the radical movement as the Depression deepened, and eventually he joined the Communist Party. He embraced the Marxist approach to literary criticism and to politics, and based his writing on Marxism from about 1932 until 1939# when the Stalin-H itler pact sent him and others scurrying out of the party, disappointed, betrayed, and embarrassed. Subsequently he modified many of his political and critical views but retained some of his views and his approaches to literature. This dissertation concerns the criticism of Hicks during his “radical11 years. A brief review of the social and political forces at work in the world during that turbulent era w ill help clarify the motives of men like Hicks, Most important in the shaping of the I9 3 0*s, of course, was the world economic collapse. The Depression led writers to concern themselves with social issues in their works—or to deny that they were obligated to do so. It led them to write about politics, rootless migrants, the labor movement, and fights for civil liberties. It led to literary debates and feuds over the social obligations of writers and the nature of art and its functions in society. But let us remind ourselves more concretely of these influences by looking at some of the historical testimony. Historians and economists s till do not agree on what touched off the panic of October, 1929# which led to the 3

stock market crash and the subsequent economic crisis. But a ll agree on t'lhat the results were: At first, many optimists made a forlorn effort to deny that the collapse in speculative values had very much bearing on the underlying business of the country, and to assert that the stock-market liquidation represented a loss only in inflated paper values. But prices dropped sharply, factories curtailed production or closed their doors, employers cut wages, men were thrown out of work, trade slackened, prices dropped s till further—and the American people found themselves in a major economic disaster. In 1931 7 m illion workers were unemployed.1 According to the American Economic Association, by March, 1932, unemployment stood between 11, 250,000 and 12, 5 0 0 , 000. The peak came in early 1933i estimates range from 14*,500,000 to more than 16,000,000, about a third of the work force.

Even those who kept their jobs had difficulties because of reduced rates of pay and shortened work weeks. The average weekly earnings in certain Industries reporting to the National Industrial Conference Board had been above $28.50 in I 929 but had dropped to $22.64- by 1931. And hours were cut from an average above 4-8 per week in I 929 to 4-4- in 1930 and to only 38 in the last months of 1931. America was faced with starving people demanding relief. Documented reports published at the time show that many people were not getting enough to eat and some, in fact, were starving. The relief systems were locally controlled and locally handled. President Hoover would not concede the need for federal assistance in relief until the summer o f 1932, after three winters of depression, when the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was authorized to lend

the states $300 million for relief. By the end of 1932 i t had lent only $30 m illion for relief, while in the meantime it had lent $90 m illion to a Chicago hank:, of which a former RFC chairman had been an officer. News stories of the time reported "hunger riots," such as one in Oklahoma City, one

in Minneapolis, and another in St. Louis in 1931* Starving

citizens organized and broke into food stores to get food.

Millions of young people and entire families set out upon the highways and hopped freight trains in order to escape bad economic conditions and find work. The phenomena of the "Okies" migrating west and of young boy and girl tramps hopping trains are widely known. They were not the optim istic nomadic wanderers that America was used to, either. "Desperation," David.A. Shannon says, "rather than optimism, was the main characteristic of the nomads of the 1 9301 s . 1,2

The persons interviewed by Studs Terlcel for his book Hard Times testify to the bitter struggles, the disillusion­ ment, and the sense of social concern that many felt.

Edward Santander, a college administrator and school teacher says, "My first real memories come about *31. It was simply a gut issue then: eating or not eating." Carey McWilliams, t editor of The Nation, remembers the businessmen^ reaction to the stock market crash: "After the stock market crash, some New lork editors suggested that hearings be held: 5

what had really caused the Depression? They were held. . . . In retrospect, they make the finest comic reading. Hie leading Industrialists and hankers testified. They hadn’t

the foggiest notion what had gone had. . . ." Virginia Durr, of a genteel Alabama family, tells how she changed her social outlook because of the Depression: People who were Independent, who thought they were masters and mistresses of their lives, were a ll of a sudden dependent on others. Relatives or relief. People of pride went into shock and sanltoriums. . . . Up to this time, I had been a conformist, a Southern snob. I actually thought the only people who amounted to anything were the very small group which I belonged to.. . . What I learned during the Depression changed a ll that. . . . I saw the world as it really was. . . . Hie Depression affected people in two different ways. The great majority reacted by thinking money is the most important thing in the world. Ge-t yours. And get it for your children. Nothing else matters. Not having that stark terror come at you again. . . . And there was a small number of people who felt the whole system was lousy. You have to change it.

Terkel’s book is an engrossing and convincing collection of personal testimony.3 Economic collapse was not confined to America. The world felt the collapse of the American stock market. What had happened to business in America had also happened elsewhere. By 1933* world commodity prices had declined by a third compared to 1928, raw material prices by a half, and production Indices proportionately. Hie price of wheat at

Winnipeg, Canada, was lower than it had been in a primary market for 400 years. National incomes in many nations had dropped by ^0 per cent. It was estimated that 30 m illion workers a ll over the world were unemployed. In Japan, which was closely tied to the American economy, trade had fallen by a third between 1929 and 1930, and unemployment was estimated to be from one to three m illion that year. Japan seized upon the American collapse to further her Interests in Asia; the first result was Japan’s invasion of Manchuria.** One great cause of the increase in m ilitary aggression during the 1930’s was the economic instability of many c o u n t r ie s .

The Depression resulted In bitter economic warfare in the United States: labor unions against Industries, against each other, and against the government; starving, unemployed citizens against capitalists and politicians. These struggles became the concern of and the subject for many writers. The 1920*s had seen a great deal of labor organizing activity. Some of the strikes of that decade later became the subjects of works in the 1930*s. Especially notable is the strike in the textile mill at Gastonia, North Carolina, in the spring and summer of 1929. Six strike novels were written about Gastonia: Mary Heaton Vorse’s Strike! Sherwood Anderson’s Beyond Desire; Fielding Burke’s Call Home the Heart; Grace Lumpkin’s To Make My Bread: Myra Page’s

Gathering Storm; and William H ollins’ The Shadow Before.5

One notable Incident of writers helping workers fight 7

for their rights involved trouble in the eastern Kentucky

coal mining area, especially Harlan County. A group of

writers, led by Theodore Dreiser, went to Harlan in 1931 to investigate the rumors of murder and terrorism in the brutal suppression of a strike, in order to get national publicity focussed on the situation. John Dos Passos reported on the investigation. Also making the trip were Lincoln Steffens, Sherwood Anderson, Waldo Frank, and

Josephine Herbst. The committee found ample testimony, according to Dos Passos, to be convinced that anti-union

terrorism was occurring.6 The struggle in the coal mines interested many writers. Edmund Wilson, besides writing

much literary criticism for magazines, wrote several factual pieces about the labor struggles, such as "Frank Keeney*s Coal D iggers,1^

Besides strikes, several notable protest demonstrations

occurred. Communists organized the National Hunger March on Washington, which reached the city on December 6, 1931. Their demands for unemployment insurance were refused, and two days later they left in the shivering cold. Some 1500

had participated. The following month, Father Cox of Pittsburgh led more than 2,000 marchers into Washington to demand relief. Unlike the Communist leaders, he received

cordial treatment, and President Hoover promised to consider his demands. If the Communists had failed to get a cause to 8 rally workers behind in Washington, they did not fa il in the Ford Hunger March in Dearborn, Michigan, on March 7* 1932. In two days four marchers were killed in riots with police, and at least 5° persons were seriously wounded. On

March 12, a funeral parade of 10,000 moved to Grand Circus

Park, where 30*000 had gathered. The Communists had their martyrs and their publicity, it is true, and relief standards were raised in some communities, but the Communists did not succeed in radicalizing the workers.

The in c id e n t s w ith th e Bonus Army in 1932 made a stronger impression on America. Claiming money from the bonus b ill passed in 1924, about 23,000 penniless war veterans converged on Washington in the summer of 1932. They were housed in temporary structures around the city and in hastily-built shacks in Anacostia Flats. Communists tried unsuccessfully to seize control of the veterans, who had organized their camps in m ilitary fashion. A b ill pending before Congress to grant them their bonus money was finally turned down, although veterans were granted loans. Hoover decided to evict the veterans and tear down the old temporary buildings. On July 28, 1932, an argument occurred in one of the buildings; It was between two bonus marchers, but when police arrived, a group of veterans attacked them. One marcher was killed. Hoover called out the Army to drive them out of Washington. General Douglas MacArthur led a large force In a dramatic display. The old "buildings and the

Anacostia camp were set afire, and thousands of veterans and their families fled. Two veterans were shot to death, a

baby later died, and several others were injured, but the

operations had been carried out efficiently. The public, however, reacted unfavorably, and Hoover*s popularity suffered another blow.® The labor movement was hurt at first by the Depression;

because so many men were out of work it was d ifficult to

prevent strikers from being replaced. The growing unrest in

labor, however, finally caused President Roosevelt to bring

about reform. In 1935 the National Labor Relations Act was passed; it required that workers have the rlfgit to bargain

collectively and provided that they could not be compelled to Join a company union. Labor membership rose by a m illion in

1935 over what it had been two years earlier. Furthermore, in 1935 the C. I.. 0. was formed and later sp lit from the A. F. L ,, organizing men on the basis of the industry they worked in rather than their specific skills. The C. I. 0,

used the sit-down strike as a new method, thus making it more difficult for scabs to replace strikers.9 Novels about

the struggles of workers in strikes, about radicals hoping to lead workers to revolution, and about the struggles of

proletarians in general resulted from these hard times.

Walter B. Rideout reports that ?0 examples of the proletarian 10

novel were written during the decade, about 50 of them between

1930 and 1935*10 Besides the ones written about Gastonia, there were Robert Cantwellfs The Land of Plenty. Jack Conroy*s

The Disinherited. Albert Helper*s The Foundry. Michael Gold*s

Jews Without Money. John Steinbeck*s In Dubious Battle and

The Grapes of Wrath. and parts of John Dos Passos* U. S. A. , especially The Big Money, among others. The 1930*s saw writers involving themselves directly in

social causes and writing of past martyrs to civil liberties

and th e ca u se o f th e common man. The S a c c o -V a n z e tti c a se had convinced many people that the capitalists would use any

means to defend their power, even legal murder. Sacco and

Vanzetti had been executed in 1927* after futile- attempts to defend them. They along with three other groups or persons

became martyrs. Joe H ill, labor agitator, had been executed

in Utah in 1915. Tom Mooney had been convicted of a bombing in California in 1916, but his sentence had been commuted

from death to life imprisonment in 1918. He was finally pardoned In 1938. The Scottsboro Boys were nine Negroes

accused of the rape of two white girls in Alabama in 1931. Their defense received support from many w riters, and their case became the subject of several literary works in the 1930*s, as did the cases of the others above.H The Depression played a major role In Influencing

intellectuals to turn left and look to Communism. They already felt alienated from the business-ruled society and 11

felt that America was sick. The economic collapse only

convinced them the more that drastic changes were Inevitable. Although Hoosevelt received widespread support In the election of 1932, many writers did not think he could solve

the problems and supported instead the Communist candidate, William Z. Foster. Edmund Wilson, John Dos Passos, Sherwood Anderson, Malcolm Cowley, Waldo Frank, Granville Hicks, and many others supported Foster. Foster polled 100,000 votes, less than one per cent of the total vote but more than any Communist ever received before or since. Editors (like Hicks) helped organize radical journals and writers' and artists' societies like the John Reed Clubs, in order to encourage proletarian works. Young writers with some experience were encouraged to write about their experiences.12 Besides the books mentioned above, there were others like Edward Newhouse's You Can't Sleep Here. Nelson Algren's Somebody in Boots. Henry Roth's Call It Sleep. James T. Farrell's Studs Lonlsan. and, later, Richard Wright's Uncle Tom's Children. Against the squalor and suffering of America, which surely was a.dying culture, intellectuals could consider the well-publicized progress of Russia. Many intellectuals visited Russia in the 1920's and into the 1930's and returned with glowing reports of the bustling, hopeful people of Moscow. There were hardships, to be sure, but no one was unemployed. The Soviet Union seemed to represent the future, 12

and capitalist America the past. Not only the workers , but also the writers in Russia, were seen as participants in socialist reconstruction.

But the greatest factor in enlisting sympathy and support for Communism during the 1930*s was the antifascist attitude of most liberals and radicals. In March of 1933* following Hitler*s seizure of power In January, the Daily Worker called

for "a United Front to fight Fascism.11 The New Masses asked writers to send In protests against German fascism. Several did so, Including Hicks. They generally agreed, that, as Daniel Aaron summed it up, Hitlerism was brutish, that the Nazis stood for the last Impulse of dying capitalism, that American fascists would be encouraged by the success in Germany, that progressive groups had to rally to fight the

Nazi threat, and that American Intellectuals had to lead the political fight In an antI-Fascist front, "Until the Nazi-

Soviet pact of 1939 , 11 Aaron writes, "hatred of world fascism brought writers . . . into the Left orbit who otherwise might never have affiliated with the movement."^3

The League of American Writers held its first Congress in 1935 and met again in 1937 and 1939. It was a-Communist- backed effort to foster the Popular Front against fascism and to promote proletarian literature. Hicks presided over the first meeting. Hemingway spoke at the second. . Adolph H itler, who had formed his National Socialist German Workers * party In 1920 and his Brownshirts in 1921, took advantage of the Depression and the decline of the old rulers to rise from obscurity and gain political influence for his party and himself. The aging Field Marshal Paul von Hlndenburg was re-elected President in 1932. In 1933• after much political turmoil and terrorism by Nazis, Hlndenburg accepted a coalition of parties, with H itler as Chancellor of the Reich. The Nazis seized power, coordinating the police and legal system, industry and labor, schools and universities, and culture and the arts. In one year H itler transformed Germany Into a fascist state, with no major opposition. On June 30, 193^. "the night of the long knives," Hitler system atically killed some 1,000 opponents to his rule. By I936 the country was prospering under his rule. By 1939. "A w ell-knit, hard-working population of 7 0 , 000,000 stood ideologically inspired, physically trained, and materially equipped for the supreme business of making war.” Hitler was ready for conquest.^ The world’s intellectuals did not have to wait for the discoveries of Auschwitz to feel complete revulsion for H itler's rule in Germany. Reports from Germany in the early 1930*s of pogroms, book burnings, concentration camps, and Nazi Ideology convinced thinking men that the Third Reich was a medieval h ell. One w ill understand why so many writers Joined the Communist movement, Aaron suggests, if he can understand "... the violent loathing, rage, and fear Ik

provoked by the Nazis." Anyone against them was condoned; anyone sympathetic with Nazis was considered sinister. Mussolini’s rule in Italy, dating back to 1922, did not cause so much alarm at first. But when Italy took over Ethiopia, the threat of fascism seemed that much more menacing. Ethiopia had come under Italian Influence In the Nineteenth Century, but Haile Selassie took over in 1916. He turned the north African nation into a modern kingdom from the medieval tribal state it had been and reduced Italian influence. Wanting to alleviate economic and population pressures at home, Mussolini began preparing In 1932 to conquer Ethiopia. The war did not come right away. In fact, it was October, 1935» before Italy began its invasion of Ethiopia. The war lasted seven months; Haile Selassie left his realm on Ifey 2, 1936, and Mussolini proclaimed the annexation of■ Ethiopia to Italy on May 9 . The democratic world saw this as another threat to world freedom, but Prance, Britain, America, In fact no one In the League of Nations, was w illing to take m ilitary action. Sanctions which had been imposed against Italy ended on

July 15. 1936. 16 In the Far East, Japan was posing another, threat to freedom. ,-In 1931 Japan had taken Manchuria and driven Chlang Kai-shek to the south. Japan gained in economic and military strength, and by 1935 Japanese forces in-China pushed south of the Great Wall and advanced westward and southward. 15

The maneuver ings of the war continued into World War II.

Meanwhile, Japan came together with Germany in 1936 with the

Anti-Comintern Pact. The Western nations were too preoccupied with their own troubles and with Europe to do much in the Far East.17 But to the intellectuals freedom was threatened again. It was against this backdrop that they viewed the developments in Spain in 1936.

In 193^ a- rebellion had broken out among miners in Asturias, and General Franco was called In to suppress the rebellion, which had caused the brutal deaths of 1500 p e o p le . The rightists held control. But in the elections of February, 1936, the voters swung back to the left, and a combination of leftist parties took over in a Popular Front,

named after the arrangement in France. The country was soon

divided into nationalists and republicans, or fascists and leftists. The rightist army revolted in July of 1936 in

Morocco, and the Spanish C ivil War had begun. Soviet Russia gave political and Ideological aid to the republican side, and later its agents almost took over the operation. Russia inspired the International Brigades, for example. Americans formed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. But Russia was busy at home and did not extend itself m aterially, except to lend advisors, some supplies, and planes. Russia had little to lose and possibly something to gain. Italy and Germany, on the other hand, were hopeful and sent supplies, arms, planes, and Italy even fighting troops to support 16

Franco.*8 America decided not to intervene, much to the

dismay of liberals and radicals. In 1937 Congress forbade the export of arms to either side. But some 3*000 Americans defied the government and made their way to Spain to fight. Only 1200 left Spain alive, and most of them had been wounded.*9 A few intellectuals and writers were among them, but more prominent ones went legally as newsmen, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos, for instance. In March, 1939, Franco took Barcelona, and Spain fell to his rule after a cruel and exhausting war. Writers and intellectuals were confused and disillusioned because of the conduct of the Russians in Spain.This disillusionment was portrayed in John Dos Passos* novel Adventures of a Young Man. Spain was the subject of several other literary works, for example, Hemingway*s For Whom the B ell T olls. Edna St. Vincent Millay*s poem."Say That We Saw Spain Die," W. H. Auden*s poem "Spain 1937»■" and Alvah B essie’s Men in B attle.

At home fascist ideology seemed almost as evident as it was abroad. H itler and Mussolini had only a few American supporters, but fascist demagoguery had its mass appeal. Anti-Semitism and fascism were a part of the ideas of Father Charles Coughlin, Dr. Francis Townsend, and Huey Long, who appealed to the uneducated, and Princeton man Seward C ollins, who supported fascism. Publisher William Randolph Hearst said fascism meant Americanism. Fritz Kuhn established his 17

German-American Bund and William Dudley Pelley his Silver Shirts.Two novels were written to warn of the fascist threat: Edward Dahlberg's Those Who Perish and Sinclair Lewis * It Can11 Hannen Here. The war in Spain and the threat of fascism in general had diverted the attention of leftists from disturbing events in Russia. The Moscow Trials of 1936, 1937# and. 1938 and the signing of the Stalln-H itler pact in 1939# however, turned almost a ll American Communists and fellow -travelers against Russia and the American party. Hicks resigned a few weeks after the pact. Bie historical events of the 1930's—the economic crisis, the rise of fascism, the leftward turn of intellectuals, sympathy for the common man—resulted In a new Interest in and hope for America. In contrast with the expatriation and alienation of the 1920's, intellectuals and writers looked with interest at America; the result was the rise of a "literary nationalism."22 sufferings and courage of the common man rather than the boobism of the Babbitts became the central interest. James Agee and photographer Walker Evans, for example, collaborated in a study of three southern tenant farm fam ilies and later published it as Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. Erskine Caldwell and his wife compiled a book of pictures and text entitled You Have Seen Their Faces. Sherwood Anderson made a two-month trip In 1933 to observe the labor struggles and wrote about it in Puzzled America. W. P. A.-sponsored play performances. 18

mural painting in public buildings, and regional guides and

histories were produced. Clifford Odets dramatized the struggle of lower-middle class Jews of the Bronx in Awake and Sing and Paradise Lost. Left-wing journals published not only fiction and reportage on the struggles of the poor but also poetry. The magazine Dynamo gave a place for the poetry of such newcomers as Sol Funaroff, Kenneth Fearing, Kenneth Patchen, and Horace Gregory. In short, the decade was a period of social commitment and interest in the common man. Writers and artists produced large quantities of work; the quality was not always the highest, but a lot of good work resulted from the period. It w ill take time to study and evaluate this work In light of the Cold War paralysis of our critical faculties where leftists are concerned. One need only look at such a book as The American Writer and the Great Depression, an anthology edited by Harvey Swados, to be

reminded of the richness and variety of the literary output. But if novelists, poets, dramatists, and journalists

were hard at work during the decade, so were the literary critics. The leftward swing of many intellectuals resulted in virulent literary wars. Michael Gold ushered in the decade with an attack on the work of Thornton Wilder in October, 1930. Gold, who had been a radical since the days t of the old Masses magazine of the twenties, reviewed four novels and a collection of plays by Wilder. He expressed his distaste for Wilderfs work, which he considered romantic 19

escapism when what was needed from writers was an exposure and analysis of the social ills of the present society. The article started a critical debate that went on for some time among critics and writers. In expressing his disgust for Wilder's romantic fiction of faraway places, Gold said, "And nobody works in a Ford plant, and nobody starves looking for work, and there is nothing but Love In God's ancient Peru, Italy, Greece, If not in God's capitalist America 1930! Let Mr. Wilder write a book about modern America. We predict It w ill reveal his fundamental silliness and super­ ficia lity , now hidden under a Greek chlamys." Edmund Wilson pointed out later the significance of Gold's sentiment. He agreed with Gold that-W ilder's- work was a "sedative for sick Americans." So the economic crisis was accompanied by a crisis and a debate in American literature.^3 A great many writers replied to Gold's review,' some as leftists disagree­ ing with him, and many non-leftists disagreeing and in fact feeling offended. Daniel Aaron suggests that the reaction against Gold was partly a distaste for his manner. "They resented Gold's passion as well as his violent language, resented the very 'presence* of this scurrilous and godless radical." But there was a political meaning, for Gold raised another issue: ". . . whether or not a writer had the artistic and moral right to turn his back on his times." Gold's defenders argued that critics should not be concerned only with form, that literature is not separate from social 20

issues, Uius the question was forced out of the arena of

sectarian battles into the literary landscape.2^

Gold was one of the le a d e r s (as was Hicks) in the fight

against the Humanism of Paul Elmer More, Irving Babbitt, and Stuart Sherman, calling it a reactionary movement in a world on the verge of revolution. The Humanists were

. . conservative, religious, and erudite; they were also antidemocratic and ant is c lent if ic. "2-5 Thus they were special targets of the literary left. A good many American writers did not go left p olitically, of course, nor did they a ll concern themselves with current

politics and social issues. One need only remember Robert Frost, William Faulkner, Robinson Jeffers, the Southern Agrarians like John Crowe Ransom, Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate, and Cleanth Brooks, or T. S. Eliot, F, Scott Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, Willa Cather, and Wallace Stevens. Since they did not go left, they often found themselves under attack by leftist critics. Stanley Burnshaw, for example, asserted in a review of Stevens' Ideas of Order in 1935 that Marxism was the only choice for those wanting to see the fulfillm ent of mankind, and that Stevens had missed out. This review angered Stevens, who included a satirical section, "Mr. Burnshaw and the Statue," in Owl's Clover. his next volume of verse.2^ T. S. Eliot often came under attack. Eliot began in

1929 to criticize Communism, likening it to fascism and 21

denying that literature should he part of the class struggle or any other Immediate social problem. Edmund Wilson and others responded, taking varying stands concerning Marxism, but generally feeling that art should have a social purpose, a concept that the "aesthetic" schools of criticism seemed to d e n y .^7

Archibald MacLeish also experienced the ire of the left- wing press. His poem "Invocation to the Social Muse" denied that the artist had social and political obligations. The reaction was bitter, and MacLeish continued to be the object of controversy during the decade. His "Frescoes for Mr.

Rockefeller's City" in 1933 prompted Gold to suggest that he was suffering from "the- fascist unconscious." In "Preface to an American Manifesto" in 193^* MacLeish suggested that the American revolutionary movement had failed because it was founded on hatred. By 1935» however, he had become concerned with fascism, as his anti-fascist work Panic showed. By 19^0 he was advocating that Hitler be stopped. For a few months in 1932 and 1933* the Hew Republic carried correspon­ dence pro and con on MacLeish's "Invocation to the Social Muse," among them a poem by Allen Tate, si letter by John Peale Bishop, another letter by Rolfe Humphries, and a poem by Yvor W inters.28 Also coming under attack from the left was the Southern Agrarian movement, which was anti-industrialist and anti- revolutionary. V. F. Calverton attacked with "The Bankruptcy 22 of Southern Culture," and John Crovze Ransom replied in "The South Is a Bulwark," both published in Scribner*s Magazine in May, 1936.29 Within leftist circles, controversies also raged. For example, James T. Farrell became the subject of controversy when his book A Note on Literary Criticism was published. Farrell argued that most left-wing critics, including those of New Masses. did not understand dialectical materialism. Isidor Schneider and V. F. Calverton attacked Farrell in New Masses. as did Hicks, who asked if there was much value to Farrell's book, although he was careful to also assert that Farrell was not anti-M arxist. The debate brought into the open a,'feud between New Masses and Partisan Review, w hich came t o F a r r e l l s d e f e n s e , a s d id Edmund V lilson in The Nation. Farrell wrote a rebuttal in New Masses.30 These examples of the literary controversies reflect the intense feeling and the prolific output of literary journalism during the thirties. The class struggle probably did not arouse stronger feelings than the battles between critics and writers. The events of the decade were ominous and bewildering; they seemed to call for strong medicine. Their effects bn literature and criticism gave the 1930's a special personality. It would be difficult to deal with the literary history of the period or with almost any literary figure of it without taking this into account.

Such is the case with Granville Hicks. His education and 23

■background made him Just the sort of literal Intellectual who would he attracted to Marxism in the 1930's.31

Hicks' parents were both born in Boston, though his father's family came from Maine and his mother's from Cape Cod. Hicks was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, but spent most of his early years in Boston. He entered Harvard University in 1918 and struggled through financial hardships to graduate with honors in English four years later. But he was a commuter student; he knew very little about the social life at Harvard. After graduation he decided to become a minister in the Universal1st Church and entered Harvard Theological School, much to the dismay of his parents and his future wife Dorothy Dyer. Hicks explains that his decision was partly a matter of financial convenience, since he had been doing editing and speaking for the church and was thought a promising young man. He finally decided he was not suited to be a minister and wondered how he had ever entertained such an idea. In 1925 he began teaching theology and English, later only English, at Smith College, a.girl's college in Northampton, Massachusetts; he stayed there until 1928, when he returned to Harvard to study for a Master's Degree in English. He received the degree in 929 I and took a teaching position at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York. During these years Hicks had been writing'book reviews and essays. His reviewing called 2Ur

him to the attention of the Macmillan Company; they hired him to do part-time publishers* reading and scouting. In 1928 he published a fictional dialogue, Eight Ways of Looking at Christianity, which had been the fruit of his reading in religion. Hicks now dismisses the book as second-hand and unoriginal, but he does not consider it a book of piety, as it was later labeled by enemies who knew only the title of it. In 1927 Hicks had published his first important piece, an essay in The American Mercury, and he was soon doing essays and reviews for that publication as well as The Forum. American Literature. New Republic, and Ihe Nation.32 Hicks

comments that he was comfortable at this time In his life but could see that many other people did not enjoy the privileges that he did. As an undergraduate at Harvard he had joined the Harvard Liberal Club, which had Its own house and served lunches and invited every dissenting person who came through Harvard to speak to its group. As Hicks says, . . . I heard Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, Single Taxers, crusaders for civil liberties, crusaders for birth control, prison reformers, vegetarians, and heaven knows what else. . . . I wasn*t converted to anything, but I felt that in a small way I was part of the upsurge of discontent, I was firmly convinced of the evil of war* and at that- time that is as far as my convictions went, except for a general dissatisfaction with the status quo33 His convictions deepened, however, during his teaching and graduate school days of the late twenties. In I927 w h ile he was at Smith College he had taken part in activities to ask for clemency for Sacco and Vanzetti. The rejection of any 25

such proposals led him to see that the intellectuals were

alienated from almost all the rest of the population.3^ He was convinced, he said, that intellectuals had to be free, and he also came to see capitalism as a system of distribution of the wealth that had to be changed. And as the depression h it, he became even more convinced that this was true: During the twenties we had listened to the theories of the Socialists and Communists, but with no more attention than we had listened to vegetarians and single-taxers. Now, however, we began to take seriously the assertion, made by both groups, that the only way to end depressions was to socialize the means of production.35

By 1932 Hicks had become involved in Communist activities, although he did not officially Join the party until 1935. He began writing for Mew Masses, the party intellectual monthly. In 193^ when New Masses became a weekly, Hicks took the non-paying job of literary editor, working out of his farm home in Grafton, New York, and continuing to teach at nearby Rensselaer in Troy. In 1935 He was fired from his job because of his radical activities. Thereafter, he relied for his income on his book reviewing, his books, his Job with Macmillan, lectures, and, for a year, a counselor- ship in American civilization at Harvard. ‘ By 1933 Hicks had already become one QfTthe American spokesmen for the Marxian analysis of literature. His book The Great Tradition. An Interpretation of American Literature Since the Civil Mar, offered in 1933 a Marxist view. There followed the productive years with New Masses and other journals, the writing of books, and the participation in Communist literary activities until the Stalin-Hltler anti­

aggression and trade pact in 1939. During this period Hicks wrote hundreds of essays and book reviews, and either wrote completely or had a part in seven books. He wrote the call to writers for the first American Writers' Congress in 1935 and presided over it.36 He was, of course, involved in the literary wars, defending Michael Gold and James T. Farrell, attacking the Humanists, and castigating conservative or anti-Communist book reviewers. In short, Hicks was in the center of the literary activities of the thirties. His

prolific work in Marxist criticism —a major force of the time and an approach s till to be reckoned with-today—makes Hicks an Important figure in our literary history. Since Marxist criticism has exerted an important influence in modern literature, we need to study in detail the work of men like Hicks. Is it valid to analyze the economic forces and their influence on literature? How did Hicks apply the Marxist social interpretation to literary analysis? How well did he do in his critical evaluation of certain works? How does his application of Marxism compare with that of other Marxist critics? What other critical principles did he use? (These are the questions I w ill concern myself with in this dissertation. I w ill concentrate on his criticism of the 1930fs # with a review of his ideas before his "radical" period and a brief glance at his attitude toward Marxism since his dissociation from it, specifically from 1939 onward. NOTES

CHAPTER I

1 Richard Hofstadter, et. a l,, The American Republic, vol. 2 (Engleviood C liffs, N. J .: Preritice-Hall,~ 1959), p . 4 6 0 .

^Davld A. Shannon, The Great Depression (Englewood C liffs, N, J .: Prentice-Kall, i960), on unemployment, pp. 6-7; on relief, pp. 35-5^; on hunger riots, pp. 119-20; on nomads, pp. 55“71* 3studs Terkel, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great D ep re ssio n (New York: Random H ouse, 1970*), S a n ta n d er, p . 207; McWilliams, pp. 241-42; Durr, pp. 461-62. ^Frank P. Chambers, This Age of Conflict. 3rd edition, (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962), pp. 334, 34u. 5w'alter B, Rideout, The Radical Novel in the United States 1900-1954 (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1936), PP. 1 7 3 -7 ^ 6john Dos Passos, uHarlan: Working Under the Gun," New Republic, 2 Dec. 1931J rpt. in Years of Protest, eds. Jack Salznan and Barry W allenstein (New York: Pegasus, 1967), pp. 89-100.

7Edmund W ilson , The American Earthquake ( I 9 5 8 ; r p t . Garden City, N. Y.: Anchor Books, 1964), pp. 310-27, ^Irving Bernstein, The Lean Years (I96O; rpt. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1966), pp~^30-35;" 451-55. 9The American Republic, pp. 522-25. lOfiideout, pp. 171- 72.

llYears of Protest, pp. 366-67; see also Wilson, PP. ■

28 29

12The American Republic, p, 24-8; Granville Hicks, Part of The Truth (Hew York; Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), p, 101, 13caniel Aaron, Writers on the Left (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Worldl l$TolT7 PP. 152-56, on the appeal of Communism, quotation from p, 156.

1^'Thls Age of Conflict, pp. 35I, 355, 358, 367. 15Aaron, p. 156. ^ Thls Age of Conflict, pp, 399-409, 411,

l?rbid., pp. 3^5-49. ISlbld. , pp. 416-27.

19john M. Muste, Say That We Saw Spain Die (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 19667T P. 26. 20Aaron, p. 308; Years of Protest, pp, 180-81, 2 3-Years of Protest, pp, 179-80.

22The American Republic, p. 436. 23Michael Gold, "Wilder: Prophet of the Genteel Christ," New Republic. 22 Oct, 1930; rpt. in Years of Protest, pp. 233-384 Wilson quoted, p. 233. 24Aaron, pp. 242-43.

25Years of Protest, p. 231. 26lbid. . pp. 231, 245. 2?Aaron, pp. 236-37, 248-55. 28Years of Protest, pp. 238-44.

29lbld.. pp. 253-76. 3°Ibld., pp. 276-93. 3% icks, Part of the Truth. and "Granville Hicks," Current Biography. 3 (May, 1942), pp. 43-46, are the sources of biographical facts.

32Robert J, Bicker, "Granville Hicks: An Annotated Bibliography," Emporla State Research Studies (I968), pp. 10, 11. 30. 30

33Part of the Truth t p. 37. 3**Hiclcs , Where We Came Out (New York: Viking, 195*0 • p . 2 8 . 3 5 ib id . . p . 3 3 . ^"C all for An American W riters1 Congress," New Masses 16 (22 Jan. 1935)* 20 [unsigned^. CHAPTER I I GRANVILLE HICKS:

LIBERAL, 1927-1931

r Before the frustration of the Great Depression had settled upon the nation and driven artists and intellectuals in to Communism, G r a n v ille H ick s had a lr ea d y e s ta b lis h e d himself as a promising young critic. Uhat sort of literary man was he in those pre-Marxist days from I927 to I93I? To the Hicks of those years, literature was Important for vihat it said about a society and its values. The critic's Job was to discern and evaluate this expression of values.

Hicks was already, in short, the kind of critic who emphasized social and ethical content over form and aesthetics. He was influenced most by literary studies that considered literature in relation to social patterns and relationships. Hicks approached literature as a humanistic moralist and carried this moral bent with him into Marxism, modifying his philosophy and changing his emphasis in literary judgments, but retaining many ideas he held In this early period. As a Marxist he became more dogmatic in his politics and literary evaluations, and he added the Marxian method of interpreting history to his critical arsenal. This chapter surveys his criticism of the early career and 31 32

summarizes the principles he held.

Literature and Values

Hicks insisted that values and ethics were the central

concern of literature, or at least, of literary criticism . For instance, in grappling with the problem of values, Hicks

discussed Joseph IJood Krutch*s book The Modern Temper, with

which he disagreed. Krutch lamented our loss of some

illusions because of science, illusions that were connected with some civilizing values. But it was the values, Hicks

said, not the illusions that were important. ,rThe question is largely whether human achievements in the past were the result of a set of illusions, or sprang from certain reali­

ties in the nature of man and the universe, realities faultily described in terms of these illusions that have been destroyed.11 ICrutch's sense of loss was the illusion, for the same world that created Dante and Shakespeare, Hicks said, created modern man. Values had been created in the past and had worked, which was*the important thing. "If values can be separated from the theological language in which an earlier time has stated them, the outlook is less bleak than Mr. Krutch believes." The new m aterialistic barbarians need not destroy what we called civilization, as Krutch feared. His book, however, might serve ». , .to shake us out of our present temper and into a mood which w ill discover new ways of stating old values and create fresh values for the fu tu r e . Many writers of the twenties indulged in indecency,

but they did so, Hicks said in "The Gutter—And Then What?", not to exploit indecency but to show a disgust for it. The modern writer was searching for what was real, even if reality was only lust; this search was a way of affirming a faith in life. Men seemed to have the material tools to build a new society but did not have a plan. "These plans,

if we are to ever have them, must come from men who are able

to perceive imaginatively the possibilities of the world that is," he said, and they had to be able to brush away old

dogmas if necessary; there had to be an affirmation of life. "We must go a ll the way with Joyce, Jeffers, Huxley, 0*N eill,

for only thus can we hope to understand and accept whatever fresh affirmation of life they or their successors may d e v e lo p . "2 Hicks found more hope in the search for values in a book by Irwin Edman than he did in Krutch^ book. Such critics as Edman, Hicks said, were beginning to introduce a more positive feeling in social criticism , which was good,

because we had had enough of iconoclasm. Any more would merely Increase the harm to values. Edman shifted from the destruction of traditional views to ". . . the restatement of old values and the discovery of new." Edman conceived of the ideal modern man as having . . the tough mind and the gentle heart." Edman was trying to get back to traditional values without giving up those of our age. 34

He would not suppress the newer sense of freedom, but he would have It guided by an intelligent and self-imposed discipline. He is far from recommending a cold and unemotional rationalism , but he points out that even rapture is deepened by knowledge and understanding, , , , Mr, Edman1s strength lies ... . in the fact that he is himself of this headstrong, skeptical, pagan generation. He knows that there are some qualities which we w ill not give up, even if the heavens fall. He does not ask us to give them up; he merely warns us lest we surrender—quite unnecessarily— other qualities of equal value. And for the most part h e c o n v in c e s u s vie can h ave b o t h .3 Ihere was an unavoidable connection between social tendencies and literature, Hicks argued. Reviewing a book by E. E. ICellett, Hicks said that the book pointed out , . . the intimate relation between literature and philosophical, scientific, and political tendencies. Because the greatest artists have risen above their environment, it is sometimes assumed that social conditions have nothing to do with the development of a particular genius or a golden age of writers. Mr. K ellett's researches point to the opposite conclusion, and his arguments ought to give pause to those who scorn any attempt to associate the desire for a flourishing literature with the effort for a better social order.4 In the search for values and standards Hicks did not approve of turning one's back on society. Reviewing Robert Graves* Good-Bye to A ll That. Hicks argued that Graves* notion of turning away from everything was an admission of d e f e a t , "... taking refuge in some fancied realm outside of time and event."5 Hicks became dismayed at people who wanted to withdraw from the struggle of society. He seemed, unable to conceive of a person not wanting to be concerned with the central issues of his time. 35

One of the central Issues for modern man, Hicks argued, was his adjustment to Industrialism and his difficulty in maintaining humane values in an age of machines. Hicks concerned himself with the artistic portrayal of industrial society in an essay entitled "Industry and the Imagination,11 the subject of which later became the central issue in his book The Great Tradition. He wrote the article in 1929 but could not get it published in the monthlies and published It in the South Atlantic Quarterly Instead. Though it was the genesis for the book, Hicks has commented, 11. . . much had happened to my ideas before that book was completed in 1933."^ The artistic point of view, he said in the essay, could bring ", . .a more penetrating and a more nearly unified vision. . ." than the scientific or the utilitarian views. The writer had to relate industry to life and human values, and this was very d ifficu lt, since Industry was bewildering to us. With too many "things11 to work with and choose from, it was hard to choose values intelligently, he said. The writer had to make an ". . . Imaginative assim ilation in literature. . ." similar to our adjustments In real life. Novels of protest had not drawn conclusions out of what they described, as the artist had to do to be successful. The writer would not have to seek only reform; he could seek beauty as well In the industrial processes and the life industry shaped. A literature on Industry might have to wait until men accepted industry the way our ancestors accepted the sea and agriculture. But an imaginative solution and assim ilation need not wait on .the reality. "There may come a time when the drift of events w ill be apparent to the man of exceptional perspicacity, and when the creative artist w ill find it possible to shot* forth imaginatively the way to a civilization that has learned to make industry its servant. . . . I believe that the artist may play his part in eliminating the maladjustment, may, indeed, do more by virtue of his insight and his imagination them all the sociologists and statesmen."7 Hicks continued to assert the principle that a great artist had a unifying vision that emcompassed the largest view of his social order and could portray it in terms of individual human life . At this point he was not Marxist, but it is easy to see that his kind of interest would later be compatible with Marxian analyses.

The churches did not offer much hope for helping improve society and establishing new values, Hicks argued. His skeptical attitude toward organized religion became apparent in his first major magazine article. H. L. Mencken was publishing a series in The American Mercury in I927 on the professions and World War I; Hicks was assigned to do the article on; the American clergy. "The Parsons and the War" demonstrated clearly that many clergymen had shown a blood­ thirsty, barbaric attitude toward the enemy. Many m inisters, especially fundamentalists, had spoken and written in-favor of the United States* entry into the war, since iihey considered

the Teutons a "threat to religion." Hicks showed in the article that the clergy ignored the principles of free speech for pacifists and that they argued that Christ was on

the side of the A llies.8 A year later Hicks published another research article in the Mercury on the genteel critic

Hamilton Wright Mabie. He was a virtual literary dean in America from I89O until 1916, Hicks asserted, and his

mission was ". . .to spread abroad the light of Christian culture." He had been an emissary for peace abroad but took

up the cause for war in 191^. Illustrating and summarizing

the criticism Mabie had written, Hicks characterized him as an incompetent critic who evaded the problem of evaluating

new literary works, preferring instead to praise well- established authors who did not offend genteel sensibilities. Hicks lamented the fact that this glib, empty man had been

immensely popular.9 Because of his background in religious studies, Hicks

found himself often called upon to review books on religion.

In 1929* writing on a book about the Catholic Church, Hicks suggested that a non-Catholic would probably respond to the author*s analysis of faults In the Church but that he would

not share the author's hope for reform and would not have faith In the Church having some "supernatural magnetism11 below a ll the faults.Reviewing three books on religion 38

that same year, Hicks asserted that two of them were stupid and worthless and that the third hook, on the history of Christianity, showed how little Christianity seemed to relate to modern life . The chapter on Christianity and social reform, he said, showed the "total inadequacy" of the churches in this area.

Although organized religion did not seem to offer much hope, the search for standards, Hicks argued, had to go on. But the Humanists led by Irving Babbitt did not have a satisfactory answer. The Humanists were right, Hicks said, in wanting to create standards upon which to judge literature. But their standards did not meet human needs; "... f o r me standards must be based on some conception of human nature, not on some doctrine of divinity." Hie Humanists would not let you take some of their ideas; you had to take them a ll, or they would declare you their enemy. Their rigid dualistic dogma drove them into the church. The greatest achievement of the humane Imagination is not the exemplification of the need for restraint, but the discovery and vivid envisagement of those ends toward which life may be guided and for the sake of which restraint is naturally and whole-heartedly exercised. Such a conception liberates literature from bonds in which the Babbitteans would confine it, and frees criticism from the necessity of regarding literature as composed of a series of pamphlets advocating the inner check. The Humanists, Hicks continued, had helped Americans become aware of ", . . the excesses of romanticism and the ravages of a frivolou3 and unintelligent skepticism. . , but other 39

minds had to go forward, free from the esoteric notions of the Humanists (with their feeling that no intelligence or ethical seriousness existed outside their circle), open- minded and critical of all ideas and groups, and ". . . sensitive to the values of both the modern world and the ancient."^2 This analysis and refutation of the Humanists remained the basis of Hicks' later comments on it.

Hicks conceded that the problems of doubt the modern man was confronted with were serious ones and that man needed to come to terms with these problems if possible. He discussed these problems in connection with another book by Krutch which he reviewed. Krutch wrote of five fiction writers from medieval times to the present and tried to a n a ly z e "... contemporary doubts and what lies behind them." Krutch studied, Hicks said, "... five imaginative adaptations to the intellectual and spiritual problems created by the breaking down of the medieval synthesis" (Boccacblp,

Cervantes, Hichardson, Stendhal, and Proust). Proust adjusted by a resignation and abandonment of the struggle to participate in his times; Krutch did not evaluate this with­ drawal, Hicks said. Withdrawal- had been the solution Krutch him self had suggested, for the civilized man in The Modern Temper. Many critics had not liked that book because it had come at a time of turning toward affirmation; affirmation was good, Kicks said, but it had to be based on 40 a firm foundation. Two kinds of current affirmation being offered were Humanism and social radicalism , mostly from the Communist camp. The Humanists affirmed "... individual development through the imitation of classical models and the exercise of the inner check.11 The social radicals ". . . affirm the possibility of a better social order and preach the necessity of strenuous effort on its behalf."

Both, said Hicks, ignored the questions Krutch had been asking; that is, they ignored fundamental metaphysical questions of man*s relation to his universe. They could do that for a while, and their values would work, but in the end the fundamental questions would return, "... and th e only result of this temporary affirmativeness w ill be a deeper plunge into pessimism." Krutch was quite right, said Hicks, to demand that these problems be faced.^3 Hicks did not explain this idea that a firm metaphysical foundation was needed for modern affirmation, nor did he pursue the idea elsewhere. It would appear that Marxism came to supply Hicks a resolution for all such questions. Interestingly enough, Hicks predicated that radicalism could produce pessimism if it failed, and after 1939 that is partly what happened, Hicks himself suffering disillusionment to some extent. And after a narrow concern with social ills during' the thirties, he returned in the forties and later to metaphysical questions as one legitim ate subject of literature. . .. 41

Values, then, derived from the humane tradition rather

from any orthodoxy, were important in literature, Hicks said.

Hie human values handed down from the traditions of civilization, not the accompanying illusions of supernatural

revelation, were what we wanted to preserve and to work over and modify to meet the changing needs of modern civilization. And the imaginative artist was to play an important role in establishing these values.

Literature and Society Society, of course, was to benefit from the a rtiste

assim ilation of and portrayal of values, but just how this benefit was to be conferred on society was an Intriguing

problem for the critic. Hicks addressed himself during his early career as a critic to the question of culture and the masses and to the problem of social reform and the connection of literature with it. In 1929 he stated an opinion concerning literature and the masses that is interesting in light of what he later was to argue about proletarian literature. Reviewing Herbert Read*s Phases of English Poetry. Hicks said Read might be

correct in asserting that the only way the modern poet

might avoid sterility would be to be close to his world and his people; he must be a ballad poet, a popular poet. But

poets like Eliot and Frost, said Hicks, were achieving by exclusion and rejection a humanistic world they ■ could ; : 42

respond to. This sort of process might have to go on

”... until we have a culture, related to but not identical with the culture of the masses, which is capable of support­

ing a humanistic poetry."-^ A year later, with the Depression already taking its

to ll, Hicks showed again his Interest in the problem of culture and the masses as well as the connection between

literature and social reform. Reviewing Matthew Josephson*s

book on the American artist, Hicks agreed with him that the

story of American writers was one of frustration, because

of 11. . . our lack of tradition and mad growth.11 But he did not agree with Josephson that we ignore social problems in order to have culture. Josephson advocated a kind of Platonic state, nobly but absolutely led. This might have to come about, Hicks conceded, but first machines had to

provide the material things for everyone. When that is done—if ever it can be done by the present social order—the question of a culture of the masses may legitim ately arise. But it is more than likely that the masses w ill care no more for culture then than they do now, andib is perhaps unwise for critics even to be thinking of forcing culture upon them. The first thing is to provide for all men the bread they need and the circuses they want. Then, if there is an Intelligent minority of those who care enough for art to devote their leisure to its creation and enjoyment, there w ill be sources from which the masses can draw culture—if they want it. •< , * We had to create such a minority, said Hicks, and we did not have to wait for utopia to begin the task. *5 Unlike the

Humanists, who were not much interested in social reform and 4*3 progress, Hicks advocated material well-being for the masses hut did not see the need for the masses to embrace the arts. In that sense he believed in a cultured minority as the Humanists did, but he did not define this minority as an esoteric group. Ihe masses were to have bread and circuses, and a cultured minority was to provide civilizing influences that the masses could draw upon. Later as a Marxist, Hicks was to argue that revolutionary writers had to address themselves directly to the masses and to help create the new culture of the proletariat. The cultured minority came to seem the product of decaying capitalism, and proletarian literature a rebirth of culture and civilization.

This shift from a belief in culture for the minority to the problems of the masses is reflected in what Hicks wrote d u rin g 1931* which was the year of his transition from liberalism to Communism. He came more and more that year to insist on the Importance of the political and economic situation of society. Reviewing Henry Seidel Canby*s book Classic Americans. he suggested that the book (on Irving, Cooper, Emerson, Thoreau, M elville, and Hawthorne) advocated a minority of intelligent people to appreciate literature and that Canby was in the Federalist tradition of Irving and

Cooper, although he did not, like them, defend business. Canby did not show,, as a basis of criticism , what these kb

writers meant today, Hicks said, and he wondered if our industrial society was becoming stable so that they could be appreciated. If Canby1s aristocratic minority can exist only at the cost of the continued suffering of millions of men—and the evidence seems to be on that side—can it come into being, and if it does can it endure? If not, what Is the importance of these 11 classic Ameri­ cans"? Can they be classics either in a society from which basic economic injustice has at last been elim i­ nated or in a society in which the struggle to eliminate that injustice is the most important consideration? If so, from what qualities w ill their classic significance be derived? These are questions Canby does not answer, for he does not even see that they exist. The critic who does answer them w ill make a revolutionary , . contribution to both literary and social thought.16 Hicks by this time had become repelled by the idea of an Intelligent minority enjoying the fruits of art when the masses suffered from "economic injustice," As the Depression deepened, Hicks became preoccupied with literature as a reflection of a sick society and more and more rejected writers who did not have the moral and social commitment he felt was necessary. He expressed this notion of America*s literature portraying the sick society, for example, in a review of American Caravan IV, an anthology of new writing. Ihe writers represented in the book, Hicks said, dealt with , . . frustration, maladjustment or disintegration; several of the poems express disgust or defeat. It is the old, old story in American literature. A smudgy discontent seldom breaking into the clean blaze of tragedy, fills our literary life. We try to lift our- s.elves by our bootstraps from this slough of despond: we try barbarism and super-sophlstlcation, paganism and religion, the emotions and the reason, appeals to the k5

Individual and appeals to organized society. And all with the same result. Can we much longer disagree with those diagnosticians who regard our literature as the literature of a sick society, in which the few apparently healthy individuals have bought their health at a great price? If so, there can be no complaint against the artists; in reflecting our disease, they are merely performing their function. Whether anything can be done about the disease is a different matter.17

The answer to the writer*s frustration was revolution and an Identification with the masses, Hicks was later to argue. The writers who continued to deal in frustration rather than to hold out hope through revolution were later rejected by Hicks and condemned as bourgeois enemies.

His Critical Method : But before Communist revolution came to seem the answer to all of scoiety’s problems, including those of the artist, Hicks had developed a set of premises and critical approaches which we can delineate. His critical method was backed by the two Ideas already discussed: that literature should reflect rationally held values and that it had some connection with and effect upon society at large. Added to these moral and social attitudes toward literature were a general treatment of matters of style and aesthetics, an emphasis on content rather than these formal matters, a set of Ideas about the qualities the writer and critic should have, and'an Interest in classifying types of novels and approaches to fiction. Some examples from his criticism of the pre-Marxist years w ill demonstrate, .his critical method. A writer needed the "imaginative power" to create scenes and characters that seemed real, Hicks often said.

Concerning Nathaniel Parker W illis (1806-1867) of Maine, for example, Hicks characterized him as a poet of "religious doggerel." "Scarcely a line in his poetry shows imagina­ tive power," Hicks said, "and in his short stories, his novel, and his two plays there is not a character that comes to life ." 1® Of a novel by DuBose Heyward, Hicks said that the the author was good at depicting static characters and even the changing society of Charleston, S. C. , but that he was not good at the dramatic novel or at showing the development of character. 19 Concerning a book on Hawthorne by his friend Newton Arvln, Hicks said Arvin*s book showed that Hawthorne f a i l e d t o c r e a te " fle sh -a n d -b lo o d men and women" to express his important ideas, Arvin had done "... a l l that criticism can do to prevent the repetition of Hawthorne *s tragedy of isolation. "2°

These three reviews Indicate the kind of treatment Hicks gave to books in his early reviews. Many of the comments that Hicks made were vague and general, especially concerning style and. form. This vagueness is probably difficult to avoid, since a reviewer has limited space. The reader must often take the reviewer*s general evaluations without being given many details to support the generaliza­ tions. The comments Hicks made about books more often than not were accurate, but his criticism suffered from a lack of 47

substantiation from detailed examples. On occaslone Hicks did present more details and did discuss some aesthetic aspects of a work. His treatment of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms when it was published in 1929 is an example. The strength of the novel came, Hicks said, from Hemingway's choice of words. He quoted the famous passage in which Hemingway says that the abstract words like "glory" and "honor" seemed obscene to th e s o l d i e r s . 21 Other such words became meaningless, too, by repetition, a procedure that was still going on in fiction, Hides said: . . the problem is really how to deal with the perennial themes in such a way that they become alive and important to one’s contemporaries, . . not to find new subjects. Hemingway had made the themes of love and war moving. "By ripping away the verbal trappings supposedly appropriate to these subjects, he has gained, not lost, in poignancy. He has even had the courage to end the book with tragedy, and he has succeeded in conveying, not the grand and largely literary emotions theoretically associated with tragic loss, but a blankness and bleakness far more terrible." His style, H.icks concluded, was ."a marvel of craftsmanship."22

In a-general essay on Hemingway, however, Hicks expressed some reservations. First, he summarized the traits of the typical Hemingway protagonist. Then he analyzed briefly Hemingway's sparse, non-instrospective, objective 48

style. Both the style and characters* outlooks indicated that Hemingway did not trust conventional values and wanted to avoid those pitfalls. His characters tried, Hicks said, to stand between two worlds, giving up much but preserving a bleak integrity. Perhaps Hemingway was trying to write tragedy, and he had succeeded in A Farewell to Arms. because Frederic Henry's exertion to preserve his relation­ ship with Catherine made her death seem truly tragic. But the Hemingway hero was not so representative a type as many admirers believed. "There are, as there always have been," Hicks said, "other worlds than that which he has made his own, and now that he has utilized this one so effectively, one wishes he would turn, to some other." If Hemingway limited himself to the view of his heroes, Hicks said, his chances of further development were sm all.23 Hicks reviewed Hart Crane's The Bridge and was able to give a more detailed analysis of it than he usually gave of books. He outlined the structure of the poem and quoted many lines. It was difficult poetry, Hicks said, but much contemporary poetry was more d ifficu lt and much less rewarding; the imagery was sound, the methods of symbolism were worth considering,and th e" . . • affirmativeness should be contrasted with the elegiacism of most contemporary poetry." Ttie poem would get a lot of attention, Hicks predicted, which of course It has.2^ Qhe note of affirmation that Hicks noted in the poem pleased him; as a critic with k9

an ethical bent he was eager to see new writers who could offer inore than modern pessimism.

Quality of mind and thorough knowledge were require­ ments the literary critic needed, Hicks said, for he considered the critic*s role an Important one. The ethical concerns of a critic, though, interested him more than the

aesthetic. For example, reviewing an English collection of lectures on literature, which included one by T. S. Eliot and another by Rebecca West, Hicks said that in England critics were becoming aware of methods; perhaps they would

come again to "... a reconsideration of e n d s . ,l25

Two pieces he wrote in 1929 indicate his notions on the function of the critic. Ihe critic, he said, should apply all his resources to the book he :is considering ,T. . . in order to illuminate not only the particular book but also . ... life and literature. . . . what counts is the quality of Intelligence and Imagination behind the criticism , the power of clarification, the relating of knowledge and

experience to the problem at hand. "26 i n a review of a book on James Huneker, Hicks said that Huneker’s personal, im pressionistic kind of criticism was not enough; the quality of mind of the critic was important, not- Just the adventures of a soul among masterpieces. "There is a demand that criticism proceed from a well-stocked mind . . . that can grapple with ideas as well as emotions." The Humanist 50

movement was one response to this need. This trend could swing too far, he said, for already there were critics who thought they needed only some dogmatic theory. This anti­ dogma stand is interesting, since Hicks himself later embraced Marxist dogma. Hicks ended the review by affirming the value of the current struggle to create standards and said that in comparison to the current efforts, the old

criticism of Huneker seemed s t a l e . 27

As for the writer, he needed an intimate knowledge of what he wrote about if he were to do his job; style and technique would go for naught if he did not have this knowledge. In an essay on David Graham Phillips, Hicks said that Phillips was good at documenting-details in his novels and showing how men rose to success and how corruption worked. But in addition to knowledge the novelist needed the ability to 11. . . fashion plausible, self-consistent, well-rounded characters," which was something Phillips had not done. Many writers had the form and style and technique but did not have sufficient knowledge of American life . Though he had to concede that Phillips had been more a journalist than a novelist, Hicks said, Phillips* work pointed up a way in which . . the stylists and technicians, the devotees of form and worshippers of the letter . . ." did not do so w ell. A good many writers, he concluded, could use knqwledge such as Phillips* to go along with their s t y l e .2 8 51

William Faulkner had the novelist*s power that many writers such as Phillips lacked, Hicks said In another essay, but Faulkner was too preoccupied with sensationalism. His six books up to then, five novels and a book of verse,

showed perversity in form and content. Faulkner manipulated point of view and chronology merely for the suspense and shock they created: "... what he achieves is not a form rising organically out of the material but an arbitrary pattern.11 Hopefully, Faulkner would go beyond the tradition of Poe and Bierce, for his poems had shown that he had "a simple heart" and that he was not merely macabre. Some of the episodes in his novels demonstrated ". . .a vitality and a kind of veracity that one does not find In the more lurid episodes or the more startling characterizations. . . ." One remembered. In such novels as The Sound and the Fury, the "harsh but convincing" section devoted to Jason and the . . slight, sometimes insignificant passages that bear the stamp of personal experience and imaginative recreation." Faulkner*s technical facility might be his biggest danger, for it was perhaps too easy for him to achieve sensationalism and he might not reach for real tragedy.• "One would like to see what would happen if he attempted . . . something closer to his own experience and easier for his imagination to assim ilate." Faulkner needed, Hicks said, to begin again and t r y "... to build solidly on so much of life as he understands, permitting the organic needs of his material to guide his ingenuity in the creation of new forms. ..." Thus he might get ". . .a fresh and firmly founded attitude toward l i f e . ”29 This essay on Faulkner Illustrates several

aspects of Hicks* criticism at this time. He is against

sensationalism, he wants imaginative power, he is concerned with the writer’s world-attitude, and he is a champion of realism. Faulkner’s experiments in technique made Hicks impatient; like most critics at the time Hicks did not understand that Faulkner was not strictly a realist. Two critical essays and two reviews that Hicks wrote

in 1930 Indicate that he was groping for a clear view of kinds of novels and how to classify and evaluate them. He labeled Joseph Conrad a philosophical novelist with a pessimistic view of the universe, a ". . . universe not so much deliberately malicious as treacherous and alarming." Conrad showed in his novels that he admired the heroic virtues of courage and loyalty. Other novelists such as Galsworthy, Bennett and Wells seemed important, according to recent criticism , because of their sociological value and other non-aesthetic elements. Conrad asserted that reason did little.good in this world; if you were lucky and had the right qualities, you would get what there is in life, Conrad

.was saying. If you failed, you still had the inner victory.

"In human affairs the intellect has, after a ll, figured b r i e f l y v and its importance is disputable; the heroic emotions,

it may be reasonably argued, have had far more to do with 53 the creation of whatever civilization we have.” Conrad’s philosophy was perhaps lim ited hut was justified, Hicks suggested, and would always have an appeal for some people.

So Conrad would survive better than other writers of his period.3 0 Hicks did not make clear his attitude toward the

"sociological" writers but did acknowledge the importance of good form and aesthetics.

Hicks lamented the trend toward subjectivity in recent fiction and suggested that objectivism such as Hemingway’s was encouraging. The subjective novel had gone about as far as it could go with Joyce, Proust, Dorothy Richardson, and Virginia Woolf. This kind of fiction neglected certain human qualities, Hicks said, especially the w ill. The fiction in The New American Caravan. an anthology of new writing, was too subjective. First we had gone for reality in thought, then the flow of consciousness, and now were back to simple deeds as in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. which lias a better trend than' the subjectivism represented in th e Caravan. 3* The autobiographical novel offered possibilities if the writer could detach himself from his character; this Thomas Wolfe had done in Look Homeward. Angel. Eugene Gant and Wolfe were different characters, Hicks said, and the other characters presented were three-dimensional. Cutting out many of these characters and scenes to make a more selected and unified story would have been a great loss, . 5^

Moreover, Wolfe's methods were interesting. He was the first American who had borrowed successfully from James Joyce, "There are scenes which are as Joycean as anything in U lysses,1 and Mr. Wolfe achieves by these methods a picture of Altamont as remarkable as Joyce's picture of Dublin." Wolfe also knew when not to use Joyce's method. "Oils technical device . . . is subordinated to the essentially poetic vision of life which gives both richness and unity to the novel." Hicks was not sure Wolfe could do it again or could do well in a work not autobiographical, but time would te ll,32 In struggling with the problems of form in the novel, Hicks saw the fiction of Ford Madox Ford as a possible answer to the problems of both the sociological novel and the experimental novel, of either the Joycean or the Dos Passos type. Hicks conceded that the most interesting novels seemed to be the radical experimental novels. But there had been many mediocre imitators of such writers as Joyce, Although one studied Dos Passos* novel The 42nd Parallel with interest, one also viewed it, Hicks said, . . with a certain amount of trepidation." Dos Passos might succeed in his projected trilogy, but not many novelists were capable of such an enterprise, and not all worthy subjects could be treated that way. It seems clear that there must be some kind of novel less amorphous and less fully exploited than the 55

sociological novel [ s u c h as those of H. G . W e lls } t and at the same time less perilously difficult than the experimental novel, whether of the Joyce or the Dos Passos type. Perhaps the Jamesian novel offers the best solution of the dilemma. . . . For the most part we have life and passion on one side, with formal perfection on the other. If one must choose between the two, one would, surely, prefer the strength of "Look Homex'jard, Angel" to the symmetry of "The Woman of Andros." But the choice is unnecessary. . . For Ford Madox Ford's work such as The Good Soldier, a "psychological" novel, showed both vigor and formal excellence. Conrad never attempted to present so complex a situation as Ford did, and James "... never ventured to explore emotion so intense and volcanic. When the book reaches its terrifying close, one realizes that only such formal perfection as Ford exhibits could bear the weight of this tragedy." Most English novels had been in the Fielding tradition with cross-sections of English life. James had broken away, and Ford had followed in the James * tradition. He was neglected, Hicks said, because his kind of fiction was neglected. But he had demonstrated the vitality of the Jamesian novel. As the experimental novels declined in favor, Hicks said, Ford's work might receive more attention.33 This concern with fiction was always central to Hicks. During the thirties, he gave a different emphasis to his interpretation of fiction, and after his break with Marxism he broadened his view again, but realistic fiction remained throughout his long career a primary interest. 56

L eftw ard By the summer of 1931 Hicks had begun to reflect openly his leftward movement. In the first of three articles dealing with American novelists* views of industry (which were also preliminary studies that became part of his book lhe Great Tradition). Hicks asserted that John Hay's approach in the late 19th Century had proven to be unworkable. Hay's novel The Breadwinners had been a "polemic on behalf of private property." The industrial leader was the hero, and the strike leader was the villain, but both were "men of straw." Many novels had been written about industry since, and most were critical of industry, and many of private property. 3^ In the second article Hicks dealt with Robert Herrick. His novels had shown the evils of the machine and selfish industrialism but nut in a new way. Vie needed artists as seers who could show us the attitudes we needed to relate • industry to the good life , Herrick showed that the Indus­ trialists were not admirable men, but he was not a seer, for he never got beyond stating facts. He achieved no unified, artistic whole; Fiction had to be dramatic rather than rhetorical; it had to come alive and be vivid and poetic in order to be significant: "... where Is the vision that could give this life esthetic—and human—significance?" he asked. We could not scrap the machine and escape; Hicks concluded that, ".• . . In the writing of novels of Indus- 57

trialism , the fruitful attitude is no more likely to be the

liberalism of Robert Herrick than it is to be the conservatism of John Hay." The answer, Hicks suggested, might come from John Dos Passos.35 Dos Passos, said Hicks in the third article, had not

turned his back on industrial society as Herrick had. And Dos Passos had several qualities he brought with his interest in modern America. First, he had "poetic imagination." Second, he accepted Communistic theories that gave him . . . a definite and advantageous attitude toward the material he works with—since the communist, unlike the liberal , . . accepts Industry and all its natural consequences, rejecting only those features of our order that derive from the private ownership of property. On the one hand, he can accept industry because he has affirmed his faith in the possibility of controlling it with reference to human values; on the other hand, he can, in a different sense, accept the chaos of modern life because he has an ideal by which he can measure it and according to which he proposes to change it. Third, he was an experimentalist. His form might not be the right form even for him, but at least he knew, that the form had to change to fit the purpose. But whatever happened, whether American went Communist or not, Hicks said, "... the necessity for humanizing the machine w ill remain. Not a ll the problems of maladjustment can be solved by a change in the basis of control, nor can the elimination of injustice guarantee the development of a rich culture. There w ill still be tasks for the creative imagination, tasks that Dos Passos helps us to face with a firmer resolution and a steadier hope. "3^ This essay 58

expressed Hicks' most overt approval thus far of Communism. That autumn, in a review of a Hamlin Garland novel, Hicks suggested that Garland had gotten his power from his alliance with his class (although Garland did not use such Marxist terms) and that his fiction dwindled in power after he lost that identification with the poor struggling farmers. At the end of the 19th Century, Garland had written some of our hest fiction, dealing with populism, the single­ tax movement, the lives of people like his own parents; his fiction was "... direct, comprehensive., moving, and

savagely honest.11 It was not propaganda, but it was powerful because of his conviction of the 11. . . desperate injustice of the farmers' situation. 11 Garland had now become, Hicks said, ", . . self-satisfied, fastidious, undemocratic, out of sympathy with every vital movement in contemporary life . 11 His zeal for reform had helped make him a writer, for it had 11 i . . concentrated all his experience and all his imaginative power.11 He moved after his early work to romantic fiction and was taken up by Hamilton Wright Mabie and the Academy; he idealized the heroism of the pioneer, forgetting the hardships. "The cruel realities of agrarian oppression took on the charm of reminiscence. 11 One wondered, Hicks said, what would have happened if he had remained loyal to the hapless farmers of his early stories, and what if he had extended his feeling to urban as well as rural workers? He

might have ended as the great novelist he had promised he 59

would "be. His reform attitude and his intimate knowledge and his personal involvement, Hicks suggested, had given

power to his imagination and helped make him a goodw r i t e r . 37 Reviewing W illa Cather*s Shadows on the Rock. Hicks

chastised her for escaping to the remote past rather than being tough enou$i to deal with the present. The novel lamented that the life of the past had disappeared and cast "a golden haze" on that past. Her earlier work had been given power because of her vivid memories of her childhood in Nebraska, but Shadows on the Rock did not reflect the same vision.38 best writers dealt with the central issues

of their time, Hicks argued, and writers like Cather were seeking to escape. By December, 1931? Hicks had grown sufficiently impatient with any suggestion of undemocratic ideas that he took occasion to attack Robert Spiller^ study of James Fenlmore Cooper. Spiller said that Cooper had worried about

the quality of life and culture in a democracy. Hicks said he wondered if we could worry about quality until some questions had been asked about the things the people needed in quantity. Cooper thought that equality would ruin quality. But before we could consider that kind of special consideration for the few, the many had to have the basic necessities.39 The Depression was taking its toll in people's lives, and Hicks was beginning to reflect the Intellectuals1 6o

concern for social conditions and also their interest in Communism as a p o s s ib le s o lu t io n .

Conclusions

Hides had established many of his social and critical principles in his early years as a critic. He retained many o f th e s e p r in c ip le s when he embraced Communism. H is b a s ic philosophical ideas in his pre-Marxist years were the following: that ethics and values were important in literature and that standards for Judging literature should be sought; that the churches were not contributing to the improvement of society; that writers who expressed an affirmation of life and hope for society, if they found firm bases for their ideas, were more valuable than cynical writers; that society needed great writers and critics who could give it unified views of modern life; that the Humanists were too exclusive, dogmatic, and rigid to- offer much help; that social involvement was more Important than escapism or turning away from society; that in order for literature to flourish, a better social order had to be established; that freedom was important, and discipline was best when self-imposed for rationally held reasons. Hlcksf explored the problem of the relationship between r a'Just political order, the attitudes of the masses, and the cultured minority. At first he felt that culture for the masses was. not as .important as a non-exclusive intelligent 61 minority from which the masses could draw culture if they wanted it. Later he came to believe that a Just political solution to basic human needs for the masses took priority over culture for the few. But he did not during this early liberal period suggest that art and literature should be directed to the masses as he was to do when he became a Marxist and urged the development of proletarian literature. He argued that readers and critics of literature were helped by knowing as much as possible about the life and times of the writer. Social and political and personal back­ ground was important. In speaking specifically of literary works, while emphasizing the ethical content in most of what he wrote, Hicks also asserted certain formal values: fresh words and figures, w ell-realized and dramatized characters and dramatic presentation as opposed to rhetoric were important. He concerned himself with classifying novels, using such terms as experimental, sociological, and psychological. She main thrust and concern of Hicks in his writing, however, was with literature as a reflection of society. He felt from the beginning that the writer was obliged to help humanize industrial society. He argued that the trouble with modern literature could be traced to the general malaise. American literature reflected a sick society with many false values. The tremendous changes because of the 62 machine had made the task of the modern artist very- difficult. It would take great writers with great imaginative power to overcome the obstacles. Writers needed some clear vision, some unifying point of view from which to see life and write about it. This was the Granville Hicks who b egan in 1931 t o c o n s id e r Communism a s a s o lu t io n t o these problems. The year 1932 would see the transition co m p leted . NOTES CHAPTER I I

^■"Days of Despair," rev. of The Modern Temper, by- Joseph Wood Krutch, Forum. June 1929, pp. x -x ii. 2"The Gutter—And Then What?" Forum. Dec. 1928, pp. 802, 809, 810. 3»Traditional Values," rev. of Adam, the Baby and the * Man from Mars, by Irwin Edman, Forum, Sept. 1*929, p. xvi. ^"De Gustibus," rev. of The W hirligig of Taste, by E. E. K ellett, Nation. 27 March I929. P. 37^. 5"To A ll What?" r e v . o f Good-B^re t o A ll l h a t , by Robert Graves., New Freeman. 12 April 193°# P» 117• ^Granville Hicks, Part of the Truth (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World 1965*77 PP. 79, 88. 7"Industry and the Imagination," South Atlantic Quarterly. 28 (April 1929), pp. 126-135. ®"lhe Parsons and the War," American Mercury« Feb. 1927» pp. 129-142. 9"A Christian Literatus," American Mercury. Oct. 1928, PP. 235-42. lOnrphe Catholic Enigma," rev. of While Peter Sleeps, by E. Boyd Barrett, Nation. 10 April 1929, pp. 428-29. ^"Religion," rev. of The History of Christianity In the Light of Modern Knowledge, no author; The Story of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe; The Story of Religion. by Charles Francis Potter, Nation. 23 Oct. 1929* pp. 469-70. 12"The Humanist Creed," rev. of Humanism, ed, Norman Foerster., Forum. March 1930, pp. v i-v iii. 64

13»Joseph Wood Krutch," rev. of Five Masters. A Study In the Mutations of the Novel, by Joseph Wood Krutch, New Republic. 26 Nov. 1930, pp. 50-51. ^"The Past and Future of Poetry," rev. of Lyrical Poetry of the Nineteenth Century. H. J. C. Grierson; Phases of English Poetry, by Herbert Read, Nation. 6 Feb. 1929* pp. 165-36. 15"The American Tragedy," rev. of Portrait of the A rtist as an American, by Matthew Josephson, New Republic. 18 June 1930, pp. 131-32. ^"American Authors," rev. of Classic Americans. by Henry Seidel Canby, Nation, 18 Nov. 1931* PP. 545-46. *7"American Caravanserai," rev. of American Caravan XV, ed. Alfred Kreymborg, et. a l., New Republic. 1 April 1931* pp. 185-86. 18"A Literary Swell," American Mercury. March, 1929* P. 3 6 9 . 19"Southern Transition," rev. of Ifemba1s Daughters, by DuBose Heyward, Forum. April 1929i P. 5547" ^Onrphis s id e o f G r e a tn e ss," r e v . o f Hawthorne . by Newton Arvin, Nation. 13 Nov. 1929* P- 554T 2*Eraest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms (New York: Scribner*s I929), p. I85. ZZu'Purged of Dross," rev. of A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, Forum. Dec. 1929* PP. xvii-xx. 23»The World of Ernest Hemingway," New Freeman, date unknown , 1929* PP. 4-0-42. 24tiThe Rediscovery of America," rev. of The Bridge, by Hart Crane, Nation, 30 April 1930, pp. 520-22. 25"The Lion and the Lamb," rev. of Tradition and Experiment in Present-Day Literature. by City Literary Institute of London, New Republic. 12 March 1930, pp. 105-6.

26Keilett, pp. 377-78. 27"lhe Passing of James Huneker," rev. of Essays by James Gibs on Huneker, ed. H. L. Mencken, Nation. 25 Dec, 1929, pTTHo. 65

28nDavid Graham Phillips: Journalist*1' Bookman. 73 (May 1 9 3 1 ). 2 6 4 -6 6 . 29»nie Past and. Future of William Faulkner," Bookman. 74 (Sept. 193D. 22-24. 30»Conrad After Five Years," New Republic. 8 Jan. 193°» pp. 192-94. 31"Balm in Gilead?" rev. of The New American Caravan, ed. Alfred Kreymbourg, et. a l,, Hound and Horn. 3 (1930)» 278- 8O.

32»tportrait of the A rtist," rev. of Look Homeward. Angel, by Thomas Wolfe, New Freeman. 5 April 1930, pp. 93-4.

33»Ford Madox Ford—A Neglected Contemporary," Bookman. 72 (Dec. 1930), 370. 34»The Conversion of John Hay," New Republic. 10 June 1931, pp. 100-01,

35»Robert Herrick, Liberal," New Republic. 17 June 1931. P. 129. 36>»Dos Passos* G ifts," New Republic, 24 June 1931* p . 1 2 9 . 37"Garland of the Academy," rev. of Companions on the Trail, by Hamlin Garland, Nation. 21 Oct. 1931, pp. 435-36. 38i»Brlght Incidents," rev. of Shadows on the Rock, by Willa Cather, Forum. Sept. 1931t PP. v ii-v iii. 39»Fenimore Cooper," rev. of Fenlmore Cooper, by Robert E, Spiller, Nation. 30 Dec. 1931• P. 726. ' CHAPTER I I I GRANVILLE HICKS: MARXIST, 1932-1939

Most liberal Intellectuals, including Hicks, had been convinced by the end of 1931 that capitalism was doomed. H icks began ta k in g s t e p s toward Communism and by 1932 was committed to it, although he did not join the American Communist Party until three years later. For nearly eight years, from 1932 until 1939» Hicks wrote as a devoted Marxist, changing from his early liberal views on society and literature to Marxist views on society and on the , relationship of literature to society. Hicks became, for

better or for worse, a leading spokesman of American Marxist literary criticism and thus an Important participant in the literary history of the thirties.

Hicks explained that, although he did not suffer from the economic collapse, he was naturally aware of the severe hardships many Americans were experiencing. Feeling that something had to be done and that businessmen could not do I t , h e ask ed h im s e lf , "Why n o t Communism?" For in th e f a l l o f 1 9 3 1 . H icks s a id , "Communism was in th e a i r , a t l e a s t in the air that I was breathing that fall. . . . 66 67

"We—I mean vaguely the Intellectuals—had for the most part been opposed a ll through the twenties to the status quo, to what we thought, of as a business civilization, but In that period’business had been so strong that our criticism seemed futile. . . . Now, however, the men of power were bankrupt, and for the first time we felt that we could—and must—take responsibility. Something, we knew, had to be done. Why n o t Communism?111

Hicks explained his position a year later (fall, 1932) in a contribution to a New Masses symposium, "How I Came to Communism." (Other contributors were Sherwood Anderson, Waldo Frank, Clifton B. Fadiman, Michael Gold, and Upton Sinclair.) Hicks said that during his Harvard years of 1919 to 1925 he became ". . .a fairly typical liberal, with a mild interest in socialism , a strong faith in pacifism, and the usual conviction that the desired changes in the social order could be brought about by the dissemination of sound ideas." He told how such events as the Sacco and Vanzetti case undermined his liberal convictions. Then, after the market crash, his liberal faith slowly disappeared. The choice, he came to believe, "... lay between industrial feudalism and revolution." The depression made him see that capitalism had to be destroyed, Hicks said, and he perceived that the chief problem of writers was how to deal with industrialism. Heading in the works of Marx and his followers, he came to find the answers to questions that had been bothering him. '•I realized that I had done more than reach a decision that might have consequences in some vague future: I had discover­ ed a literary method of great and immediate importance." The battle for revolution would not be won in the arena of criticism , but criticism would have some significance, since the battle had to be fought on many fronts. "Criticism," he concluded, "must be a weapon if it Is not to be merely an amusing game, and I now know in what cause that weapon, so far as I am concerned, shall be w ielded.’’^

The critic, then, could play a role in the revolution. Before discussing his concept of the public role of the critic, I want first to delineate his Marxist social philosophy as he expressed it in comments scattered through his articles and reviews.

«

His Views on Society

Throughout the period of 1932.-1939* Hicks maintained as part of his social philosophy the basic position that capital­ ism had to be destroyed, that a revolution had to be prom oted, and th a t Communism had t o be e s t a b lis h e d in America. A few selections from his reviews and essays w ill illustrate these beliefs. Reviewing the third edition of

John Strachey's The Coming Struggle for Power, Hicks urged middle class Americans to read it as essential to understanding 69

that capitalism was doomed and that Communism must replace it. The revolution would probably involve some violence, but Strachey did not advocate it for workers: the capitalists

would use it to destroy democracy or anything that threatened

their power. 3 H ick s d efen d ed Communism a g a in s t th e id e a t h a t i t w ould destroy individual freedom, in an essay rebutting Joseph Wood Krutch. Many intellectuals, Hicks argued, were not as concerned as Krutch was with ”... remaining urbane and detached and civilized in the midst of the kind of struggle that is now going on.” Krutch and others should look at Russia unmaliciously and see that the masses in Russia were interested in literature, even if the literature was not good in the eyes of Krutch. Disinterestedness and freedom had probably never existed anyway, certainly not for most people, Hicks asserted, and even for the cultured minority this freedom was lim ited. It was true that Communists did not like the "amiability" of detached thinking, as Krutch asserted; but "accuracy and effectiveness," said Hicks, were more important. Krutch, furthermore, was not detached, for he picked up every piece of slander against Russia.and ignored . . the steady progress that is being made there in every field. ..." If Communists are "dogmatic, harsh, and intolerant," perhaps they need to be; and certainly, Hicks argued, Intellectuals w ill not find that much detachment on Krutch’s side. As for individual freedom, 70

Under the dictatorship of the proletariat Mr. Krutch would have less freedom than he has now, "but other people would have more. He would be painfully aware of the forces impinging upon his individuality because they would be forces exerted by a class hostile to h is, but millions of people would have for the first time In their lives and, indeed, in the history of their class an opportunity to expand and grow. Ihe awareness of individuality w ill presumably diminish in a collective society, but the opportunities for the realization of individual potentialities w ill, for the majority, enormously increase. During the period of the dictatorship conscious partisanship w ill no doubt be the rule, but in a classless society the freedom of the mind from the pull of economic interests w ill at last become a human possibility.^ Hevlewing a book on a 19th Century American commune,

Hicks expounded more of his Marxist views toward society. John Humphrey Noyes, founder of the commune, was admirable for his idealism and consistency, Hicks said, even though those building capitalism were doing more good. Capitalism had to be developed to lay the foundation for a collective society. Marx and Engels had pointed out that the bourgeois

revolution inspired ideals that it could not fu lfill, so

the Utopians were useful in keeping the ideals alive. "By questioning the institution of private property, Noyes paved the way for the more realistic advocates of proletarian revolution. His views on sex illuminated the discrepancy between the romantic Victorian theory of love and the actual bourgeois practice." Marx had profited, Hicks said, from the vision of certain Utopians, even though they were

impractical. Noyes had disregarded social movements and forces and thus had been isolated and abnormal. But there 71

was hope: "Die ultimate victory is not with the Philistines, for there are forces working, however slowly, toward the ends the Utopian prematurely seeks to achieve."5 Hicks further expressed his reasons for believing in social revolution in a review of Aldous Huxley*s Eyeless in Gaza. One became irritated with Huxley, Hicks said, when he implied that we should not try social improvement because we would end up with a world like that in his novel Brave New World. Eyeless in Gaza went further in suggesting that men could overcome evil by individual improvement (thus religion) rather than through social reconstruction. Huxley had also criticized Communism, which he did not understand. Huxley s a id , fo r exam ple, th a t Communism r e s t e d on h a tr e d . But capitalism , argued Hicks, created hatred, and "... Communism, at its worst, harnesses hatred to constructive ends and, at its best, gives men understanding enough to transcend it." Huxley also said that it was fallacious to think that better social conditions made better people; change could only come in individual hearts. Loving people would make them love you, and if they loved you, they would be better people, and war and exploitation would vanish. So Hicks paraphrased Huxley. But three thousand years of preaching individual reconstruction had accomplished very little . Social reconstruction, however, had worked. Russia, said .

Hicks, was just one example, "All through history social conditions have changed, and the changes have altered human 72

■beings. There are no other terms In which one can understand

history. What Communism does Is to use the knowledge that comes from history so that man can cooperate with social forces in shaping his own destiny." And getting back to the novel Eyeless in Gaza. Hicks pointed out that Samson got rid of.the Philistines, "... not by loving them, but by pulling

the temple down on their heads."6 A comment Hicks made in an essay on Sinclair Lewis illustrates another idea concerning reform. Lewis in his novels had shown men who rebelled against false bourgeois values. He showed in his anti-fascist novel It Can’t Happen Here that social responsibility was necessary, Hicks said, but something more than protest was needed to save us from fascism. Lewis would have to see that drastic change was needed to save us for the good life. Rebel individualists like Lewis would have to see that you can't run away when you are bored, Hicks said, and what Lewis did on this question would determine the outcome of his search for the good life and his future as a novelist.7 While advocating a Communist revolution and the destruction of capitalism as part of his social philosophy, Hicks as w ell as other Communists and fellow travelers spoke out against fascism. Two articles Hicks wrote w ill Illustrate his anti-fascism , which was repeated in many

pieces he wrote. Reviewing Sinclair Lewis' ]jt Can't Happen

Here in 1935» Hicks praised the book as an effective book In 73 warning and convincing the middle class in America of the dangers of fascism. Lewis knew that a relationship existed between fascism and capitalism; he knew that ". . . fascist demagogues rise to power on the strength of their radical promises," and that liberals would suffer as much from fascism as Communists or Socialists. But Lewis did not strongly emphasize in the book that there was a capitalist basis of fascism: 11. . .h e has not quite freed himself from the notion that fascism is directly caused by the gu llib ility of the masses and the knavishness and sadism of its leaders." The book did not say anything of the militant working class that Wall Street wanted to crush and nothing of the international reverberations of fascism in America. The book ended up saying we had to keep good men in office, thereby showing the liberal helplessness in the face of fascism. Lewis also criticized Communists in the book as* narrow, dogmatic, puritanical. But Lewis was s till welcome in the fight against fascism. "If we are wrong in holding t h a t Communism i s th e o n ly a lt e r n a t iv e to fa s c is m , he h as nothing to lose, for history w ill go his way and not ours. If, on the other hand, we are right, and he has got to choose between what he regards as two evils, it ought not to be hard to determine what Is, for him, on any ground, the lesser of the two."8

Hicks also discussed the fascist threat in its relation to culture and education. He argued in "The Menace to 74 -

Culture" that American culture would he destroyed by fascism, as was happening in other countries. The achievements of bourgeois culture were declining with the decline of capitalism (i. e., the Depression). Already this threat was manifesting itself in cutbacks in school and library money,

in the suppression of dissent, in heresy hunts, in the requiring of oaths by teachers. And the producers of culture, the artists, were menaced too, for they were out of work. Bourgeois culture, it was true, had made mass reading possible and made the writer independent of patrons, but capitalism had never really been friendly to culture. Most people liked education for their children, but it was being threatened, too. "Capitalists as a group are determined to stultify education to protect their interests, and they are quite w illing to sacrifice American youth rather than

t surrender their profits. If the middle class has any pride in its own achievements and any awareness of its own Interests, it w ill demand that the school be taken care of." But the middle class had to fight more than that, Hicks said. As capitalism declined, it would become more barbarous, as fascism. No further cultural advance would come from it anyway, but under socialism the cultural aspirations of the middle class could be fulfilled. Many writers and artists • were determined to work for a socialist society as a way of preserving the bourgeois, cultural heritage.9 (The article • 75

sounds more conciliatory toward the middle class than other pieces. The Communists had launched their United Front by then to enlist liberal and moderate support against fascism .) B e s id e s a d v o c a tin g Communism and th e d e s t r u c t io n o f capitalism and attacking fascism, Hicks also expressed the M arxists usual impatience with liberalism. In discussing E. M. Forster, however, Hicks showed that he could take a qualified position against liberalism. Forster expressed caution and doubt about Communism, Hicks said, but he hated fascism more. His novels were not concerned with social problems but with the conflict between convention and vitality. There was no sense of the economic causes of things In Forster. His approach might seem a long way from Communism, but Lincoln Steffens had pointed out that Communism, Hicks said, was the party of the poets. The contradictions of capitalism showed that "... the full expression of human potentialities demands the creation of a new economic order." Forster was liberal In the good sense that he looked at both sides. And he had a "passion for life" which was a valuable combination. Liberalism alone led to no action, and ". . .a sensitive awareness of human potential­ i t i e s ..." could, without Intellectual guidance, end In . the empty glorification of one*s personal preference, i. e .,‘one!s more or less unconscious class prejudices." But when the qualities of passion for life and awareness of human potentialities were combined, the result was 7 6

". . .a definite propulsion towards revolution.” Forster

had these tendencies, Hicks said, as his essays in the book being reviewed showed. He deserved more readers, though he was not quite a great novelist. But ". . . in time it w ill be recognized that he came closer to the mark than many of his much more celebrated contemporaries. Perhaps It is not a good thing for a novelist to be balanced too precariously between classes.1'10 Here Hicks is showing the Marxist's constant awareness and use of a writer's class alliance as an approach to analysis.. He is also asserting the Communist's view that a "liberal'1 attitude can lead to inaction. But Forster's passion for life and sense of human potential were qualities that Hicks, as a Communist, saw as salutary. Another characteristic of Hicks' social philosophy during this period was his belief in the industrial way of- life and his rejection of anti-Indus trial ideas. Hicks carried this idea over from his pre-Marxist years, as his essay of 1929* "Industry and the-Im agination,?' mentioned, in Chapter II, w ill show.. The belief in the industrial way of life —under the control of the proletariat, of course—is a major element of Communist Ideology, so.Hicks felt, comfortable here, when he became a Marxist. Ford Madox Ford, whom Hicks had praised in 1930 ("Ford Madox Ford—A Neglected Contemporary") came-under criticism from Hicks in 1937 because of his retreat from industry. Ford had become, politically conscious, Hicks said, In the last few years. 77

"He Is against war, imperialism, and economic injustice. These evils he proposes to abolish by encouraging small producers and doing away with mass production. This somehow is to be brought about by a general change of heart, which, in turn, is largely to be accomplished by the arts. He calls himself a Quietist Anarchist, and expresses sympathy with the aims of the Confederate agrarians." His program, asserted Hicks, was futile. The mass production of food made it possible for everyone to have a variety diet, better than home production could ever achieve. Hicks concluded that Ford did not have an "intellectual center" and did not know where he was going.11 In 1938 Hicks published a propagandists book advocating socialism . I Like America asserted that Americans could work together collectively to establish socialism in order to eliminate poverty and to provide plenty. This was the next logical step in the history of America. Industrial ways of production combined with collective effort could, Hicks argued, bring about the dream of plenty, "Some people seem to think we w ill find it difficult to plan for abundance. I don’t. The complexity of a modern-automobile factory or. a modern department store would have staggered our ancestors. . We have learned how to organize production and distribution .. on an Incredibly vast scale, and the idea of our all working together is simply the next step."12 Hicks, having had only a little experience in working in 78

an industrial situation, ignored many of the hard realities of industrial work. He said nothing of the stultifying effect of working on an assembly line or in a steel plant or a textile mill or a mail-order house. Nor did he mention any writers who showed how industry was to be humanized. He simply assumed that socialization would make a ll work and conditions better. Indeed, the problem is a hard one to deal with, since most writers did not paint a pretty picture of factory work; but Hicks strikes one as a little naive in his failure to face the facts of industrial work. As I mentioned earlier, by 1936 the Communist Party had initiated the United Front against fascism, so the hard political line was softened. Hicks.testified in his biography that this approach was more pleasing to him. President Roosevelt, whom Hicks and other radicals had not supported In 1932, later got leftist support for many of his programs. Speaking of 1937 and his early misgivings about the party, Hicks said, . . .1 could not denounce Russia because of the Moscow trials and break with the Communist Party. The USSR, I believed, was the only bulwark against Fascism, and the Communist Party in this country was leading the fight against every kind of reaction. Particularly in its new policy, its emphasis on American radical traditions, its willingness to cooperate with all anti-Fascists, the Party seemed to me more than ever the great hope for the United States, and I would not abandon it because of something that was happening in Russia. I know now, of course, that my decision was wrong, but I con understand why I made i t .1 3 79

Hicks in a review recommended a labor fact book for radicals

and progressives who wanted to defend labor or the New Deal

of Boosevelti^ This was in 1938* He also demonstrated the United Front line in a reply to readers of his book I Like America. Writing in New Masses that same year, Hicks

suggested that Americans who wanted to bring about the changes he advocated should :.nslst on high wages, join a

union, respect picket lin es, support progressive government and relief programs, protect freedom of speech, oppose fascist organizations, fight corrupt local governments, and work for a government with a policy for uniting peaceful nations against fascist aggressors, such as the policies proposed in the speech by President Roosevelt in Chicago. What did all this have to do with Communism? Hicks

explained that if capitalism declined, then people would see t h a t , "... the only way to protect the American standard of living is for the people to take over the means of production. In other words, we believe that these very measures w ill lead to the establishment of Socialism, which is our goal. If we are wrong, If abundance for all is compatible with the continuance of the capitalist-system , then you win. In fact, as I see it, you win either way."1^ Hicks maintained a consistent political position throughout his radical period; the biggest change, as we see here, was

that later In the decade he went along with—Indeed felt

very much at home with*—the United Front soft line in 80

contrast with the hard line of the early thirties. These were the views on society and social reform that Hicks expressed during his radical period of 1932- 1939. They were inextricably bound in with his treatment of literature, of course, but it was necessary to present them apart from criticism .

Literature and Reform We can now examine Hicks * ideas on the part literature

and criticism were to play in social reform. Much of what follows w ill relate, again, to criticism , but let us treat his theories of the social function of the writer and the critic before examining in the next chapter his critical methods. The problem in discussing these matters is that they overlap. It w ill be useful to make some arbitrary division of the material in order to analyze it. Hicks expressed, it seems to me, four basic ideas con­ cerning the relationship between literature and society. One was that the most Important literature was that which dealt with central issues, and the central issue was the class struggle. The second idea was that the writer who in­ terpreted society clearly would express the. attitude of the m ilitant proletarians and would convey a mood of hope rather than fu tility or pessimism. The third was that critics and writers on the left had to develop and promote proletarian 81

literature. The last was that the great literature of America was that in the "great tradition'1 of rebellion and

criticism of the ills of society.

Before becoming a Marxist, Hicks had already argued that the most important writers were those who dealt with the great problems of their times. Hicks continued to assert this premise as a Communist but with a special emphasis. The central issue of the thirties was, to Hicks, the decline of capitalism and the struggle of the workers to win freedom. A sensitive writer felt the pressure his age exerted upon

him, Hicks said. No writer was free: he could run away, but only by paying a price. A great writer was not damaged by the pressure his age put upon him, though minor writers often crumbled. The writer had to do what the Russian novelist Sholokhov had done in Seeds of Tomorrow. which told of the struggle for collectivization in Russia, In order to write the novel, Sholokhov had had to "... immerse himself in the life he was describing so completely th£fc:the book would have the accuracy of an expert diagnosis and at the same time would be the concretely realistic story of living human beings." His great talent had flourished under the pressures of his age.*5 - .

- Great writers could not abandon the struggle or escape ... from It, Hicks asserted at the Second Writers* Congress in

3-937* f o r esca p e w ould o n ly le a d to more f r u s t r a t io n s Many American writers in the past had felt frustration, probably 82

because of the 11. . . contradictions and the decline of capitalist civilization." With the economy improving (in 1937 ) and war not yet upon them, writers had to pause, Hicks said, and consider how they would cope, "Where, even in the confusion of present-day America, are the generous impulses, the broad sympathies, the seeing eye and the . feeling heart? We know, and we know what kind of literature

is created when these qualities are absent," The feeling, in other words, was with the radical writers. Aloofness was not possible: ". . .no artist , . . can remain permanently indifferent to the injustices of our world and to the threat of organized injustice in a fascist world. You cannot stand aloof from the issues of today and . remain a whole man." But what should-writers do to fight war and fascism? They had to write and by their writing and by other means work ", . .t o make the world a place in which good writing can be done." Biey were often called upon to participate in.political struggles, and some writers allowed organizations to absorb them. That was bad. "No writer can afford to let a party or a union do his thinking for him. He may properly act in imison with his group, but the only kind of thinking that is fit for his books is his own. We - have an advantage over earlier•writers because we have a sense of belonging to America.- In the masses who are march­

ing with us we have companions and we have a potential, if

not yet actual, audience." Among the writers at the congress, 83

some would do great work in the next few years, Hicks said, and their hooks would "... march in step with the marching feet of m illions, and they w ill be as great as the tasks of these coming years are great. Many writers did not live up to Hicks's expectations, and he condemned them for their failures. But some succeeded. To he sure, the writers whom he praised never quite lived up to his full expectations of the ideal revolutionary writer, hut they at least were working toward that goal and were not being evasive like the "bourgeois" writers. Hicks's most exemplary writer was fellow-traveler John Dos Passos, In 1932 Hicks called him ". . . the most considerable figure in contemporary American literature." In 1919 and The 42nd P arallel. Dos Passos had not only used new techniques to communicate the immensity and diversity of the nation but had also caught the revolutionary vision, which had given focus to his great talents. Hicks continued to praise Dos Passos, although he was disappointed two years later because Dos Passos had not joined the party. *7 Several other novelists, he said, were dealing with the central issue of the class struggle. Robert Cantwell in The.Land of Plenty, for example, had seen his subject clearly and gave the reader the mental atmosphere of a factory and showed the "unconquerable militance of the workers," although in the end he failed to "sweep the reader along." Grace Lumpkin in' A Sign for Cain showed a Marxian understanding of social forces and a novelist's understanding

of people, although this hook was not as good as.her other novel, To Make My Bread. Fielding Burke had done better in A Stone Came B olling, because the labor struggle was more an integral part of the story, than in her earlier Call Home the Heart. B. Traven in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. had shown how an adventure story could be a good proletarian novel without the author attempting to make it one, because Traven had the proletarian insight. Ralph Bates had done w ell in Lean, The Olive Field, and Rainbow Fish; many of

these books' virtues grew out of his. revolutionary convictions Albert Halper in The Foundry and The Chute had given .insight

i into workers and their environment and-showed that they were made of ". . . good human stuff, the stuff out of which rebellion can and w ill be made," Richard Wright's collection of stories, Uncle Tom's Children.' showed in 1938 he was a first-rate writer who was always reaching beyond the simple event to catch the complexity of emotion; he wrpte with an intensity that made you "clench your fist." And of course at long last in 1939 John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath came along as the novel that did almost everything the ideal revolutionary novel was to do.*§ There was, he said, vitality in the revolutionary literature of the thirties. Not every novel by a Communist was perfect; in fact, revolutionary literature had many defects. "But when I compare the.young radical writers with 85

the young aesthetes or the young regionalIsts or the young

pessimists or the young romantics, I confess that the former seem to he far more alive and promising. To compare Dos Passos* career with Hemingway*s, or Jack Conroy*s first novel with Gladys Hasty Carroil*s, or Isidor Schneider*s poetry with Yvor Winters' is to see the difference between a healthy, courageous, resourceful confrontation of reality and a querulous or timid or snobbish preoccupation with petty personal problem s,11 ^9 A good many writers were dodging the central Issues, Ernest Hemingway had in the early thirties turned away from social issues just as most writers were moving toward them. Hicks did not believe that Hemingway fu lfilled the requirements of a great writer in Death in the Afternoon

(1932) and Green H ills of Africa (1935)* He was dodging the central Issues in order to indulge himself, Hicks said, arid was exploiting the public's interest in him as a personality. Hicks conceded that Death in the Afternoon had a few interesting parts, such as Hemingway's comments on . life and letters, but Hicks was not.amused-by Hemingway's comments about those who wanted .to. save the world. Hemingway offered only personal violence, sex, skiing, and bullfighting as solutions to dissatisfaction with the state of the world. Green H ills of Africa was boring even thou^i it was honestly written, for a writer had to have a ugreat, theme," a s. 86

M elville had said. No one could prescribe an authorTs subjects, but that did not mean, Hicks said, that one subject was as good as another. "There Is greater bigger game In the world than 'kudu» and he had better start going after It now if he ever wants to get it." In 1937 Hemingway published To Have and Have Not t which supposedly showed that individual rebels were ineffective and that the "have not's"

had to fight the "have’s" through collective strength. Hicks was overjoyed and praised the novel as Hemingway’s b e s t work. W illa Cather had also failed to live up to the promise of her earlier works because she was running away from the present industrial civilization, unlike the revolutionary writers, and was seeking to escape into the. romantic past of the frontier. Since her 0 Pioneers! and My Antonia. she had gone through a spiritual crisis and had not tried to see contemporary life as it really was but only saw that it lacked what the past had, at least in her Idealization. "Thus , she has been barred from the task that has occupied most of the world’s great artists, the expression of what is central and fundamental in her own age. "21

In Europe,. Thomas Mann was also indulging in the same kind of evasion, Hicks said# for Joseph and His Brothers, the first part of his long novel The Story of Jacob, was merely an entertaining interpretation.of the Biblical story. Buddenbrooks had been great because it showed the decay of 87

the upper middle class. But In this novel, the " . . . pretense of transcending the lim itations of time exposes Itself as an excuse for not confronting the present." H itler came to power and Mann was writing of Father Jacob. Mann had played too long with mysticism, and now it had its r e v e n g e ,22

To get away from the central Issues, bourgeois writers

tried, Hicks said, to rely on sensibility and personal experience. Ever since the success of Proust and Joyce,

the bourgeois writers had only their own. impressions and emotions to write about. Joyce and Proust, he said, had given us accurate pictures, but their imitators did not, and he listed Elizabeth Madox Roberts, Thomas Wolfe, and William Faulkner as three who depended on sensibility, for that was all in this world they could count on. Novels of

sensibility got away from the important social and human

problems. And Virginia Woolf avoided the issues by indulging in exquisite descriptions while banishing the important bread-and-butter facts that were essential in a portrayal o f l i f e . 23

The important subject of literature, then, was the .. class struggle and the coming revolution. And the novels that best-fulfilled this-purpose were those that showed hope and m ilitant zeal in the workers as opposed to those which, to Hicks, expressed frustration, pessimism, or docility. . 88

Thus Hicks rejected the subjects dealt with by the "bourgeois" writers; he also evaluated works about the working class struggle on the criterion of hope versus despair. Hicks rejoiced, for example, when in 1932 Sherwood Anderson embraced Communism and published his novel about The Gastonia textile m ill strikes, Beyond Desire. The novel was disunifled, Hicks said, but it was interesting for what

it showed about the w riter's direction. Anderson turned to Communism because it was the current of the minds of the Americans he knew so w ell. Discontent, the bewilderment Anderson, has so frequently and Impressively described, is taking shape, finding direction, marching ahead. To what? Anderson does not know, but he is determined to find out. Realizing a ll th is, one sees that '.Anderson* s having.taken the stand he has is peculiarly-important.. It is not merely a matter of a famous author's coming out f.or Foster and Ford. The awakening of a people may be foreshadowed in this awakening of a writer who has always been close to them . ^ Hicks considered many novels about workers as unsatis-. factory. Reviewing an English novel, he said it was about . . the docile progress of the. unemployed to their doom," The effort merely to arouse pity for. them, Hicks said, would probably lead.only to sentim entality. The novel, Frank T ilsleyfs The Plebeian's Progress, was less sentimental than

Catherine Brody's Nobody Starves or Hans* Fallada's L ittle Man, tJhat Now? and it was more "representative." But the book raised several questions. Many m illions of unemployed people probably hoped for the best and starved quietly. 89

Hicks admitted, but there were also m illions of unemployed who refused to die without a struggle and who did not Intend to die at all If they could help it. Many of them had learned the strength of organization and had learned to look beyond the immediate purposes for which they struggled. "The story of the docile unemployed deserves to be told, but so does the story of the fighting unemployed. And to anyone, who believes in the final triumph of the workers the latter story seems much the more important, and the former story, vihen told by itself as it is in these three books [Brody*s, Fallada's, and Tiisley* sj^, appears to be rather less than half the truth." The trouble with writers like Brody, and Fallada was that they appealed to more fortunate people to help; Tiisley was slightly critical of that approach and was thus better, "Even utopian socialism such as the hero*s in: Fallada's novel helps the reader to recognize the,stupidity and brutality of the system behind the depression. T i i s l e y ' s n o v e l may n o t make p eo p le a c t , b u t i t m ight make them think, which is better than merely moving them to tears," Hicks concluded.^5 Pessimism was harmful in a novel, Hicks argued. In evaluating Malraux's Man's Fate, for example, Hicks said that he agreed with Alfred Hirsch that the novel was too pessim istic, and "pervasive pessimism" was not a quality that made revolutionary fiction. Malraux, however, was s till valuable, for though he was interested in the revolutionary 90

movement only In a personal way and not In the Interest of the masses, he had ", . . real Insight into their mental processes, and, though he does not portray their role correctly, he does magnificently convey their emotions," A lot of the revolution escaped Malraux, Hicks said, but a lot was still there, and the revolutionists in the novel w ere "... genuinely heroic and inspiring. Hicks pointed to Walter Greenwood*s Love on the Dole as a good English proletarian novel, but it was not revolutionary enough. It was "... the finest novel of the depression I have read, quite as-tender and human as L ittle Man, What Now? but free from mawkish sentim entality and weak evasiveness." The writer .was aware of the need for change and had his characters say and feel and demonstrate that need, but Greenwood's awareness of the need for change out-■ ran his understanding of the forces that made change possible, that is, the revolution. The only conscious rebel in the novel was ". « . bitterly dissatisfied with his lot, eager for a socialist state but limited to a futile faith in education and reform." Greenwood himself did not go farther than that, either: "... the book is pessim istic, for the only forces it describes are obviously inadequate to combat^the enormous evil it portrays." "Disgust with the existing order," Hicks concluded, "is never enough, but It may be the beginning of wisdom, both for the author and for his readers,"27 91

Hicks was better pleased with Greenwood1s second novel,

The Time Is Ripe: "His picture of the working class is never idealized or romantic; he does not forget the Mrs. Nattles, the poor who scrape along by robbing their companions in

poverty. But he makes the reader conscious on every page of the enormous latent capacities of the proletariat, that capitalism stifles and seeks to destroy." He also showed, Hicks said, with restraint and objectivity the. greedy, narrow, empty lives of the ". . . shop-keeping and industrial bourgeoisie."28

"Communism i s good new s," H ick s s a id in a re v iew confronting the issue of- affirmation in proletarian

literature. "Once understood, once believed in, it holds out hope to a ll but capitalism's pampered few." The establishment of the classless society was inevitable, and socialism would bring on a new era of human development. And this hope was'no mere theory. ' Furthermore, it gave writers a sense of affirmation and clarity of vision: I have seen, among intellectuals, confusion and weakness yield to clarity and strength. I have seen a baffled and desperate day laborer transformed into a m ilitant, capable leader of labor. I have seen men and women, working together for their class, transcend the pettiness and frailty observable in the conduct of each as'an individual. There is nothing - miraculous about this; it results quite simply from an insight that is confirmed alike by logic and action. . He had felt, Hicks said, that revolutionary literature should be able to convey this hopefulness. He had been glad when writers lik e Lumpkin, Conroy, Burke, Josephine Johnson, 92

Thomas Boyd, Edward Newhouse had tried to ", , . catch the m ilitant spirit of the class-conscious proletariat,11 He had

regretted when some writers failed to convey a warmer mood but only showed disgust, as Robert Cantwell, Erskine Caldwell, and John Dos Passos had. It was like the . desperation and disgust expressed by such avowedly defeatist writers as Thomas Wolfe and William Faulkner," Some of the le ftist critics had been accused of prescribing content and treatment to writers, Hicks said, and perhaps they had sometimes had such an effect. Novelists might have pretended to have more confidence than they felt or than they could communicate. Slogans had sometimes been substituted for reality, and stereotyped situations for the data of experience. On the other hand, the writers who dealt with despair had-written .- with conviction and integrity,.. Hie lef^ s critical opponents seemed to assume that a ll the more positive writers used slogans and stereotypes and that radical critics preferred shoddiness and superficiality, Hicks said, .adding that, he. denied either charge. Granted, he had not always been hard enough on some writing that , in some ways had been bad, but .he wanted to explain: If I have tolerated, let us say, the formula of the conversion story or the formula of the strike novel,.it is because I know that there is a dramatic reality in conversion and a powerful story in a strike, and I have hoped that some day the formulas would be transcended. And if I have urged gifted writers to try to see as clearly the hope for the future as they see the causes for despair in the present, it Is because I refuse to b e lie v e th a t th e c e n t r a l f a c t in Communism can .be w ith ­ out significance for those writers who-, in some sense or other, call themselves Communists. 93

Some pessim istic writers were In the party and some hopeful ones were not, so It was not the party line that hampered some writers. It was also harder to express the "... Communist conviction of the triumph of the working

class . . . than a mood of disgust and despair." Also, many of this generation of writers had grown up reading the despair writers. But they had to tolerate writers who showed decay and despair, for their picture of decay was s till valuable; The ones who tried to show hope, though, deserved to be encouraged. Communism Is good new s. Ue are s t i l l w a itin g fo r th e author who w ill show in literature what we know that means In life. VJe may have to wait . . . for yet • another generation, . one that has grown up in the struggle, but I have more faith In the present generation. . There are . mighty themes in .the world today, and a lofty spirit. And I think there are writers wise enough to know.that the sectarians are not th o s e who a ffir m th e tr u th o f Communism b u t th o se who quibble, and bicker, and nag, and deny.^9.

Muriel Rukeyser answered Hicks on the problem of hope a month later, and Hicks rebutted. Hicks, she said, asserted that many young writers showed more despair than hope. She an sw ered : . , . application of a rigid standard of the (moral) happy ending Is useless and has.been proved so every time it has been applied to left-wing literature, .A great many people feel now that whatever excellence the left-wing writers have depends more on their- sensitive straight facing of present scenes and values than on - • the happy posturing of their theses. 1-Jhatever is inert is hopeless, now as always; whatever Is living and aware contains its base of hope. And that’s -no discovery or denial. , . . The hope of this book £New Letters in America, which Hicks had been reviewing beforej is not the familiar one [of m ilitant hope and" 9k

togetherness^] but another, profounder one, by which writers can touch their time and their country and not find the sweetness and light here called for, but its life and a steadier, less blatant hope than Mr, Hicks demands—a hope to be worked for continually, not shouted before its time. In rebutting, Hicks made a few minor corrections of what Miss Rukeyser said and insisted that there were still great stories in the conversion theme and in the strike. On the whole, though, Miss Rukeyser got the best of the argument. The time had come, she said, not to tolerate such prescrip­ tions as Hicks' so readily.3Q This idea that a leftist novel should show m ilitant hopefulness was one of Hicks' less fortunate theories, one which brought him under, attack and obscured other more valuable critical- judgments he made. - Concurrent with the theory of revolutionary hope was the idea that Marxists had to encourage, promote, and single out good writing about the masses, or •'proletarian'' literature. Hicks also undertook to do this. ■ Literature was to be used as a class weapon, as a way Of creating sympathy and brotherhood among the masses. The idea of fostering works about the lives of workers had been a part of the American Communist program since the twenties. M. H. Hedges and Michael Gold, for instance, had solicited sketches and stories from workers, even if their writing was unpolished, for the monthly Mew Masses in 1926.31 ' The term "proletarian literature" meant basically writing about the working class, although It could be, and preferably should be. by-writers from the working class; but "bourgeois" writers were also 95

welcome to write on proletarian subjects, Hicks took up the subject seriously for the first time In 1933 in an essay on the collective novel. He defined, it as a novel in which the interest is not in a single person or small group. It was supposed to represent more adequately the complexity of modern life . But a writer had to show more than chaos, said Hicks; he had to recognize,a pattern, as John Dos Passos had done in *f-2nd Parallel and 1919, There was another kind of collective novel, too, which should be explored, said Hicks. Biat was the kind that dealt with mass movements: ’’Here, instead of an assortment of individ­ uals who more or less adequately represent the whole of society, we have a group of individuals, bound together, by common aims, and the group is,'in a very real sense, the hero of the novel, holding the center of the stage, "The best work of this type has been done in Russia," The writer of this kind of novel had to achieve a balance between the group and the individuals that made it up. He had to ", . . make the reader- feel that the group is made up of comprehensible human beings, and he must differentiate individuals insofar as they have separate parts to play." This kind of novel probably offered more possibilities for revolutionary fiction in the long run, said Hicks, and he hoped American writers would experiment with it. But ", , , the proletarian author should not be unduly conscious of the problem of the collective novel." If he wanted to write of the forces underlying contemporary life , he should do as Dos Passos had done and find the form to exhibit those forces in representative men and women. If he did it by portraying groups or by visualizing individuals, it did not matter. The critics1 job was not to discover the forms the authors of the future would use, but to do their work as well as they could and leave the job of future forms to future w riters.32 Hicks had shown an interest in the forms and kinds of novels in his pre-Marxist days. He believed, however, that the form would grow naturally, out of the perception if the writer had the revolutionary vision. During the year 193^# having taken the Job (non-paying) as literary editor of New-Masses. Hicks -wrote a great deal about the problem of writing and getting a readership for the proletarian novel. And he continued to praise and call attention to proletarian works. 2he fact that a book like Hervey A lleys Anthony Adverse was a best-seller while revolutionary novels went unread irked Hicks. Anthony Adverse was a lively, romantic story with a conventional plot, said Hicks; it also had 11. . . some pretension to a thesis or message, apparently profound but actually commonplace." Thornton Wilder, Pearl Buck, and'Lloyd Douglas also wrote this kind ..of. novel, he said ..m ostly for. the upper middle class, who wanted more than mere entertainment, for they sensed something was wrong in the world, but they did not want the medicine to be too strong. This middle class 97

influence was "completely pernicious" because ", . . it

dodges unpleasant facts and revolutionary ideas." Among the •working class there were few novel readers except radicals, and they were not numerous enough to affect sales. Some writers gave up, but the serious ones kept writing, Hicks said, and they were the hopeful ones, for they knew their writing had to be , . not only . . . honest self- expression but also honest expression of the deepest interests, hopes, and needs of the 95 per cent." These were the writers who grumbled because Anthony Adverse was a best seller and who were determined to destroy the system that assured its sale.33 Hicks wrote a series for Hew Masses in 193^ on "Revolution and the Novel," which was a kind of creative writing course and catechism for revolutionary writers. This seven-part series amounted to enough words for a small book; in it he set forth his ideas.about the selection of form of the novel, the use of the past and future in novels, drama and biography as models, characterization, selection and emphasis, documentation, and an assessment of the future of proletarian fiction. Besides his reviewing and a few other essays, this series represented Hicks' most extensive effort.to. foster proletarian literature. Part 1 dealt with the form of the novel. Many bourgeois forms could not be used in proletarian literature, Hicks 98

said, "because the forms could not he transferred without

", . .a transference of the Intellectual and emotional conditions that created them,” hut that was not true of the novel, which was very flexible. Novels could he classified as past, future, and present. Most writers wrote

about the present, or their lifetim e, hut the future and the past were also possibilities. A novel of the past had to have authenticity and relevance; that is, it had to correspond with the known facts, and it had to he relevant

to the 11. . , fundamental interests of the author and his ■ readers.11 Many writers of historical romances wrote to

e s c a p e th e p r e s e n t: Dumas', S te v e n so n , W illa G ath er, and Thornton Wilder were examples. This kind of escapism Was harmful. Authenticity for proletarian novelists meant correspondence to the best evidence about the historical period in question ". . .a s interpreted according to the Marxian.theory of history. Relevance is relevance to the contemporary situation, interests, and demands of the working class.’1 A proletarian writer using the past would not become nostalgic because he would not be discontented with the present and the future as bourgeois writers would. Bie authentic creation of some past period, especially one with a class struggle in it, would be good. Novels of the future, however, were less promising. They often led to escape, as in Jules Verne and H. G. Wells. 99

Most predicted the future to influence the present.

Utopian novels were good if they revealed humans in an ideal state, and if the people .came alive. Writers like Huxley predicted the future they hoped would be avoided; for the Communist writer this approach seemed useless, since ideas of the future had already been expounded. If such a novel showed the classless society in . . as richly human terms a s p o s s i b l e , , . ."it would be good, but the danger was that it would be "fanciful and unscientific.11' The Communist writer was right to oppose speculation that interfered with

the realistic perception.of objective facts.3** Part 2 suggested that most writers would want' to write • about the present. But there was danger of evasion here too. - Hie important thing was for the author to live in the present: ". . . if he is part of the life of his own times, knows and responds to the currents of his age, faces squarely and seeks to solve the problems of his generation, it does . not matter what he writes about." Most novels were concerned with individuals; this was easier for most writers, in spite of the objections of some Marxists. Collective novels were important, it was true, if they were properly defined as those in which group consciousness was important; but. individuals in the group also had to be shown, as well as the way in which the group came about. The complex novel might be useful, since it did not depend on group feeling 100

"but on the feeling of many individuals. It had to have many c h a r a c te r s and no one h e r o , a l l u n ite d by a common them e, as In Dos Bassos* 42nd Parallel and 1919. The Marxian view could help solve the problem of thematic unity.35 Hicks concerned him self with dramatic and biographical novels as models in Part 3. The- Scarlet Letter was a dramatic novel, with the characters related in terms of the plot sind not merely In terms of some generalization, while Tom Jones was an example of a biographical novel, with a looser structure and less need for rigid selection of details leading causally to a result, as In the dramatic novel. The situation in a dramatic novel had to be related and also signficant. It had to be "representative," and the characters had to be recognizable men and women and not mere puppets. This kind could make a strong impact, as in a.strike. -But the collective novel and the complex novel could be also used to portray a strike. In the U. S ., Dreiser and Lewis were biographical novelists, while Hemingway was dramatic. Techniques in the novel could be discussed In relation to the biographical novel, since all other forms were later developments of what Defoe * Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett had done with the biographical novel. The techniques to be discussed could easily be related to the later forms. These techniques, Hicks said, would be explained in later articles in the s e r i e s . 36 101

Fart 4 dealt with the selection of characters to write about. There was a great variety of types the writer could choose, and no one could tell him whom he should choose, as long as he succeeded in creating a character with whom his readers might identify themselves. The most important thing to a Marxist was the class a character belonged to, although other things were important, too. Characters could be m illionaires, workers, or middle class persons. Few writers knew enough about m illionaires; most serious novelists disapproved of them, though some apologists talked of their . kindness to their families or their "support of culture." Writers usually made the mistake of attributing their evil deeds to their character and not to the capitalistic system. A proletarian writer would see the millionaire as the class-.. conscious proletarian would see him and would not make him a monster but would show the "process of exploitation" under the system. They would show him in relation to his workers. But a character could not be reduced to his economic function a lo n e : "... the millionaire in fiction must be as many- sided as the millionaire in life," Workers could be divided into those already class­ conscious, those who became class-conscious, and those who did not become class-conscious. But the writer should be m ilitant and not try to be completely impartial; Crane hid fear and disgust when he tried this in Maggie. and Catherine Brody's Nobody Starves had "the old . . . condescending pity." 102

No American had written of the class-conscious workers, but

Michael Gold and Jack Conroy had portrayed the workers who became class-conscious. Writing about the worker who did not

become class-conscious was the most difficult because it was hard to deal with and overcome hopelessness. Dahlberg and Caldwell had this weakness. The revolutionary writer did not feel hopeless and did not want to convey this to his readers, 11. . . and yet he knows that slogans and sermons w ill not serve his purpose, and he w ill not resort to falsification." Books like Dahlberg's, Caldwell's, and Farrell's served a * purpose because they analyzed sectors of American life and ", . . constituted an unanswerable- indictment of the - capitalist system .11 ■ Writing about the middle class could be a chance to show its class psychology, but the writer might not be able to express his total view of life' and show the "incipient fascism of the petty bourgeoisie." The novel might be sombre, for the writer would know he was dealing with a doomed class. One worthy theme was the trials of the artist among Philistines. Another was the leftward move of the intellec­ tuals. The farmers could be the subject of ". . .a stirring presentation of-the m ilitant spirit of revolt." . Ihe complex novel would be best for treating the middle class, for the bourgeois fellow-traveler might feel cramped in writing about his class alone. Much could be done here, Hicks concluded, but there were some dangers and disappointments to watch for; 103 the fellow-traveler would find it difficult to free himself from h is m iddle-class ‘background. 37 Hicks in Part 5 gave elementary lessons on selection and use of narrative point of view. He also talked about the selection and proportion of themes. The proletarian novelist would pay close attention to economic influences hut would not neglect other matters, such as sex. The English novel Love on the Dole, for example, had shown the close economic connection between sexual relationships and economic function, while the sex episodes of young Larry in Conroy's The Disinherited were not connected with the main theme. Another Concern, Hicks said, was the working of the character toward a world view. TOie proletarian novel could deal with the hero's progress toward Communism. The revolutionary writer could write about anything, for his field was broader than that of the bourgeois writer, but he had to show "true relationships and Just proportions." Good selection of narrative point of view would help. A lim ited rather than an omniscient point of view often made the writer become selective in ordering his details. Hicks defined and gave examples of.the various kinds of narrative. Limited point of view also helped the reader to participate im aginatively, he said, but the omniscient view could also be a source of pleasure to the reader, because he was in on everything. .. Any. one, novel would probably have the one point of. view right for it, if the writer could discover it. 104-

No one could say, as Percy Lubbock had tried to do in The Craft of Fiction, which point of view was superior.38

In Part 6 Hicks discussed the writer*s problems in documenting and imaginatively portraying life in a novel. A novelist was always selective, whatever subject he chose to write about. He had to take into account the social forces and the environment, though, if he was going to portray human nature. He had to show the social environment to reveal true humanity. Writers had problems .of documenta­ tion, but they also had to create characters. Gold in Jews Without Money and Conroy in The Disinherited had their characters awake to class-consciousness too suddenly without showing how this consciousness had grown out of the characters’ experiences. They had failed to show a relationship that was there in real life. Whether the writer got his material from experience or research did not matter, as long as he felt it imaginatively and responded emotionally. He would get a unified pattern if he had the 11. . . perception of actual relationships." Upton Sinclair in The Jungle let the reader see many things through the eyes of characters. He had felt their emotions. .But there were, Hicks said, long passages of exposition with the writer as mere journalistic muckraker, and here the fictional process broke down. In the novel, it was best to understand conditions through their effect on people, which was the case in 105

.William R ollins1 The Shadow Before, rather than through the writer*s description. The writer needed the intellectual quality of analysis as well as imagination, though. And the Marxist point of view would help many; it was not a substitute for perception, Hicks said, but it was a valuable guide. The economic roles of the characters were not the only considerations, but they could not be left out. And the writer might as well get rid of the idea of being objective; ". . .1 doubt if partisanship, even at its worst, is ever so- destructive as the attempt to reduce art to lifeless passivity.11 The amount • of documentation of details would vary among writers. What' counted was quality of details, not quantity. And no matter how the writer got his material or how he used it, the material had to pass through the sensitive mind of the artist

4 if the novel was to be successful.39

The first six parts of the series were an attempt to ■ set up a formula for revolutionary fiction. In spite of his qualifying remarks that formulas were no substitute for imagination and that writing must not be mechanical, Hicks was indeed prescribing ways of writing proletarian novels. He was seeking a surefire way to-have writers express the truth from the Marxian point of view. Since he believed very strongly that it was the truth, this is not any more surprising than an agent suggesting, to a pulp fiction writer 106

a formula for "being entertaining and salable. But the possibilities for lack of spontaneity in the writer are o b v io u s . In P a rt 7 Hicks asserted that proletarian literature, even when it was faulty, was Important, and that its role In bringing bn revolution might be decisive. I. A. Richards had said that the arts helped a person get his mind from a chaotic to a better organized state. A lack of sensitivity to others and aggressive behavior, for example, were not conducive to the happy, well-ordered.state of mind. But. what Richards said would not work, Hicks asserted, with the present class system. Marcel Proust was no longer important, Hicks said, because Proust left out many kinds of experience and characters that now seemed important. No bourgeois novel any longer satisfied, him, but even faulty proletarian novels did give an overall satisfaction even If parts did not. Grace Lumpkin’s To Make My Bread was slow and lacked emotional Intensity, but the reader In the end was swept to - ”, . • a height of determination and strength." And Arnold Armstrong’s Parched Earth was a faulty novel "... b u t one that seizes the emotions, of. the sympathetic reader, and . disciplines them to a vision and a purpose." These writers were ”. . . discovering a new way of looking at and feeling about life," or rather, Hicks said, they were expressing an

old feeling that was new in literature. "The reason why

revolutionary authors so often seem clumsy is- that they are trying to communicate the operations of what deserves to he called a new type of sensibility. And the reason why we respond so positively to their work, in spite of its manifest faults, is that we are moving in the same direction. Each of us finds his own experiences clarified by what he reads and is better prepared to assim ilate the experiences that the future brings.1' This force was historically important; as a result, a faulty revolutionary novel was more important than a good bourgeois one. Critics could not relax their standards, but they had to see the authors1 aims and measure the importance of those aims, too. In a classless society, • Richards' integration of individual and social satisfactions could be a reality, Hicks said. Until then, revolutionary writers were limited by the needs of the proletarians and thus emphasized class-consciousness and militancy. The writer, of course, had to Include large segments of life along with the portrayal of the class struggle. This struggle was something that touched every thought and feeling and action of people's lives. The sympathies and ideas of Communists were broader than any others*. No revolutionary novelist had done what Proust had done for bourgeois life, not even Dos. Passes.. But he was not the last novelist; his trilogy was just a promise of what was to come. Communism needed a writer, Hicks said, with a combination of qualities that several writers now had.

Then they could see what a proletarian masterpiece would be 108

like: "It would do justice to all the many-sided richness of its characters, exploring with Proustian persistence the deepest recesses of individuality and at the same time exhibiting that individuality as essentially a social phenomenon.11 This masterpiece might not come in America or even in the present generation, for the circumstances had to be just right. Some thinkers did not think that literature was Important to the revolutionary movement. But Richards had said that powerful influences might be those people were not conscious of. "The making of a revolutionary requires a long process of readjustment, involving the whole personality. In this process proletarian literature can play a crucially • Important part." The growth of proletarian literature, Hicks said, showed the power of the movement. And it was ". . . Indispensable . . . for intensifying and organizing the vague Impulses toward rebellion that are the foundation of the revolutionary state of mind. Replying to writers who had written in to New Masses, Hides- said he was sorry that some did not like his series on the revolutionary novel. It had been experimental, he said, and he had known the approach was ". . . rather artificial and schematic.". But he .had thought that he had qualified his categories enough to offset thatfault.Giving such elementary lessons apparently rankled many writers who read his series in New Masses, as one can see they might have. Some of his comments were basic considerations of the craft 109

of fiction. Others, however, attempted to tell writers how to feel and what to think, even though Hicks denied that was his purpose.

Revolutionary literature could be, Hicks felt, the catalytic agent that would cause a chemical change In human consciousness and help bring about the classless society, which was the way to achieve fu ll human development. He rejected the argument that the classless society would have to be established before a proletarian literature could be developed* as Louis Adamic had argued in an article in the Saturday Review of Literature.- since the proletariat; would supposedly be too busy to have leisure for enjoying or producing an authentic art. On the contrary, art had been and was being produced in Russia and in the United States. Russian books were sold and read there, Hicks argued, ('As a matter of fact, little was known about what was going, on among the masses in Russia, Furthermore, even if they were reading, most scholars now d.o not think that many books of quality were written in the Stalin era.^2) The proletariat, Hicks said, would have to be class conscious as long as it had enemies. The classless society would be achieved slowly, and literature* ". . . would respond to every phase of 'this transition, and proletarian .literature w ill gradually become the literature of a classless society." Proletarian culture could not last as long as bourgeois culture had, but it was the only bridge between bourgeois and classless culture. 110

Proletarian literature was not propaganda, as Adamic had

charged, any more than bourgeois literature was propaganda. Proletarian writers, Hicks said, had the same aim as any

writers: they wanted to ", , , write about representative persons and significant events. . ."in such a way as to bring out what they believed to be the truth.^3 The kind of society .one lived in influenced the kind of person one was as well as the kind of art that developed. And, conversely, revolutionary literature could help create the emotions and the ideals in the masses that would bring about the revolution. Thus, to Hicks, literature was very

important to.society, and proletarian literature would help, create the society he was sure was coming. The most important literature in America had always been concerned with society and its ills, Hicks argued; this was the "great tradition" in American literature, the tradition of realism, rebellion, and criticism . Hicks maintained this basic thesis throughout his radical years. He expressed it most completely, of course, in his book The Great Tradition, published first in 1933 and again in a revised edition in 1935- What the earlier writers had lacked was the clarifying v is io n - a n d I n s ig h ts t h a t Marxism g a v e , b u t Communism was th e logical heir to their tradition. The frustration of earlier

American writers could now be done away with. In summing up his book, Hicks reiterated this idea: I l l

This is the great tradition of American literature. Ours has been a critical literature, critical of greed, cowardice, and meanness. It has been a hopeful literature, touched again and again with a passion for brotherhood, justice, and intellectual honesty. That the writers of the past could not have conceived of the revolutionary literature of today and would, perhaps, repudiate It if they were alive, makes no difference. We see that the fulfillm ent of their ideals involves far more than they realized. It involves not merely fulfilling but also transcending their vision. It Involves not merely criticism but destruction of . capitalism and its whole way of life. But the alternative Is fascism's sadistic extinction of every noble hope the past has fostered.^ The book expresses, then, one of his ideas on the■relation-- ships of society and literature. Since, however, It Is his first major attempt at an analysis of literature from a Marxist viewpoint, I w ill discuss It. In Chapter .V of this . dissertation, which concerns his methods of literary a n a ly s i s . Hicks made other statements on his "great tradition" thesis. Addressing the Second Writers' Congress in 1937* for example, Hicks said that literary frustration had been part of the American tradition. Puritanism was the early cause, critics had said, then Brooks talked of the money- centered culture, and now Marxists were talking In terms of the contradictions and the decline of capitalist civiliza­ tion.- It was clear that American writers of the past had never lived up to their potentialities. The writers of the future had to face this problem and decide what to do. Reaction was another path to frustration, as reactionary writers were showing. 112 And trying to remain aloof from politics would not work, either, Hicks said, because fascist forces would

create situations in which literary labors could not be carried on; moreover, aloofness was not workable in such a pre-war period—as they lived in. Robinson Jeffers, Robert

Frost, Edna M illay, who claimed to be aloof, came forth now and then and mounted soap-boxes because no one could remain indifferent to the injustices of their world.- "You cannot stand aloof from the Issues of today and remain a whole man," Hicks asserted, and the best writers would participate as humans and as writers against war and fascism. This was the effort of their own united front. ^5 This to Hicks was the way to overcome the frustration and fu lfill the promises of ~ the great tradition. A year earlier, Hicks had been enthusiastic about Van Wyck Brooks* book The Flowering of Mew England but had pointed out that the book could have been Improved by using an analysis of economic forces. Brooks attributed too much, to the minds that had influenced the New England writers before the Civil War and not enough to the economic forces. Brooks talked of the buffer generation of merchant princes between the old puritans and the new Industrial class that . followed, but why did the merchant princes turn away from puritanism, why did the theological radicals become p olitical conservatives and how much was this conservatism colored by economic interests, and why did writers like. . 113

Emerson and Thoreau revolt against the Ideas of the merchants and to what extent did they take them over? Brooks did not consider these questions. Hicks suggested that the fact that mercantile capitalism was being taken over by industrial capitalism helped cause these changes. The American renaissance had flourished only briefly, he said, because the writers could not adjust to the rapid changes. They tried to cling to the old assumptions of the agricultural and mercantile world and did not face the realities of industrialization after the war. The more that modern critics understood the forces that Influenced the creation of literature, the more fully they could* respond to it and' change the world. Ultimately the only thing to do to save literature was to make drastic social changes. But Brooks had done a great service by making a ll those books and

t writers come alive. "This is a service for which we, who b e l i e v e in Communism a s th e h e ir o f th e f i n e s t Am erican traditions, cannot be too grateful.

Conclus ions As a Communist, Hicks believed that capitalism had to be r e p la c e d by Communism in A m erica, or e l s e fa s c is m would result, and freedom and culture would be destroyed. The liberal approach to social problems would not suffice against the bestial forces of fascism, which was the last gasp of capitalism. But no refuge could be sought, either, in anti­ 114

industrial sentiments, for the use of industry in the hands

of the proletariat would eventually bring about the classless society and release humanity's creative energies. Later in

the decade he came to endorse the United Front of anti­ fascism and a softer, non-violent approach to change.

Literature could play a part in creating the attitudes and values that would win the masses over to socialism , and thus it was to be used as a weapon. Revolutionary critics had to foster proletarian literature, which had great, possibilities of growth, and a release from the frustration seen in bourgeois literature. Die writer had to deal with the central issues of his times or at least write of issues that were relevant to his age and his class. Revolutionary literature was best when it expressed the m ilitant feelings of workers and the hope the future offered. When it displayed docility or fu tility, it was not expressing the whole truth that Marxism had revealed. The most vital literature in America had always been the critical, realistic type that had exposed the injustices of our civilization; this wa3 the "great tradition" which revolutionary literature would be the culmination of. . In retrospect, it seems clear first of all that Hicks, and most other radicals, did not foresee the resiliency of Ucapitalism" with the application of government fiscal manipulation and welfare programs. He suggested that the c h o ic e la y b etw een Communism and fa s c is m , when in f a c t no 115 such choice, was necessary; a middle way was found which, at least for the next few decades, seemed to work. Whether capitalism w ill eventually he supplanted by socialism remains to be seen, but any such change w ill come about more slowly than Hicks expected, if it comes. One could also argue, of course, that the threat of radicalism forced the government to modify its policies. At any rate, prosperity returned, and the fires of revolution were dampened. Hicks saw the role of the revolutionary critic, ironically, much as a church leader might*see his role in passing judgments upon interpretations of church dogma and in pointing out heresies. His most glairing critical error was in insisting that proletarian literature should express militancy and hope. Writers could not superimpose hopefulness upon their work if they did not feel it. Expressing life as they saw it in all its complexity was the only way, as Hicks later admitted: "What a ll of us might have realized was that the young writers were wiser in the doubts that crept into their work than they were in their political affirmatlons. Whether revolutionary literature represented the. culmination of the "great tradition1' in America was an academic question. * Insofar as revolutionary literature represented a continuation of the humanistic tradition and the works of man disapproving of injustice, ugliness, and 116

meanness, It was a worthy part of a tradition. But whether the American literature, past and present, that dealt with specific social ills represented the only great literature remained a matter of taste and personal choice. Certainly it was time for writers to turn to America and its people for subject matter, and at least some writers were needed who could deal with social problems. But Hicks expected too much from literature as a revolutionary weapon. His series of articles on how to write a revolutionary novel, while presenting many good Ideas on the problems and types of fiction, was not the kind of Instruction that would do one b it.to improve literature, revolutionary or non-revolutionary; especially bad were the parts In which he tried to prescribe the proper subjects to write about and the ideas the writer was to express. Creative genius w ill manage'either to survive such exhortation and prevail In spite of it, or It w ill slip away from it altogether and find Its own path to human truth. ‘The critic has. a social function, and in many ways Hicks contributed to the critical process, but the critics role is somewhat less direct and programmatic than Hicks conceived of it, as he himself later a d m itte d . NOTES CHAPTER I I I

-*-Part of the Truth (New York: Harcourt. Brace & W orld, 1965), PP. 92-93. 2"How I Came to Communism:. A Symposium," New Masses, Sept., 1932, p.8. 3"Educating the Middle Class," rev. of The Coming Struggle for Power. by John Strachey, New Masses. 22 Oct. 1935, PP."25-27. . ^"The Urbanity of Mr. Krutch," New Masses. 23 Oct. 1934-* pp. 23-24-. 5"The Oneida Commune," rev. of A Yankee Saint, by Robert Allerton Parker, New'Masses'; 5 Feb. 1936’,' p‘. 27, 6"Samson as Symbol," rev. of Eyeless in Gaza, by Aldous Huxley, New Masses, 21 July,1936, pp. 23-257 7"Sinclair Lewis and the Good Life," English•Journal, 25 (April 1936), pp. 265-273. ^"Sinclair Lewis—Anti-Fascist," rev. of It Can11 - Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis; New Masses. 29 Oct. 1935* p p . 2 2 - 2 3 . 9"The Menace to Culture," New Masses. 7 April 193.6. P . 2 9 . lOitLife, Liberalism and Revolution," rev. of Ablnger Harvest, by E. M. Forster. New Masses. 7 July 1936, pp. 25-26. 11"Revaluing Ford Madox Ford," rev. of Great Trade Route. by Ford Madox Ford, New Masses. 27 April 1937. p. 22. 12j Like America (New York: Modern Age Books, 1938), p . 14-8. 13part of the Truth, p. 14-5.

117 118

^"What Can I Do?" New Masses. 30 Aug. 1938. pp. 19-20. 15«An Epic of Collectivization," rev. of Seeds of Tomorrow. by Mikhail Sholokhov, New Masses. 26 Nov.. 1935* p p. 2 2 -2 3 . l6ii,j3ae jhreat Qf Frustration," New Masses. 15 June 1937. pp. 1 6 -1 8 . 17<»John Dos Passos." Bookman. 75 (April, 1932), pp. 32-42; also "Notes of a Novelist," rev. of In All Countries, by John Dos Passos, New Masses. 24 April 1934, pp. 2 5 - 2 6 . *^Reviews of The Land of Plenty, by Bobert Cantwell, New Masses. 8 May 1934, pp. 25-26; of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, by B. Traven, New Masses. 16 July 1935* P. 23; A Stone Came Rolling, by Fielding Burke, New Masses. 3 Dec. 1935. P. 23; of A Sign for Cain, by Grace Lumpkin, New Masses. 12 Nov. 1935* P. 23; of The' Chute, by Albert H a lp e r , New M asses. 23 N ov. 1937, PP. 2 0 -2 1 ; o f U n cle Tom^s Chlldren. by Bichard W right,-New Masses . 29 March 1938, pp. 23-24-; and of The Grapes of Wrath. .by John.Steinbeck, New Masses. 2 May 1939* PP. 22-241 ^9"Literature and Revolution," English Journal, college ed., 24 (March 1935). P- 24.

20 h b u11s and Bottles," rev. of Death in the Afternoon, by Ernest Hemingway, Nation. 9 Nov. 1932, p. 461; "Small Game Hunting," rev. of Green H ills of Africa, by Ernest Hemingway, New Hasses, 19 Nov. 1935* p. 23; "Hemingway Treats Those Who Have and Have Not," rev. of To Have and Have Not, by Ernest Hemingway, New Masses. 26 Oct. 1937* PP. 22-23. 21"The Case Against W illa Cather," English Journal 22 (Nov. 1933), pp. '704-710. 22»The Magic Mountain*s Mouse," rev. of Joseph and His Brothers, by Thomas Mann, New Masses. 19 June- 193^7 P. 25. 23"Melodrama," rev. of Pylon, by William Faulkner, New Masses. 14 May 1935* P. 25; "Weather Report," rev. of The Years. by Virginia Woolf, New' Republic. 28 April 1937* P. 3 W . ; ...... 24njied Pilgrimage," rev. of Beyond Desire, by Sherwood Anderson, New Republic, 21 Dec. 1932, p. I69. 119

25,|D ocllity and the Depression," rev. of The Plebeian^ Progress, by Frank T llsley, Nation. 13 Sept. 1933» PP. 305-306. 26«Granvllle Hicks Comments," New Masses. 4 Sept. 193*** pp. 29-30. It Is Interesting to note that In 1940 Hicks pointed to this novel as an example of a successful revolutionary novel with a tragic theme; v. "The Fighting Decade," Saturday Review of Literature, July 6, 1940, PP. 3-5* 16-17". Malraux's novel was considered one of the better revolutionary novels of the thirties; Hicks did not at first regard it so highly. 27"The State of Britain," rev. of Love on the Dole, by Walter Greenwood, along with other novels. New Masses, if Sept. 1934, P. 25. ^"Greenwood's Second Novel," rev. of The Time Is Ripe, by Walter Greenwood, New Masses, 2 April 1935* P. 33. 29"Those Who Quibble, Bicker, Nag, and Deny," rev. of New Letters in America, ed. Horace Gregory, New- Masses, Sept, 1937. pp. 22-23. 30"iQood News1 in American Literature, A Symposium;" New Masses. 12 Oct.' 1937* PP. 18-19. 3Id. r. Peck, "The Development of an American Marxist Literary Criticism : The Monthly New Masses.11 Dlss. Temple 1968, pp. 57-78. 32«'The C ollective Novel," Anvil, Sept.-Oct. 1933. p p . 7 - 8 . 33"The Mystery of the Best Seller," English Journal. 23 (Oct. 193*0. pp. 626-629.' 3*f"Revolution and the Novel: 1. The Past and Future As Themes," New Masses. 3 April 193**. PP. 2 9 - 3 1 . 35"Revolution and the Novel : 2. Complex and C ollective Novels," New Masses, 10 April, 193**. pp. 23-25. ^"Revolution and the Novel: 3. Drama and Biography as M o d els," New M a sses. 17 A p r i l , 1934, PP. 24-25. 37nReYolution and the Novel: 4. Characters and Classes," New Masses. 24 April 1934, pp. 23-25. 38iijjevolution and the Novel: 5* Selection and Emphasis," New M a sse s. 8 May 193**» PP. 2 2 - 2 4 . 120

39it^volution and the Novel: 6. The Problems of Documentation, 11 New Masses, 15 May 193^* PP. 23-25. ^OnRevolutlon the Novel: 7. The Future of Proletarian Literature,11 New Masses. 22 May 193*f» PP. 23-25. ^*"In Reply to Authors," New Masses, 3 July 193^* P. 3 2 . ^Jurgen Ruhle, Literature and Revolution: A Critical S tu dy o f th e W riter and Communism in th e T w entieth C entury, trans. Jean Steinberg (New York: Praeger, I969J. ^"Another Authority on Marxism," New Masses, 25 Dec. 193*. PP. 22-23. **The Great Tradition, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1935) P* 329. First edition (1933) ends with similar statement, pp. 305-306. *5»The American Writer Faces the Future," In The Writer In a Changing World, ed. Henry Hart (Equinox Cooperative Press, 1937)* PP. 180-194. . ... * 6 "WIsdom and I n s ig h t," r e v . o f The F lo w erin g - o f New . England. by Van Wyck Brooks, New Masses. 1 Sept. 193^» pp. 27-28.' *?Part of the Truth. p. 150. CHAPTER IV HICKS ON THE MARXIAN METHOD

Hicks conceived of the radical critic*s role as an important part of the revolution. While, fulfillin g this public role of the critic himself, Hicks wrote several essays outlining a Marxian approach to literary analysis, meanwhile applying these theories in numerous essays and reviews and in two books of criticism . The Great Tradition and Figures of Transition. He also retained some of the critical ideas he had expounded in his pre-Marxist days, as I discussed them in Chapter II. His applications of Marxism to literature were im plicit in my discussion in Chapter III of literature and society. But let us Isolate and examine in detail his critical method.

Marxist Philosophy Before doing so, however, It w ill be useful to review briefly the principles of Marxism. John Somerville sums them up this way: Marxism starts with the premise of dialectical material­ ism; that is, it asserts that, all existence.Is material, made up of matter that is ever changing quantitatively and from time to time qualitatively, to become new forms of

121 122

existence. Marxism is opposed to idealism, mysticism, and supernaturalism in general. It rejects, for example, the Platonic idea that pure abstract ideas are the "basic reality, of which material things are simply the passing shadows. The ideas, the concepts evolve after the material things have come about, says the Marxist, not the other way around. Ideas are generated by tangible things. God did not create: matter out of nothing through force of His omnipotent w ill. Matter always was. Matter is in motion . and is thus constantly going through changes. Opposing forces, in the Hegelian sense of thesis and antithesis, meet and are synthesised into each other, until a qualitative change, occurs. No form is ever constant; it is always changing into something else. This idea of pervasive change differs from the idea of static physical forces in mechanistic materialism. An amphibian is not, the same as a fish, nor is a land animal that once was amphibian any longer just more of an amphibian; it has changed qualitatively into something else. ’ This idea, of change goes on not only in natural objects but in the consciousness of humans and in human society. They are constantly evolving and changing and w ill continue to do so. .Ideas, in the general sense of conscious­ ness, ideology, attitudes, values, arise out of matter and the functioning of matter. The Marxist studies society by the method of historical materialism; that is, he considers social organizations as 123

combinations of interpenetrating forces that are always changing, never static. The most Important forces in society are those of the production of the necessities of life. In different stages of history and in different places, the methods of production of basic needs (and also of luxuries) differ; the relations of men among themselves in production also change. ‘'The sum total of these relations of production," Marx said, "constitutes the economic structure of society—the real foundation, on which rise the legal and p olitical superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of. production In material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. It Is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness."^ The forces of production include the natural resources used, the tools and methods, the human sk ill and labor power, and on another level the Interpersonal level of relationships of authority, ownership, and control. A third level of the forces of production Is the "superstruc­ tures," or systems of law, government, religion, arts, philosophy, etc. Societies change because of the Inter­ relationships among these three levels. The consciousness, . or Ideology, of man consists of his consciously formulated rules and principles, his image of himself, and the goals he sets up—all determined by the economic forces at the 124

base of society. What happens at the economic base determines

for the most part what evolves in the social superstructure. Society is made up of “classes,1' each determined by the relationship of that group of people to the means of

production; A central factor in social change is the "class struggle." Slaves, for example, are compelled, legally, to work in production, although they do not own the means of production, while the slaveowner owns the means of productions,

including the slaves, and can sell them. Here is a natural conflict of interest. Hie slave would like to own himself and,reap the benefits of his labor. The slaveowner wants, to keep getting the benefits of the slave*s labor. A class struggle thus ensues. In capitalism, the two chief classes are the industrial wageworkers and the capitalists, or owners of production. The worker does not own the forces of production he works upon; the owner does not necessarily work upon the forces of production he owns but gets part of the fruits of the worker's labor. Hie more money the worker is paid, the less profit (or surplus value beyond what is paid for costs and wages) the owner gets. Hie worker wants as much money for his work as he can get; the owner wants to make as much profit as he can get. Thus, the conflict of interest. .J These struggles are. independent of the w ills of the humans involved, once the economic relationships have been established. Hie problem arises with the necessity to make a profit. If production exceeds sales, it must be 125

reduced. Thus economic cycles and unemployment, etc.,

occur. The Marxist sees profit as immoral exploitation. He sees the business cycle as the inherent contradiction of capitalism, which created that class, the workers or proletariat, which w ill eventually destroy the capitalistic

relations of production. The solution is socialism, a

means by which the workers w ill take over the forces of production and share equally the fruits of their labors.

Unemployment w ill be eliminated, since the need to make a profit w ill have disappeared.

On the superstructure level, the Marxist sees the economic relationships as the primary forces causing-a society's attitudes in such areas as religion and'government. The legal code reflects the facts of power; a capitalistic society does not maintain that profit is illegal or that private property or ownership of 'factories is immoral. A slave society does not for long remain one by allowing an

antislavery government. In religion, God has been histori­ cally referred to as lord, master, king, etc., reflecting

the very nature of socioeconomic classes. Established religions have interpreted morality in such a way as to

conform to the power of the existing ruling class. When slavery, serfdom, and monarchy were dominant, Christianity - Interpreted these as acceptable. When they were overthrown, the churches took views compatible with the new institutions.. While the dissemination of ideas might 126 help bring about changes, the economic and general material forces create the situations whereby changes occur and Ideas of change get generated. H istorical outcomes are thus "inevitable,11 the Marxist says. When feudal lords resisted the rise of capitalism and the bourgeois class, they were resisting not only a class, but the improvements in science-and industry that brought about new modes of production. But changes are very complex, so that men need not be fatalistic. They can influence things. Men w ill do certain things, such as seek their survival, because they are humans; they w ill not sit back and wait for something against their interests- to ' happen, as a rule. The "inevitability" of the decline of capitalism and the rise of socialism does not mean that workers w ill not need to struggle. It means that by struggling they w ill be anticipating forces and working with them Instead of against them. Society is evolving toward a qualitative change, or a social revolution, from capitalism to socialism . From socialism it w ill move toward communism, or the classless society. From there it w ill continue to evolve, but the Marxist w ill not predict beyond that point. The Marxist maintains that human values are not personal or subjective., nor are they, divinely ordained;

Instead, he says, values are based on objective causes and are created by man. Manfs values are determined by his nature and his needs as a human being. He decides whether .. something is good or "bad according to how it affects

humanity's possibilities of existence, survival, functioning, and development. The basis for values is what is good for the survival and maximum development of a ll humans. says the Marxist, not just the aristocrats or an exclusive group, as in ancient slave societies, or in feudal societies, or In

capitalistic societies. Marxism shares the objective approach to values with other schools of thought (except for the "all-human11 idea) such as A ristotle's, Spinoza's, . M ill's, and Holbach's, The Marxist adds the idea that the fulfillm ent of these ethical values can come about only with a complete reconstruction of society. This trans­ formation depends primarily on the development of the forces and methods of production. Marxism holds that at present in human history certain moral values and social goals are Important; fu ll physical and mental helth for all people, fu ll education and creative development of all people to the lim it of their capacities and desires,, enrichment and. further growth of the individual personality, the elimination of exploitation and poverty, and the elimination of destruc-* tive competitiveness, crime, and war.

As for aesthetic values and art, the Marxist does not b elittle them but in fact puts a high premium on them. He sees them as bound up with what is going on in a society and tries to understand aesthetic feelings and the role of art 128

In terms of natural and observable causes. Art forms, trends,

and standards of beauty and taste are seen as functionally related to the socioeconomic evolution. Art plays a role in the great social contests. Some art, of course, is designed simply to entertain, but it is only one type, and even this type does not usually remain neutral and amoral in its effect on its audience. Art is considered a deeply social phenomenon. lhe Marxist approach to art is called social, or socialist, realism. This doctrine does not exclude features associated "with romanticism, impressionism, or modernistic techniques. It does reject photographic realism or- naturalism, which it sees as recording only the. surface of things without showing the underlying causes of social behavior and movement. It excludes abstractionism which loses touch with reality and thereby has significance or meaning only in an arbitrarily subjective way. As Somerville s t a t e s i t , "What is central in social realism is the attitude or premise that art is all about life and the world in which man lives, and that the best art is that which takes due account (in its own esthetic way, or course) of the ascertainable truth about life and the world. If -the art in question seeks simply to amuse or entertain, let it not do so in a way that at the same time raises false hopes or promotes false values. If the art has deeper purposes, then, whatever its techniques may be, it should do Justice to objective truths. Including those truths that can be confirmed at the moral level.

Marxists reject the idea of "art for artfs sake." But it is not to be construed that all art which is not intentionally 129

and explicitly related to morality and social progress is

bad. Nor are artists who belong to reactionary social classes to be judged as poor artists or their work

automatically excluded as works of art. "It is agreed that what is important is not the subjective Intentions of the artist, or his class position by birth or background, but the actual content of his work in relation to the nature of reality and the course of social evolution.1,2

How To Apply Marxist Principles Those are the principles of Marxism, as explained in the sixties by an authority on the subject. Let us return to Hicks, the working Marxist critic of the thirties, and see how he explained the Marxist approach to literature. It is difficult to judge just how much American Marxists of the thirties knew and truly understood about the philosophy r of Marxism, Hicks himself explained in a letter to me, ". . .1 began to try to educate myself in Marxism after I fe lt myself committed to the general Marxist Weltanschauung. I learned a lot, but I never claimed to be an authority on Marxism. Indeed, I .can. think of no one who at that time had a right to make such a claim except possibly Sidney Hook.~"3 Today the writings of Marx and his followers have b.een codified, translated, and generally made more simple and readily available. That was not the case in the thirties. Hicks began to assert the values of Marxist criticism 130

in 1932.^ He continued to insist on the value of this approach more or less consistently throughout the period, and he applied it according to his understanding of it. The class struggle, he said in "Literary Criticism and the Marxian Method," was the fundamental fact of life and was thus the basic approach to analysis. The writer had to understand the conflict of the classes to get at the basis of a situation. The most important writer dealt with the central issues of his time, and the class struggle was that issue. A writer could use the past as a subject, but he had to handle those aspects of the past that had some relevance for his time. Michael Gold, for example, had been right in asserting, Hicks said, that Thornton Wilder*s novels were unrelated to modern Americans* lives. Gold had also showed in connection with this assertion that Wilder*s characters were unconvincing and that his style was pretentious and im itative. Wilder displayed no artistic Integrity, Hicks charged, and he was pandering to a pseudo-aristocracy. A good Marxist critic, Hicks went on to say, did not apply his philosophy in a narrow way as opponents of Marxism had argued. He did, however, regard the status of the forces of production at the time of a literary work, but he did noli apply this information directly. The Marxist critic looked at . . economic relations, the political regime, and the main intellectual currents that develop as a 131

superstructure upon the basis of the productive methods. Instead of trying to over-simplify, he analyses the play of

social forces, the conflict of classes, the effect of the gains or losses of any specific group.” This method was

far more inclusive than other methods used to explain literature. Academic critics, for example, touched only superficial factors in their study of intellectual influences. The Marxists knew that class affected a critic*s view. "They believe that the person who looks at life from the point of view of the exploiting class inevitably distorts it, whereas the person who regards it from.the proletarian point of view is capable of accurate and clarifying interpretation.”

Upperclass writers, of course, could be good, though fragmentary. And it was also true that proletarian writers migit lack imaginative power. The Marxist critics used Marx "as a compass rather than a yardstick. "-5 Criticism as well as creative literature was to be used as a weapon. And writers were to view their world from the position of the proletariat. Hicks soon got his opportunity to contribute to the battle. When the Mew Masses switched from a monthly to a weekly in 1934, he became the literary editor. He stated his views in "An Open Letter" to prospec­ tive reviewers. In spite of the diversity of opinions and backgrounds of leftist critics, said Hicks, it was good that

New Masses had a particular point of view. "Every one of us 132

believes that the capitalist system must be destroyed, by

the power of the proletariat, in alliance with the exploited farmers, the ruined middle class and the aroused intellectual and professional class. Every one is determined to fight such manifestations of capitalism as war and fascism .11 No one would dictate, however, just how reviewers would apply their Marxist principles. They had to be well informed in order to combat criticism from opponents, and they must not be bookish or pedantic. Their task was to 11. . . interpret the Intellectual currents and the emotional forces of our time as they are reflected in literature.1' This magazine was not the most important in the fight, and the literary section might not be the most important of the magazine, Hicks concluded, but this was the reviewers* opportunity, and it was where they would succeed or fa il.6 The study of economic forces, Hicks said, gave interest­ ing insights. If'Ludwig Lewisohn had paid less attention to Freudian psychology and dwelt even more than he had done on sociological influences, particularly the play of economic forces, his book Expression in America. Hicks said, would have been better. Considering economic forces, ". . .a s they shape the ideologies of the various classes, . . ." could have explained ". . . the peculiar dominance of Puritanism In America and the survival of many Puritan qualities. He might have shown why the genteel tradition arose and why it has persisted . , . and he could have 133

discovered in Whitman's class background a better clue to his virtues and defects than he was able to discover in his homosexuality."7

Hicks attempted to clarify the problems facing Marxist critics and to suggest a critical procedure in an article for New Masses called "The Crisis in American Criticism." Marxism, it had become clear since 1929, offered the only possible method for solving the literary problems of explanation and evaluation that the criticis of the post-war period-had bungled. Hicks said-that V, F. Calverton's book The-Llberatlon of American Literature had been too abstract

and that it had over-simplified the matter. Calverton was ' one of the early advocates of Marxist criticism . His book was one of the.first full-scale attempts in the thirties at a Marxist assessment of American literature. Aesthetic categories had been reduced by Calverton to economic categories, Hicks said. It was possible to avoid this over­ sim plification and still.show the fundamental dependence of literature on the economic organization of society. This could be done, Hicks said, by concentrating on the individual writer and his work. The writer's attitude toviard life could be defined by examining the relevant biography, history, and psychology. Then the expression of that attitude In his works could be considered. An author's range of subjects would be determined by the conditions of society and by his personal experience. .After defining the author's attitude 13^

toward life, the critic could then 11. . . examine the aesthetic forms in which the given attitude can express itself when concerned with the given material." Pure technical criticism could also be used, but the basic questions w ill have been answered. This approach would be one way, Hicks said, of ", . . bridging the gap between the analysis of the author*s class status and the analysis of his finished literary product" (which is what Calverton had failed to do). Evaluation presented a more difficult problem, not that Marxism was at fault but that .Marxists had not done it w ell. The primary assumption, though, Hicks said, was that literature, was to be judged by its effects.on its .readers. Sim plifiers among Marxists critics reasoned that that literature was best which so affects its readers that they struggle better on behalf of the proletariat. But this was at fault, for the critic had no way of evaluating the literature of the past, and, secondly, the reader*s standard of value would be shifting every day. The error lay in implying that a book should arouse a reader to go out and do a specific thing. The aim of the creative writer was ". . . to present, in terms of his chosen medium, life as he sees and understands it." It thus affects the reader*s attitude toward life. It was true that a literary work might not affect all readers just alike, but not all responses were purely personal. As a rule, certain groups responded, in certain ways, and the class alignment of a

person was the most Important factor. D ialectical material­ ism had emphasized the important historical role of the proletariat. The critic was thus justified in considering the effect of literature on the proletariat rather than on any'other class. Since statistical Information was not available on this, effect on the proletariat, the critic had to proceed ". . . by studying the possible effect of a piece of literature on the attitudes of persons performing the proletarian role." By reasoning that the critic had to consider the effect of a work on a proletarian, Hicks probably led himself into the position of insisting that proletarian novels express militancy and revolutionary hope, as we saw it expressed in Chapter III. A book was to be judged not by its immediate arousal of workex’S to action, Hicks said, but by the ". . . qualities that contribute to its possible effect on the attitudes of a certain class of readers.1' The critic would insist that the work be concerned with central Issues of life; thus, a novel would have to.show, directly or indirectly, the effects of the class, struggle, since that was central in life, according to Marxism. The critic would insist that the reader feel that he was participating in the lives of the characters. But this intense sense of participating was not to be just a matter of technique; it was to depend primarily on the author's understanding of experience, which 136

was In turn related to his attitude toward life. Hie authorTs point of view would have to be that of "the vanguard of the proletariat." Furthermore, the author had to make as complete an Identification with the proletariat as possible. "He should not merely believe in the cause of the proletariat; he should be, or should try to make him self, a member of the proletariat."

This kind of literature would arouse a sense of solidarity among the workers, not by exciting them to go and do a particular thing, but by creating ". . .a n attitude, an attitude capable of extension and of adaption to any situation. It would, for example, force the reader to recognize the complete unworthiness of the existing system and the hope and power of the working class. It would give him a view of reality that, if he was by economic status a member of the proletariat or if, he was intellectually and emotionally capable of identifying himself with the proletariat, would reveal to him the potentialities and destiny of that class and would galvanize him into action on Its behalf." Hicks, it seems to me, comes very close to contradicting himself in this essay. He said that the reader would not go and do one specific thing but would adapt an attitude, but he would be galvanized into action. Clearly, Hicks saw the purpose of literature as fairly direct in its effect, in spite of his attempt to qualify his statements. Literature 137

was not to be only for enjoyment, insight, expanding of

experience, while the politics was left to the party and to the labor movement. Literature was to have a more direct r o l e . Hicks went on to say in the essay that he was offering these approaches as suggestions for solving the problems the Marxist critics faced. They did not need to convert non-Marxist critics but needed to meet the arguments of

these opponents and expose their inconsistencies. They did'need, however, to reach the young writers and bring them

to the Marxist side. "We must not depend only on arousing their sympathy to our cause; we must also show them the soundness of our position." Marxists had to clarify their position and Improve their practice and work together. This kind of cooperation and effort would have an important effect on American intellectual life and would help bring about the overthrow of capitalism.® He saw the critic, in effect, as playing the role of recruiter of intellectuals for the revolutionary cause. Refining and elaborating on the arguments presented above, Hicks addressed a college English conference in late 193** and later published his address as "Literature and

Revolution." He asserted again that the critic's job was to analyze the writer's world-attitude as it was reflected in his work. The more we understood this attitude, the closer we came to understanding his genius. And if we could come 138

to understand the way his world-attitude developed, we could see him in relation to his own age. The social method of analysis offered the most fruitful approach, compared to the psychological or the aesthetic: 11. . . we can understand an author best if we examine his relation to the social movements of his time and to the class alignments out of which they grow. This may not tell us all we should like to discover, but it w ill tell us what is most important for us to know." Hicks again stated that a literary work should be evaluated according to its effect upon a proletarian. He accepted I. A. Richards* ideas of the desirability of a work of art affording the reader a satisfying integration of his psychological impulses, but this could not occur for the majority of men under capitalism. Richards1 concept of psychological Integration could only be completed in a socialistic society, Hicks argued that art had traditionally had a social purpose and that only the contradictory nature of capitalism had prompted writers to pretend that it had no such function. Writers had seldom tried to maintain that the prevailing way of life under capitalism was good. The revolutionary writer was expressing his world attitude and fu lfillin g his own desires by serving the revolutionary cause. In evaluating literature, the critic had to ask whether it contributed to a world-attitude that was compatible with the aims of the proletariat. That meant 139

that critics could not approve of an attitude of subservience,

or defeatism, or escapism. Promoting escapist daydreams was harmful for everyone, but especially for the proletariat, ", . . both because the hardships of his present existence make them so tempting and because his future role is so exacting.11

Literature of the past, however, was not to be condemned as a whole. Even when a writer of the past showed a class bias, such as Shakespeare in his treatment of the lower class, it was to be valued if the class bias was transcended by other insights. The best writers of the past were those who responded completely to their age. "The great writer has always been wholly and unmistakably part of his age, and, by mastering it, has left something of value for succeeding a g e s ." Hie critic, of course, had to consider whether a writer communicated experience completely and intensely, but he was primarily concerned with the author's world-attitude. The central question of modern man had been the rise of industrialism. Modern writers did not have to write about factories, but ". . . every writer, whatever his theme, must understand the relation of the particular fragment of experience he chooses to describe to the fundamental and inescapable forces that have been affecting every phase of American life." He had to know what was going on. Revolutionary writers had the advantage of seeing life from 140

the point of view of the victors, while capitalist writers were seeing it from the losing point of view. Capitalist writers were therefore frustrated and confused, while revolutionary writers enjoyed clarity of vision and a release from confusion.9

Hicks insisted firmly and repeatedly that the class struggle and the relation of a literary work to it was an important consideration in literary analysis. He defended this idea in a review of Max Eastman's book Art and the Life of Action. Eastman rejected the idea of the class basis of art, Hicks said, with the argument that people of different classes do the same things such as drinking tea or coffee and that there were works of art and elements of art that had nothing to do with the class struggle. This was true, Hicks said, "... but the question is whether these irrelevant elements have any importance, or even can be understood, apart from the elements that are decidedly relevant to the class struggle." Only inconsequential art was so limited. Eastman expressed "the stalest kind of romanticism."1° Hicks advocated the use of Marxian analysis not only for criticism but also for the teaching of literature. In "The Social Interpretation of Literature," he said that this * * approach was harder than the usual discussion of the figures of speech or the author's life. The teacher had to know the period involved. He had to know, for example, that 141

Emerson could be associated with Jacksonian democracy in his ideas on self-reliance. He would profit by knowing about the Industrial evils that Howells began to write about, and the same was true for understanding Garland, Norris, and Sinclair. The same was also true in the thirties for understanding Michael Gold, John Dos Passos, and Jack Conroy. The rise of the revolutionary novels was related to the revolutionary movement and to social conditions f and the teacher could not talk about these writers without discussing those factors. The writer’s individual life also affected his art. Emerson came from a conservative family, and this influenced his p olitics, for he came to write "vague and mystical e x p r e s s io n s o f good w i l l . ” B ut "Whitman, w ith a d i f f e r e n t family background, made a different thing out of Emerson’s ideas: ". . .a much more consistent, as well as a much more dynamic, form of expression." Sim ilarly, the muckrakers had wanted to go back to an earlier era before monopolies, and thus their work was confused. Their class associations made them unable to see the situation and solve it. Even authors who were not socially conscious could be explained by these considerations. If a writer refused to write about his times,- that could be important. If the work the writer did aided the reader or enriched his powers of perception, then the author was Justified in his choice of a remote theme, as in the case of the early VJllla Cather. But if the 14-2 work was merely a distraction from the Issues of the present, or an attempt to falsify those Issues, It was bad.

It would not help in teaching to pay much attention to sentences, metaphors, or mechanics, for the writer was probably competent. If the writer was a bad craftsman, like Dreiser, the teacher had to explain vihy he was still important. Form and style were important In relation to the writer’s general outlook and equipment. Dreiser’s style, for example, was related to the incoherence of his mind. The refinements of James* later style were appropriate to the "rarefied atmosphere" in which the action took place. Even defects in expression, if they were related to defects In perception,could sometimes be traced to the historical or biographical background of the writer. The teacher could tell what made the writer’s capacities of perception and expression work. Hicks suggested that the teacher could get the social approach he needed from Marxian theories of history and culture. But this approach was a threat to the Interests of middle class students, for their way of life was being challenged. Applying Marx became for the teacher in America a matter of compromises and halfway measures, but that was a ll that could be done for education in such a system.H So much for his suggestions on applying the Marxian method. Let us turn now to other critical ideas Hicks expressed as a Marxist. 143

One. of these Ideas concerned the Importance of examining

assumptions. A writer often reflected his unconcscious prejudices and presuppositions in what he wrote, Hicks said in "Assumptions in Literature," which was another essay addressed to teachers. It was the teacher!s job to help students become aware of some of these hidden premises, which they as readers might not look at critically enough,

especially in modern writers. Hicks did not mention Marxism in this essay but instead concentrated on the teacherfs or critic*s role of examining substantive matters

in a literary work. Literature did affect its readers, Hicks argued, and thus it was important to point out possibly harmful or untruthful hidden assumptions of writers, who were often very emotional people. They could not measure the. effect literature had on their consciousness, and certainly they did not want to start burning books. But the critic and the teacher had to be aware that writers often slipped their prejudices in without the reader knowing It. This possibility of prejudice had to be watched for, and shared with students. Hicks gave several examples. Henry James assumed, probably unconsciously, that a small world of leisure class

people represented civilization. Many readers probably got unconscious pleasure out of the snob appeal Involved. Such people needed to have the obvious falseness of this appeal pointed out to them. Archibald MacLeish In his poem •'Frescoes for Mr, Rockefeller's City'1 showed prejudice

against Communists, whom he portrayed as ignorant, crude Jews who showed their own racial prejudices. He allowed his assumptions to enter his poem by the way in which he

portrayed people. Michael Gold had accused him of having a "fascist unconscious" for this reason. Later MacLelsh had not only protested but had . showed in words and actions

that he had no sympathy with race prejudice and that he could recognize sincere revolutionary ardor." Thomas Wolfe would probably deny any prejudice against Negroes or Jews, but he had let it creep into Of Time and the River. In a ll the discussion and praise of Margaret M itchell's Gone With

the Wind, Hicks said, no one had ever thought of pointing out her assumed attitude toward Negroes. People wondered where students got their prejudices, but often they came

from influences such as literature, and teacha-s had to be concerned. Another example was the martial attitude toward war expressed in "The Charge of the Light Brigade." Slick fiction sold the idea of the American dream: that hard work would always bring wealth and success. Teachers did not need to worry so much about the prejudices of writers of the past, because students could probably spot them; students did not have to be told, for

example, that workers were not necessarily "buffoons and rascals,-" as Shakespeare had portrayed them. With modern 1^5

writers, however, students might unconsciously agree; it

would be more d ifficult for them to spot the hidden assumptions.

Pointing out the assumptions was certainly not a ll there was to analyzing a literary work, Hicks said, but it was an important part; not doing so would mean that the teacher was failing his students. "The established methods of teaching literature, with their emphasis on dates and facts, on the one hand, and 1aesthetic appreciation, 1 on the other, scarcely encourage an awareness of the true role of books in the process of human growth. 11 *2 Hides made a pertinent point here. He was propounding

one aspect of criticism that often is neglected today. Formalist critics tend to ignore or evade the issues rather

than attempt to extract the assumptions from a work. The Marxists like Hicks had their point of view, and certainly it: was sometimes narrow, but the narrowness was obvious and was usually stated openly. Discussing the hidden premises of writers and the possible effects of these premises is an important role of criticism . The triumph of formalism in academic circles the last few decades has tend­ ed to obscure the Importance of this responsibility. Another aspect of his critical approach was the use of general literary criteria. Hicks maintained that the Marx­ ian approach was more inclusive than any other critical method. 14-6

In his own practice he used other measurements Incidentally

to evaluate a literary work. This habit of eclectically resorting to other criteria is evident in numerous reviews. One example w ill perhaps suffice here. In The Great Tradition

(which is discussed in more detail below), Hicks suggested that the muckraking novelists failed not only because of their lack of understanding of social forces but also because they vrere bad writers: They treated serious themes, and for the most part treated them seriously. That Is their importance, and on the whole it is their only importance. Their m illionaires and miners are seldom recognizable human beings, fully realized and comprehensibly presented. The movements they describe are not made real to us as movements of men and women like ourselves. These novels do not sharpen the reader’s perceptions, quicken his mind, awaken his emotions, enhance his whole awareness of life. A dozen reasons could be given for this failure, all more or less relevant. It is true, for example, that none of the writers was able to develop a fresh colloquial style suited to his themes; so far as diction is concerned, every one of them is closer to the Victorians than to the writers of the twenties. It is true, too, that the muckraking generation had by no means emancipated itself from the sentimentality and prudery of the nineteenth century. . . . But such considerations are obviously secondary. If any one of these writers had reached the level of true greatness, he would either have eliminated these weaknesses or succeeded in spite of them. The failure of each of these writers is a failure to find a satisfactory point of view.^ This- quotation illustrates his cognizance of other critical criteria and,also his theory that matters of form could not be discussed separately from content. Hicks had argued this thesis from his pre-Marxist days and restated it

In Marxist terms during the thirties. In reviewing V. F. 1^7

Calverton1s book, for example, Hicks said that Calverton

and other critics had failed to show the relationship of craftsmanship to content. Technique could be studied alone, b u t "... the creative process is essentially a unit and . . . the more Important problems of form are absolutely bound up in the problems of content and attitude. 11 Calverton had accepted this idea, Hicks said, but he had not put it into practice.1^ Four years later Hicks elaborated on the theory. Every critic acknowledged that there was no Ideological equivalent for a poem and that there was a difference between good and bad expression. "But some of us hold," he said, "that a thing well expressed and a thing badly expressed are two different things. If two men paint the same landscape, and one painting Is a masterpiece and the other a collection of daubs, the difference is not wholly In form. There is also a difference in content, not in the actual physical content of the landscape, of course, but In the mental content, so to speak—in what the two men perceived." The perception and the expression had to be examined together, "... f o r we are certain that they are Integrated in the actual functioning of the poet." Hicks' was unable ever to show how form and content were indissolubly related or how a work could be broken down that way. What he ended up doing was asserting in essence that if the content was bad, good form did not make any difference. That was the case in the piece quoted in the paragraph above, for Hicks was reviewing F. 0. IvIatthiessen»s The Achievement of T. S. E liot. After stating his theory of form and content, he went on to say that Matthiessen was wrong to praise E liot’s later poetry for its excellence in technique. "He appreciates the great technical Ingenuity of these poems, but he does not see that his ingenuity is functionless, or, rather that its function is to conceal a

lack of perception." Eliot was expressing dangerous ideas, fascist by implication, and was saying less and less to fewer and fewer persons. He had gone "... toward an irrelevant philosophy and a dangerous p o litics."^5 Hicks later dropped his content-form theory; but he expressed it repeatedly during the thirties.

Conclusions i In - summary, .Hicks said that a critic should view a literary work from the point of view of the proletariat in terms of the class struggle, Hicks said, and the writer would do best by identifying himself as closely as possible with the proletariat. Since a writer of Importance dealt with central Issues and since the class struggle was now the central issue, this approach would help the critic to determine whether the writer was adequately portraying social realities. A writer could deal with the past, but only with those aspects of the past that had some relevance 149

for his age. He could not resort to escapism. Understanding the forces of production, economic relations, class alliances, and intellectual currents in any era would help the critic to know the author he was studying. It'would also help him to determine if the author was accurate in his depictions of society. Knowing

the historical background, the class membership, and the personal biography and personality of the author would enable the critic to understand his author's world-attitude. From that knowledge and a close study of what the author produced, he could determine how this world-attitude was expressed and whether it had been expressed adequately. After determining what the author's world-attitude was,

the critic could evaluate it. Evaluation involved considering the effect a literary work might have on its readers. The most desirable effect, in the light of present historical realities, would be to create in the working class the general attitudes they would need in the severe struggle that lay ahead of them. The truest portrayal of society would display the hope for mankind that the revolution offered (this idea was also discussed in Chapter III). While it was true that not all literature dealt with the class.struggle, even that which did not should reflect in small ways the author's knowledge 150

of these forces in the background. If a work did not reflect this reality, it was very unimportant literature. Literary works that distorted reality or pandered to bourgeois, pseudo-aristocratic, or fascist prejudices were to be rejected and exposed for what they were. Besides these specifically Marxist theories, Hicks also expounded other Ideas. One was that form should not be considered apart from content because the vision the author had would determine more than anything whether his form worked. If he had a rich, clear view of his material, he would find the form. Another idea was that critics and teachers had to examine the assumptions a literary work Implied and to point out false or harmful ones. And along the way in his criticism , Hicks acknowledged that other measurements could be brought to bear on a literary work, such as the quality of the diction, or the characterisation, or the emotional tone. Hicks used such criteria In his own evaluations, but he always maintained that these considera­ tions were subservient to the question of the world-attitude expressed in the work. Implicit In all he said about literary analysis was the idea that literature and criticism were to be used as weapons in the fight to overthrow capitalism and establish

Communism. Obese essential ideas that Hicks advocated show some weaknesses as well as some strengths. First, seeing society 151 from the point of view of the workers in terms of the class struggle, or in a sense from the bottom up, does help to clarify many issues and reveal many aspects of injustice for the person interested in humane values. But Hicks wanted writers to portray the feelings of the "vanguard of the proletariat," that is, the m ilitant workers (who were largely mythical). He wanted their books to convey a feeling of hope for the future rather than pessimism or fu tility. Many writers did not feel such hope but s till were able to portray social reality. The effect of Hicks 1 urging writers to "become" m ilitant proletarians could easily have led them to feel and express emotions that were not spontaneous. Any lack of sincerity on the part of a writer w ill usually result in a weakening of his art. Georg Lukacs, the well-known Marxist philosopher and critic whose work has become widely known in the United States only in the last decade, addressed himself to this kind of problem in hi3 attack on "happy ending" novels in Russia: Lukacs also believed that there was a reason for optimism about the future and that this attitude could be useful to a writer. But he contrasted a justified general optimism with ", . . .that schematic optimism that.gives rise to the happy ending." ;Lukacs blamed the dogmatism of the Stalinist era for this falseness. "If a writer feels obliged, like an agitator, to supply ready solutions to all the political problems of the day, his work w ill suffer. He w ill not be 152

able, raising human conflicts to the level of the typical, to shed new light on the decisive problems of the age, as did Balzac or Tolstoy. For the complexity of such conflicts does not allow of the establishment of direct links between

abstract principle and concrete fact. The writer analyses his problem theoretically and thinks up suitable characters to ’illustrate!: it. The result is aesthetically • disastrous."^ The approach to a writer's attitudes that

Hicks advocated suffers, X think, from a similar schematism.

Second, studying the possible effects a literary work might have on its readers is a valid approach. If the critic thinks that the work promotes false or harmful values or attitudes, he is Justified in saying so, especially if he can show specifically what assumptions the literary work implies. But Hicks narrowed this effect theory down to considering what effect a work would have on workers, in preparing them for the revolution; and he wanted the effect

to be direct enough to "galvanize11 t h e ir a t t i t u d e s . He expected literature's role to be much too direct in its effect, rather than to expand the reader's perceptions and sympathies in a general sense.

Third, studying the social and economic background and - even the biographical facts about an author can help illuminate a literary work. And it can serve as a basis for evaluating the "truth" .of the work, if it is used along 153

with the exposure of prejudices and questionable assumptions. Whether looking at the forces and relations of economic production gives the most insight is an open question. But this aspect of the Marxist approach does have its validity.

Hicks argued that literature which did not reflect the

economic conflicts in a society was either false or unimportant. Strictly defined, this lim itation of the subject matter of literature leaves out a good many subjects that people" are concerned with in poetry and fiction, such as the problem of death and a hereafter. The only point at which a Marxist critic, or any other kind, should object is where he sees a distortion or falsification of the realities of economic conflict. Otherwise, the question of

subject is a matter of preference for the writer, and ultim ately for his audience. Lastly, one is struck by the stern, almost puritanical approach Hicks takes to literature^ He talks of how

literature should not foster attitudes that would be harmful for the proletarians in the difficult fight they faced. He says little of the pleasure one can derive from literature. While it is true that art was traditionally regarded from classical times through the Eighteenth Century as having‘a social purpose, as serving to instruct, it was also considered a source of delight. Samuel Johnson said that art was to "instruct by pleasing.Hicks seems to 15^ have been so caught up in the idea of revolution that he overemphasized its importance and underemphasized the pleasurable aspect of literature. I mean not merely "aesthetic" pleasure but the pleasure also of knowledge, humor, insight, vicariousness, and emotional release. Perhaps the problem with the kind of critical approach Hicks took was that it is preoccupied with social injustice. While I would agree that literature that is frivolous, or false in its treatment of the harsher facts of life, is unworthy, I think an obsession with social wrongs leads to a pinching of one's vision and a humorless attitude toward life. Ideally, I think, even socialist realism should transcend tragedy, injustice, and meanness and present the delights of human experience. NOTES CHAPTER IV

3-Karl Marx, "From 'A Contribution to the Critique of P olitical Economy,1" in Marx and Engels, Basic Writings on P olitics and Philosophy, ed. Lewis S, Feuer (Tfew York: Anchor Books, 1959). p. ^3. 2John Somerville, The Philosophy of Marxism: An E x p o s itio n (New York: Random H ouse, "l9f>7), pp. 1 8 1 -1 8 2 . I have used this book as my immediate guide in this* section. 3Letter to me from Hicks, Aug. 25, 1971. False Start," rev. of American Writers on American Literature, ed. John Macy, Nation. 13 Jan. 1932, pp. 50-51. 5"Literary Criticism and the Marxian Method," Modern Q u a r te r ly . 6 (Summer 1 9 3 2 ), pp. 4 4 -4 7 . 6"An Open Letter," New Masses. 2 Jan. 193^, P. 24. ?Rev. of Expression in America, ed. Ludwig Lewisohn, New Republic, 13 April 1932, pp. 2*40-241. Hicks suggested that this book was inadequate and that a Marxist approach would do better. 8»The Crisis in American Criticism," New Masses. 8 (Feb. 1933), PP. 3-5. 9"LIterature and Revolution," English Journal, college ed., 24 (March 1935), PP. 219-239. 10»The Vigorous Abandon of Max Eastman's Mind," rev. of Art and the Life of Action, by Max Eastman, New Masses. 6 Nov. 193^, PP. 22-23, ll»The Social Interpretation of Literature," Progressive Education. 11 (Jan. 1934), pp. 49-54.

12 hassumptions in Literature," English Journal 25 (Nov. 1936), pp. 709-717.

155 156

J]ie Great Tradition; An Internretat1on of American Literature Since the Civil War, Revised ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1935')', PP. 205-20"6"," ^"American Literature: A Marxian Interpretation , 11 rev. of The Liberation of American Literature. by V. F. Calverton, New Republic, ? Sept. 1932, pp. 104-105. ^5"Eliot In Our Time,” rev. of The Achievement of T. S. E liot, by F. 0. Matthlessen, New Masses, 11 Feb. 193*>, p p . 2 3 -2 4 . ^ Q e o r g L ukacs, R ea lism In Our Time (New York: Harper & Row, I962), pp. 121-122. H. Abrams, in The Mirror and the Lamp (New York: Norton, 1953) discusses the various critical approaches to literature, pp. 3-29; on Johnson, p. 19. CHAPTER V HICKS AS A MARXIAN ANALYST

While advocating the approach to literature discussed in Chapter IV, Hicks also put his methods into practice in his reviews, essays, and books of criticism . Let us examine

this criticism to see how he used the principles he was urging other critics and teachers to adopt.

Reviewing Books His application of the principles he enunciated can be seen in the dozens of book reviews he wrote during the thirties. They show his analysis at work and also contain

occasional theoretical statements. An examination of seven reviews tfill serve to illustrate. Of particular interest is a discussion of Marcel Proust. Hicks had become fascinated with the novels of Proust at the beginning of the decade and confessed to having become deeply absorbed in reading a ll of A Remembrance of Things Past. By 193^ be was not sure that Proust would be good reading for proletarians. In the coming post-revolutionary period, Proust might be forgotten, Hicks said, for he did

157 not reveal fundamental truths about humanity. Artists liked his philosophy, because it suggested that the artistfs reconstruction of past experience was the only reality. What Proust gave us of value was a picture of the life of a certain people at a certain time. He showed the decay and

ineffectuality of the French aristocracy and the nauseating corruption of the petty-bourgeois social climber. His

characters from the lower order of society were shown to be stronger and finer, though they were not class-conscious. Proust was partly detached from the aristocracy and was serious about his art. "Detachment from a decadent class is a virtue when it brings freedom from the artifices and illusions with which that class consoles and deceives itself." Thus Proust saw much very clearly. But he would not be chosen in the future, Hicks said, as a model for Communist writers; his methods of'writing were tied to his attitude toward life. ’Writers could, however, learn to understand a bygone age by reading Proust, and they could get some enjoyment from it, though also some "moments of acute disgust." Workers would not benefit by reading him, but revolutionary thinkers could, in order to understand the decadence of the bourgeois class so that revolutionary thinkers could finally break from the bourgeoisie themselves. Proust, in a limited way, could help them to do that. 1 A ll the approaches Hicks had outlined for. the critic are in operation here. He looked at the background and class 159

alignment of Proust. He examined the implications and assumptions "behind Proust's novels. He considered the effect the novels might have on their readers. He noted the way Proust portrayed the lower classes. He considered the methods, albeit briefly and vaguely, that Proust used to convey his world-attitude. Proust's class alignment did not

completely get in the way of his portrayal, Hicks said, for he was partly detached from that class. The treatment of class alignment outlined and practiced by Hicks in this example demonstrates a flaw in his conception. For if

Proust was partly detached from his class, could that not be because he had "the integrity of the true artist? Perhaps any artist must be so detached, even proletarian writers. Perhaps when they were not so detached, proletarian writers also failed to be truthful. I do not completely reject Hicks' idea that the critic needs' to consider.the artist's background. Certainly his background, including class, should be taken into account. But surely the great artist transcends for the most part this class alliance. Proust by Hicks' own admission seems to do that. Other Marxists have not considered the matter of class alliance quite so narrowly. Georg Lukacs, for example, maintained' that an artist of integrity would create living characters who would in a sense lead lives of their own. "A great realist, such as Balzac, if the intrinsic artistic development of situation and characters he has created comes 160

into conflict with his most cherished prejudices or even his most sacred convictions, w ill, without an instant’s hesitation, set aside these his own prejudices and convictions and describe what he really sees, not what he would prefer to see."2 Hicks' emphasis on class alignment did not lead him astray on Proust, since he got around the possible'

contradiction by explaining that Proust had been partly detached from his class. , But he sometimes applied his class alignment criterion superficially, especially in his treat­ ment' of "bourgeois" and "proletarian" writers producing during the thirties.

A writer was affected by the values of his class, Hicks said, and writers of the middle class suffered, since that class was morally and intellectually bankrupt. He pointed to Vachel Lindsay as an example of a poet whose disintegration was caused by the fact that he was a middle-class poet who never questioned his class values and who had no audience to respond to his work. His ideals, such as agrarianism, Hicks said, were outdated. He ended up in suicide, and his death was "a social tragedy." "He--was bound within the intellectual confines of his class. He could not grow; so he deteriorated—and died,"3 Probably more factors were involved in Lindsay’s death than his class alignment. An inadequate sense of values, or a lack of social insights may have been part of his troubles, but attributing these to the American middle class in the rigid fashion Hicks did 161

does not take Into account the fact that the upper and lower classes held many values hardly different from those of the middle class. Analyzing a writer along class lines, without a fu ll documentation of the causal connections, produces dubious results. The importance of what Hicks was

saying in such reviews lies more in the fact that he was pointing up and challenging certain values and assumptions held in our society. But this rigid categorizing of the poet by class was too sim plistic. When Hicks treated considerations of class alignment more flexibly and discussed them in more detail, as he did later in his book Figures of Transition, for example, the results were more satisfactory and the analysis less superficial. Before turning to his books of criticism , I want to discuss :five more book reviews that illustrate his typical approach to Individual writers and some of his philosophical assumptions. The social system, not the evil in men's hearts, caused Injustice, Hicks said in reviewing Phyllis Bentley's novel A Modern Tragedy. The novel was seen through the eyes of the sister of a manufacturer. She wondered if bosses ever stopped to think of the results of their actions on workers, and she wondered if workers ever considered anyone outside their class. It was a failure of mutual love, she concluded. This interpretation did not make for a satisfactory novel, Hicks said, because in ethical terms 162

there were no alternatives that would, have made any differ­ ence, "because of the inherent evils of capitalism. Further­ more, the tragedy of the main characters was nothing compared to the mass suffering mentioned even in this book. If the

author had been a less generous person, she could have accepted the actions of the manufacturers, both honest and dishonest, as a result of the economic system. If she did not have the consolation of believing that men were at fault, she would be on the revolutionary side. "The belief that men are at fault and not the system is the only consolation left for tender minds. . . . Here Hicks was examining Bentley's philosophical and ethical assumptions and rejecting them in light of the m aterialist view of s o c i e t y .

People had to learn that only through collective strength and sharing could they bring about a Just society; Individualism could not change the capitalists. Hicks expressed this collectivist ideal many times as a devoted Communist, as for example in a review of Josephine Johnson's novel Now in November. It was a good novel about Missouri farm life , he said. It showed the forces that brought on the madness and suicide of a girl, the fire and death of the girl's; mother, and the frustration of two lovers. The book had a power sim ilar to that shown by Emily Bronte and Emily Dickinson, but it also was more significant because of 163

the Importance the author attached to the mortgage, the casual talk about farmers1 organizations, the glimpse of a milk strike, and her Insistence on the general tragedy of which the family was a small part, Hicks did not like the fact that the novel ended with a sense of resignation, but he was glad Johnson at least did not take refuge in mysticism or melodrama. There was, moreover, the hint that it was not possible for the characters in the novel to go on alone. This was significant, Hicks said, because of what had been said in the novel about organization. Johnson saw the dangers of trying to ignore war and p olitics, as writers like Cather were doing. The way the radicals were taking had some dangers too, just as the way of Cather had, Hicks said, n. . . but disintegration of the backbone is not one o f t h e m , "5 Hicks liked the novel not only because of the

i collective idea but also because it made the reader conscious of economic forces and their effects on peopleTs lives. He did not like the theme of resignation, but he s till saw value in what the novel showed. Hicks reviewed dozens of social protest novels during the thirties and tried always to evaluate them judiciously, pointing out their faults and virtues according to the standards he had proposed. Many of them, such as Now' in

November, have been forgotten, perhaps unjustly, but probably not. At any rate, the reviews of Johnson*s and 164

Bentley's novels illustrate his typical approach to this kind of hook.

Thomas Boyd's biography of Poor John Fitch, early American inventor, was an example, Hicks said, of a good Marxist analysis. Boyd, a revolutionary writer who had written a novel called In Time of Peace. had shown the personal aspects of Fitch's character as well as the impersonal forces that had shaped him. Fitch invented the

steamboat and had wanted to develop it in the M ississippi Valley. But President George Washington had been interested in keeping this area tied economically to the East. Later with the Louisiana Purchase, Robert Fulton was able to get support for developing the steamboat. Boyd explained both the impersonal forces and Fitch's individual story. "This is Boyd's great achievement, the perfect fusion of historical understanding and insight into a person. That is always the task of Marxist biography: to recognize the way

in which private impulses express social forces." It was too bad, Hicks said, that Boyd did not get to do the biography of Alexander Hamilton that he had planned before he died. "Having dealt so finely with one of the failures of the period, what could he not have done with a man who was elevated to wealth and power by the forces that ruined poor John Fitch?Hicks felt that the book showed the value of studying economic forces and their .impact upon people's lives. He was delighted to offer this book as 165 proof of the Marxist thesis. Hicksf preoccupation with social involvement led him astray when he reviewed Ernest Hemingway*s To Have and Have

Not in 1937. He argued that Harry Morgan was Hemingway*s

\ "most completely realized character,11 better than Jake Barnes and Frederick Henry from earlier novels. Hemingway portrayed the contemptible "haves," Hicks said, with ". . .a kind of quiet fury that I have never felt in his work before." These "haves" included the idle rich yacht owners, a drunken professor, and a pseudo-proletarian n o v e l i s t ,. As for Harry Morgan, we could a ll admire him as

Hemingway did, Hicks said, ". . . but we can see that his way of individual lav/less violence, however heroic in itself, could not work. The remarkable thing . . . is that Hemingway sees it, too." "Harry ‘Morgan is different from a ll Hemingway*s other characters because he is so firmly rooted in a real world. . . . Hemingway sees . . . that no *have-notl, however brave, can single-handed defeat the 1haves.The n o v e l was b e t t e r th an A F a r e w e ll to Arms or The Sun Also Rises. Hicks said, ", . . and the explanation is, quite simply, his increasing awareness of the character of the economic system and the social order it dominates. . . . It Is a fact of importance for American literature."7 Hicks was wrong. Hemingway, it is true, did try to show contempt for the "haves," but succeeded very little in 166 portraying them with any force. Hemingway seems to make it plain he has no use for novels about strikes, nor for revolutions, especially since he shows Harry Morgan's skepticism toward the Cuban revolutionaries he hauls on his boat. Morgan was a well-realized character, but no better than Hemingway’s others.

As for the Implication that rebellious individualism is not as good as collectivism , the novel does not show that

In any convincing way. It is true that as he lies wounded and dying, Morgan says, "No matter how a man alone ain 't got no bloody fucking chance," but the comment Itself could be taken as much as a lament for the passing of rugged individualism as for the conversion to collectivism . Furthermore, nothing Morgan does as a character leads the reader to believe that he has much faith in collective action by workers, for he has as much contempt for the average worker's ability to fight for himself—although he is sympathetic—as he does for most revolutionaries. To be sure,

Hemingway is not against democratic ideals and humane treatment of common people. But neither does he express much hope for their improvement. The truth is that whatever Hemingway x*as trying to say, he was confused. The novel contains some good passages -of writing, but it lacks over-all unity. The narrative point of view shifts around confusingly for no .apparent reason.

The book ends with Morgem's voluptuous widow wondering how 16?

she is going to make it through the remainder of her life

having to endure nights without Harry, one of the few real men around. Hemingway seems to be saying that vital, down- to-earth, brave people like Harry and His wife are surrounded by weak, stupid, and mean people from a ll classes and a ll walks of life. The effect is closer to sophomorlc cynicism than high tragedy, and certainly it has no kinship with revolutionary or m elioristic fiction. The unified force of his short stories and his earlier novels is not evident here. The novel as a whole is a failure. Hicks had been right about the stylistic development that Hemingway had shown in the twenties. He had also been correct in pointing out the limited subject matter and the juvenile nature of Hemingway's answer to disturbing problems—violence and sensation. But he was too eager to have a major writer express the collective spirit, and' lost his judgment on To Have and Have Not. He should have seen that Hemingway was s till no radical novelist. Throughout the thirties Hicks argued that writers were obliged to become socially involved, as I pointed out in Chapter III. Halph Bates was a writer who had profited from such an involvement in Spain, Hicks suggested in a 1939 review. He coupled Bates and Halraux as writers who showed that 11... . in our time great literature is most likely to be given us by writers who have learned to act or by men of action who have learned to twite. The problem of the writer 168

is always to find a vantage point from which he can see clearly, and today that vantage point seems to be in the midst of the battle." These writers not only knew what they were talking about but also had a psychological advantage. "They know what they believe because they have put their beliefs to the test." Bates wanted to find the roots of the revolutionary movement by learning one place intim ately. "Bates sees in the daily lives of simple people the possibilities that sanctify revolt." His tales of simple folk were the work of a great artist, although Bates was "not a careful writer." He was sometimes awkward, but he would improve, Hicks said, and he was a great man with wide interests and abilities. His devotion to the cause had behind it ", . . the wisest understanding of men and the sincerest participation in their hopes I have ever met." Bates had looked for "... something more fundamental in the Spanish people than their sufferings, and for something deeper in the revolutionary movement than the mere righting of wrongs." He had shown his partisanship in action, so he could be impartial in his books, 8 Many other examples could be given of book reviews that Hicks wrote, but these seven w ill serve to show his approach:- his consideration of the writer's background, social views, and assumptions; the Marxist premises he set against what he inferred from the literary work in question; and his consideration of the possible effects.a literary work 169

might have on its audience. AIL of these elements did not show up in every review; Hicks used whatever critical approach he felt would hest get at the essentials of a writer and the work in question. His longer critical works involved more historical background, for he was dealing more in literary history.

Ihe Great Tradition Let us now look at his Marxist application on a large scale, first in The Great Tradition.9 As I mentioned in Chapter II, Hicks in the late twenties had become interested in the impact of industrialism upon American literature; his interest was the germ of this book. Before he had completed

the book in 1933t however, he had been converted to Communism and had adopted M arxist c r it ic is m . He f e l t he had found in the Marxian analysis the tools he needed to clarify the material he had been considering for several years. Throughout the book, Hicks concerned him self, as we w ill see, with the classes to which the American writers since the C ivil War had belonged, with the classes which they wrote about and the ways In which they treated these classes, with the political views of the authors personally and the views reflected by their fictional characters, and with the w r it e r s 1 frustration and lack of full development, which Hicks related to their failure to grasp the necessity for social revolution. 170

The book covers a good many writers and contains many summary evaluations and comments that Hicks made about the authors. The main focus, however, is on economics and politics. It would seem useful to first summarize the main points of his argument In each chapter of the book. The nature of his approach w ill then become clear. The end of the Civil War, Hicks said in the opening chapter, meant more than the surrender of Lee at Appomattox: it meant that capitalistic Industry was to dominate and that the old agrarian, mercantile ways would be supplanted. The planting aristocracy, which had been the chief political rival of capitalism, was crushed. "So capitalistic enter­ prise swept ahead in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, bearing opportunity in one hand and destruction in the other . . . ," Hicks concluded, for it was promising more than it could accomplish although it would accomplish more than an earlier generation had dared to even dream, (p. 2) The giants of pre-war literature, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and M elville, were not to be followed by other great men. In spite of their achievements, they did not have much to say to the post-war generations. Now Hawthorne and Thoreau were dead, and M elville was about to sequester him self in the New York customhouse. Emerson remained, but even he, writing "Terminus" in 1866,' was and knew he was at the end of' his creative days. Far xforse than the departure of these men was the silence of their work amid the clamor of the age. What, after a ll, had any of them to say to the new generation? What, did self-reliance mean to Jay Gould and Commodore V a n d er b ilt? VIhat co u ld i t mean t o young 171

girls in New York sweat shops? Could Thoreau's account of his life at Walden be taken as a guidebook by a generation that had committed itself, or been committed, to the frantic m ultiplication of the machine? Were M elville's records of lands beyond the grasp of Industrialism the proper inspiration for young men whose eyes were focussed on the march of steel rails and whose ears were tuned to the hum of engines? Could one find in Hawthorne's subtle analyses of sin any clue to the demoralization of a nation? These men were the consummation of an epoch that, by 1865, was ended. Though it was in their day that industrialism was gathering its forces for the decisive conflict and the ultimate victory, their roots were in a different soil, and the fruit they bore could never grow again. (p p . 4~5) I w ill not go into all the statements Hicks made on these authors, but it would be unfair to say that he mentioned nothing of their work and its value, for he did. After the war M elville was neglected, Thoreau treated as a pleasant eccentric, and Emerson and Hawthorne were honored, Hicks said, for their least admirable traits: Emerson as optimist and consoler and not as rebel; Hawthorne for his prudery and moralizing and not his earnestness and craftsmanship. The- post-war generation brought the pre-war literary heroes down to the level of the Gilded Age. James Hussell Lowell perhaps offered some hope, but he had at first identified himself with the tradition of respectability and had only later through the influence of his wife embraced the abolitionist cause. For a while in... some pieces his passion for freedom made his poetry vital, and he admitted that taking a radical stand was the only way to greatness. But before the war he grew tired of reform and controversy. He devoted himself to editing and 172

to fostering European literature. After the war he saw there was a struggle for freedom, Hicks said, between the masses of men and the new leaders, the industrialists and financiers, whom he did not like; but he was not w illing to cast his lot with the common man. He wavered in politics and in literature took refuge in the great writers of the p a s t.

Wait Whitman was a man who sensed the democratic Impulse of the masses and who tried to express it; he accepted the ideas of self-reliance from Emerson but also saw that the individual could fu lfill his destiny only by Joining with his fellow men. He had faults both in his contradictory, undisciplined thinking and in his poems, which were often built out of bare facts and untouched by efforts of the imagination. But a clearer thinker might have become discouraged when he realized what would be required to achieve his vision. He accepted the new forces that would shape the civilization he dreamed of, but he did not consider how the forces would be controlled and efforts would be made to bring about that civilization; in other words, Hicks was Implying, he did not advocate a revolution by the masses. But he had been close to the people and in many ways was the founder of the new American literature of the industrial era. The common men and women for whom he wrote were not interested in his poems; 11. . . for them liberation meant the privilege of amassing wealth, and each of them dreamt of the 173

day when he would be numbered among the rulers. Decade after decade of disillusionment would fail to convince them of their individual weakness and their collective strength. In the meantime literature was left in the hands of the well-bred and the comfortably situated, who as a rule had only contempt for Whitman.11 (p. 30) The literary activity after the war was largely imitative and fu ll of middle-class moralizing, Hicks said, although there were "new cultural forces at work." And the leading critics were against "everything that was vital and h o p e fu l."

In the second chapter Hicks dealt with the regional1st literary movement, which offered some promise in Bret Harte, Mark Twain, Edward Eggleston, George Washington Cable, Sarah Grne Jewett, and others. The West apparently offered

to give birth to many regional cultures, but sls a s e c t io n reached a level of development that would allow for cultural growth, Hicks argued, the forces of industrialism and thus of disintegration would destroy its uniqueness and homogen­ eity. The state of a market thousands of miles away deter­ mined the welfare of wheat raisers, sheep herders, and silv=r miners. And the factories came, making the frontier spirit out of date and destroying sectional Individuality. It happened first in California. When Bret Harte was first achieving recognition and dreaming of a Western American literature, the California of the gold miners was being transformed Into a state of business men; Harte had at first not considered the miners worthy of literary attention but may have come to regard them more highly once he became disgusted, Hicks said, with the money-grubbing spirit. His stories of the miners were based on the contrast between "superficial uncouthness and inner nobility," When he went East, he discovered that the old Boston of tranquillity and men of letters had become the new City of factories and brokers1 offices and struggling immigrants. Harte turned out to be a mere entertainer who had become popular by using the devices of the local color writers. Many other regional writers set out to portray the life and spirit of their sections but ended as mere entertainers because they did not grow with the section. They fe ll back on nostalgia. Mark Twain was a product of the frontier and could have written with powerful realism of what he saw if he had acquired the discipline necessary. He knew he needed guidance but accepted it too humbly from people whose standards were those of Eastern gentility. He considered his writing as only one of many enterprises to make money and never felt complete pride of workmanship in his writing as he had as -a riverboat pilot. His four best books—Tom Sawyer. Huckleberry Finn, Puddlnhead Wilson, and Life on the M ississippi—dealt with his frontier youth and not with the 175

life around him in the Gilded Age. All his books were flawed, Hicks said, although he enriched our literature greatly and came closest of any writer to expressing the life of the frontier. In the final analysis, however, he

did not have the power to see hidden relations among minor incidents in order to develop a major theme as a great novelist had to, Hicks said. He was not a recluse and knew the men and events of his time. Little of this knowledge got Into his books. This created in him the dissatisfaction and cynicism of his later years: his comments on the "damned human race," his feeling that itfrIters were not independent, his conviction -that people liked him merely as a clown and that he was often demeaning him self. He was the prime example, Hicks said, of the American writer whose great potential was not realized. Other regionalists like Eggleston, Cable and several more tried to capture the character of their areas, but for the most part they also looked backward, which encouraged nostalgia and evasion of present realities. Moreover, Hicks said, the critics and the genteel reading public did not want to read about the harsh realities of the contemporary scene. There were the very rich and the very poor who hoped to move from rags to riches, and there was the genteel middle class who decorated In the vulgar, cheap Victorian ways and who founded literary societies and sponsored lectures by authors. The writers offered entertainment and 176

escape, and none realized his full potentiality as an artist. Regional literature might have provided ", . .a natural transition to a national literature. . . . Instead, it

* sw iftly degenerated into a form of amusement for a vulgar / age." (p. 67)

Chapter III concerned writers who had tried to write of the present realities. Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner f a i l e d in The G ild ed A ge. Henry Adams in Democracy depicted the corruption and demoralization of the nation. Neither book found a unifying theme, Hicks said, except the implication that a change in the social structure was the only solution, an idea that they and other authors shrank from. William Dean Howells tried to write of Industry, but in The Rise of Silas Lapham he created a hero who was a product of the pre-war era. Lapham decides not to sacrifice his personal integrity for the sake of his business, and he ends in poverty but saves his honor. The reality of the captains of industry, however, was different, for they apparently did not suffer from such scruples as Lapham. Yet many readers found the novel to be too bold, for it did suggest that there was corruption and temptation in the business world. Another writer, Henry P. Keenan, attempted a more indicting portrayal in a novel called The Money-Makers. but it was a failure because it was more journalistic than literary. He had written the book as a 177

counterblast to John Hay's anti-labor, pro-capitalist novel The Bread-V/lnner s. Only Howells tried persistently, Hicks said, to write of his own era. But his books did not force themselves into the central meaning of a situation; they

did not unveil the harsh realities of economic struggles and class interests. Howells admired the Russian novelists but

preferred for his own work a more placid kind of realism, because his own personal experience was lim ited. His two best novels displayed his ideas of social equality and brotherhood, but they contained only one bit of class reality: there were no servants in Altruria; Howells had observed this social problem in his own life and could therefore treat it. So Howells was lim ited, confused, and therefore superficial in what he wrote. But he pushed literature toward the right direction of realism.

* The fourth chapter concerned writers who had found some fruitful results in their flight from the difficult realities and complexities of their present America: these were Henry James and Emily Dickinson, and to some extent Sarah Orne Jewett. Choosing to write of the Maine village life she had known and that was disappearing, Jewett portrayed the virtues of her people in such a way as to arouse a similar response in the reader. But she had lim ita­ tions, in spite of her powers of perception and evocation: the lim itations of an elegiac subject matter and of limited 178

personal experience. Henry James had commented that it would take the grasping imagination of a master to write about America, t a quality which James said Howells did not have and which he was not sure he had. James* background, Hicks said, was that of an unusual American leisure class family, and he had few ties with America, having spent his youth abroad. James faced the problem of choosing between America and Europe, but finally gave up on America, although he wrote his best books about Americans encountering Europe. James shrank from-the complex and vulgar world of his America, but in turning to Europe he did not find what he wanted, so he sought complete sufficiency in art. The leisure class of England were not, James learned, the ideal class of cultured people he dreamed of. "Both as a person and as a writer

i he needed the sanctions that an established class could lend to his individual tastes and activities *" (p. 108J His background and his experiences led him to his theories of art. "In both respects the peculiar course of his life strengthened tendencies that were rooted in the economic situation and cultural habits of his family. For James art was not a form of action but a form of enjoyment, and the artist was not a participant but an observer." His leisure class attitude toward life and his idea that the novelist should deal with ". . . phases of life farthest removed from the basic struggles for existence ..." both shaped his art. 179

"Out of the idea of the artist as observer came his whole preoccupation, in its way so fruitful, vrith the question of the novel is t's point of view. It made him an ingenious, experimenter and, within his lim itations, the sharpest of observers. His interest in what Lubbock calls fthe results and effects and implications of things' encouraged in him a subtlety that no American writer has equaled." (p. 109) Hicks devoted 15 pages of the book to James, describing the themes and implications of his novels and short stories.

He concluded that James had gotten away from the ideas of realism he had enunciated early in' his career and that he sought ultim ately to write about what ought to be rather than what was, which Hicks argued was sheer romanticism. The majority of readers had rejected James, and for good reason,. Hicks said, for he had not written anything that touched their lives and interests. He had not even written in full about the leisur.e class, not in a realistic way, at least. His characters were untouched by harsh realities of pain and economic hardship and spoke a strange language. The contacts with realities were too fragmentary and tenuous to have more than secondary value, Hicks concluded. James had taken refuge "in a realm where art was sacred—and s u f f i c i e n t . " (p . 124-) Emily Dickinson was another fugitive, Hicks said, a recluse cut off from the vulgar age of her adulthood by disappointment in love and by the dying puritan theocracy that her family tried to uphold in Amherst. She turned to solitude and relied on her inner resources and "became "the most distinguished poet of her generation" instead of just

one more New England old maid. The popular poets of the time—Aldrich, Taylor, Stoddard, Stedman, and Gilder— carried on with poetry that was conventional and musical. "Precocious, talented, genteel, Aldrich devoted himself to

enamelling discreet trifles and, on occasion, to voicing in portentous odes his faith in the righteousness of the Republican Party and the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon

race. The others were as w illing slaves as he, and their poetry like his never shook off its chains." (p. 127)

The only relief from this was the humor and pathos of the dialect poets, Bret Harte, John Hay, and James "Whitcomb Riley, or the poetry of E. R. S ill, and Sidney Lanier, who asserted some independence from the commercial sp irit. In comparison with these, however, Dickinson was a giant. Her poems were not fu ll of the platitudes, sentimen­ tality, and prudery of contemporary respectability. She paid no attention to literary conventions and expressed herself with honesty and integrity. Yet her poetryi was "fragile and remote," in spite of its exciting power.

She gave up on her own age, and this protected her, Hicks said, from the contamination of the age but did not give her "... the vigor that is found in an artist for whom self-expression is also the expression of the 181 society of which he Is part." (p. 130) Dickinson complemented Whitman, and the two of them might

have made one great poet, just as Howells complemented James The future was not with James and Dickinson, Hicks concluded but with Howells and Whitman.

Writers of the late Nineteenth Century, Hicks argued in Chapter V, came to feel more and more that the American civilization in which they lived was hostile to the ideas of democracy and self-reliance. "In the decade from 1890 to I900 writers began to realize that they could no longer assume a community of interest between themselves and the rulers of America.11 It was evident that there was a wide gap between the wealthy and the poor and that there were forces that would continue to widen that gap, Ihe writers sought in one way or another to break away. Hearn, Garland, Saltus and Crane departed eventually from America. Garland, Bellamy, and Boyesen criticized particular aspects of social organization. Henry Adams wrote cynically, trying to justify his own failure andthe failure of the old ruling class from which he came, but showing mostly indifference to the oppression and the rebellion of the working class. He was acutely critical, Hicks said, of

the capitalist class, and even pitied them but saw no other way for such a society to be organized. His main complaint, however, was that "... it had destroyed the prestige of the Adams family and ruined the political prospects of

Henry Adams." (p. 138) 182

Edward Bellamy responded and expressed the rebellion that Adams ignored, Hicks said, in his Utopian novel Looking Backward. It and its sequel Equality exposed hundreds of thousands of Americans to the possibilities of socialism for the first time. Bellamy, saw the possibility of an ordered, just society as a result of Industrialism. It was significant that 3ellamy expressed confidence that the machine could be a servant of mankind. But the book was written, Hicks said, from the point of view of his own middle class. Social conditions in the- year 2000 were seen through the eyes of professional men and not the workers themselves. Headers were told the workers were happy, but they did not see the net; society from the workers1 point of view. But the book was valuable as an influence. Several reformist and progressive movements started as a result. Amidst suffering and confusion, people rallied to the idea that production could be controlled for everyone's benefit. In the Iliddle Uest the battle was raging, for many settlers were suffering from hard work and little rextfard from an exploitative market; they became aware of the oppression of the farmer class. Hamlin Garland expressed this feeling of the farmers in Ha in- Tr avel e.d Roads and Prairie Folk. The stories were full of the humor and kind­ ness of the people, but they showed In the background the dull, monotonous.struggle. The stories were, Hicks said, 183

honest and stirring because of the protest im plicit in them. Later Garland gave up this kind of realism to become a romancer, possibly because he had not understood the value of the writing he had established himself with. Garland in later years turned away from controversial writing, turned to more respectable causes, only half­ heartedly accepted writers such as Norris and Dreiser but on the other hand found constant joy in his own acceptance by the academicians. Perhaps, Hicks suggested, the cause of his failure was rooted in the attitudes of the farmers, who had fought as Individualists and who had forgotten the cause of their class as soon as their own success had been achieved. They had not seen the value, Hicks was saying, of the collective idea. Several minor writers of the period, Hicks said, turned away from social realism. Among these were Lafcadio Hearn, -who in Japan dreaded the approach of industrialism and Bellamy's socialism; Ambrose Bierce, who indulged in sophomoric cynicism; Edgar Saltus, who diluted for American consumptipn the theories and methods of the European decadents; and other men like Richard Hovey, Bliss. Carman, and Henry Harland, who turned dut "rococo romanticism." . Hjalmar Hjarth Boyesen tried to avoid the escapism and bitterness of romanticism; he expressed the idea in his sociological novels that the ethical price for amassing wealth was a high one. But his earnestness and indignation 18 ^

were not transformed into representative characters. Henry Blake Puller expressed some of the same ideas, not as indignation but as mild disdain, but he soon abandoned the social novel. Harold Frederic made some contribution to realism in his depiction of small-town life in The Damnation of Theron Hare. Boyesen, Fuller, and Frederic a ll made contributions to realism, but did not influence later writers, as did Stephen Crane. In many ways, Crane’s writing was no better than that of other writers, but he defied taboos that others would not,

and he expressed the truth as he saw it objectively, bitterly, feeling disdain for those who Indulged in what to him were obvious falsehoods about life. Haggle reflected his fear and hatred of the slums. He also hated the vile creatures who lived in them, because they consented to live in such ugliness and brutality. He could not understand, Hicks said, how men could treat the slums condescendingly

and sentimentalize the people living in them. Yet Crane presented Maggie from his point of view, not from hers. And though he felt the horror of such things as war and poverty, he could not understand their significance and cause. Life to Crane had been a mystery, and he never learned to understand as well as record. He was a symbol, though, of the writers of the nineties: "... talent that flares bravely and Is cruelly extinguished; blind, bitter blows against dark evils; struggle and flight, suffering and 185

death." (p. 16 J)

The writers of the first 12 years of the 20th Century did write about their own age and place. In Chapter VI, Hicks dealt with the muckraking novelists and realists who faced squarely their civilization. Movements of revolt were afoot In the land, and novels of revolt were the most important literary activities. The writers held diverse political attitudes and expressed ideas ranging from mild reformism to revolution. Prank Norris had ushered in the new kind of novel at the beginning of the century: more realism and an identification of realistic literature with social purpose. Though from a rich family and a conservative background, Norris came to believe that the novel was as influential as the press and the pulpit and that therefore the novelist had a responsibility. And popular literature was the only important kind, he theorized, for If the people did not understand it, it would not survive. His venture Into naturalism in HeTeague, which was different from his

early romantic fiction, did not fit his social theory, so he decided to write an epic novel. The first novel of his proposed epic trilogy, The Octopus. almost lived up to his purpose, Hicks said, but it was too confused and in its ending too false. The novel ended with a- superimposed affirmative statement that the forces of life and truth went on; while individuals suffered and died, the race went 186

on and Truth in the end would prevail, and a ll things surely worked together for good. But this was a disturbing anti-clim ax to what the novel had portrayed, and many problems were left unsolved. The second novel. The Pit, dealt with the exploiter captain of industry Curtis Jadwin, but Norris could not decide whether to treat him as hero, villain , or automaton, so he chose to make the corner in wheat subordinate as a theme to the relations between

Jadwin and his wife. For the reader who wanted to under­ stand the mind of the business man or how speculative operations affected humans, this novel did not help. Nhat he tried to do was noble, Ilicks said, but he lacked clarity o f v ie w . Qhe muckraking novelists and Journalists responded to a popular interest in corruption in business and government. They crea.ted an audience for the political and business novel and revealed to novelists the dramatic value in the struggle for supremacy among financiers and big bosses. David Graham Phillips rode to popularity with the movement but was more a Journalist than a creator of fictional characters. He expressed indignation, but it was unfocussed. He had, Hicks said, little real understanding of politics or economics. He did bring to the novel the equipment of a reporter, the kind of knowledge and sk ill a novelist needed, but he did not have a consistent point 187

of view to bind all the details together. He expressed only a vague hope for improvement and the idea that honest men were needed. Winston Churchill relied on implausible conversions to solve problems and. would not follow his

analysis of politics when it would have shown how baseless his hopes for improvement were. William Allen White

believed that the Immoral business man was being replaced

and that the spirit of the Lord was being infused into the whole nation: "It may be necessary to point out," Hicks

remarked, "that the pentecostal experience to which this passage £about the coming of the Lord]] refers was the entrance of the United States into the World War." (p. 181) These liberal writers demanded righteous conduct, but they ignored the causes of it and disregarded the cost of the honesty they demanded. Robert Herrick was not so confused. He treated the

themes of the conflict in our competitive society of the desire for success versus the maintenance of personal integrity, and also the place of women in American life . He

showed in Memoirs of an Arnerican Citizen and Together and other novels the "... disintegrating effect of contemporary

l i f e on b oth men and women." He t o ld o f th e trem endous c o s t of material progress, which he summed up in a'late hovel, Waste (192*0; but a ll it amounted to was a complete repudiation, Hicks said, of industrial civilization. Herrick 188

consciously turned his back on a civilization he had spent

30 years portraying. His attitude could be traced to the fact that he never entered the lives of his characters. He did not make the feelings and motives of characters become real for the readers, although he could make clear ethical

judgments about them. Herrick could not assume the point of view of any active participants in his novels, neither the business man, the reformer, nor the worker. He left out of his writing an analysis of the forces that could transform industrialism. Unlike novelists such as Churchill and "White, Herrick refused to compromise his liberal insistence on integrity at any price. His attitude was the logical outgrowth of the liberal tradition in America, Other men would come to see that one could not maintain integrity in a competitive industrial society. The evil of the machine could be eliminated, Hicks said, only if production was organized in the interests of-the whole society. Upton- - Sinclair and Jack London should have been able to express this idea, but for other reasons they did not.

London believed himself to be a socialist writer, but a ll his heroes v/ere the self-styled superman he dreamed of being him self. Even his hero Everhard of The Iron Heel, his most avowedly socialist work, was not a typical socialist worker but a typical London superman, who went back to the land as a scientific farmer in the midst of a- - 189

crucial strike. London was also inconsistent In his belief in the superiority of Anglo-Saxons , a cause to which he devoted much energy and money. And he created only one character in a ll his books, Hicks said, the character of his own personal myth. We found energy and a primitive appeal

in his work, but not a fine style or sound characterization, London provided vicarious adventure for m illions of men trapped in industrial society, taking them into a dreamland of heroism and opportunity. He did not give them under­ standing of the world in which they lived.

Upton Sinclair wrote as a dedicated socialist, undivided in his loyalties as London was, but he did not understand the conception of the class struggle, so that his psychology had remained that of a middle-class liberal. He was a sensitive, humane man but not one who looked at life and, portrayed it from the working class point of view. He had not related his knowledge of American life to his own beliefs and purposes as a socialist. He wrote not for the workers but for the middle class. The Jungle was only partially successful in portraying the lives of workers and was filled with long passages of documentation that would have worked better in a pamphlet. He also tended to sentim entalize. The writers of the period treated Important themes, but their work was still disappointing, Hicks said, for it 190

did not manage to create In fiction recognizable human beings. In short, they were not good writers of fiction. But most of a ll they failed because they did not have a satisfactory point of view. "The task of the novelist is to do justice to a ll the elements in his experience, weaving out of those elements a unified and patterned whole." (p, 206) But we had reason to be grateful, because their spirit lived in the attitudes and methods of their followers. Chapter VII covered the young writers who were repre­

sentative of the years 1912 to 1925» the middle period, Hicks called it. America*s entrance into the World War, "to protect American investments," ended the progressive period. The liberals were disillusioned by the War and by what they saw in society. This was partly caused by. the fact that., while America gained in material progress and the market for literature increased with prosperity, the middle class was losing its power to major industrialists and financiers. Most writers came from this middle class, and this class felt helpless to do anything about the government or even the means of education and the mass media. It could not abolish war or corruptions or depressions, for it was at the mercy

of forces It could not control. Optimism and pessimism were mingled in the attitudes of these writers. Hicks was referring to Dreiser, Wharton, Lewis, Anderson, Cather, Hergesheimer, E. A. Hoblnson, Amy Lowell,' Sandburg, Lindsay, 191

Frost, Huneker, Spingarn, Mencken, Brooks, and Bourne,

The writers of the middle period took two roads in seeking a solution to their frustrations. One was to isolate themselves from the masses and seek some haven. The other was to use their new prosperity from their growing audience to seek a more comprehensive portrayal of American society. Wharton, Cather, Hergesheimer, and Cabell took the first road. Since she came from a wealthy family and was educated abroad and associated with persons who considered themselves the American aristocracy, Edith Wharton could not have taken any other road. She believed that a writer must start with a sense of moral values and then construct his works with classical economy and unity. She seemed very sure of her aims, but her subject matter was lim ited, Hicks said, and her concern for the socially elect was in danger of making her writing trivial. So in The Age o f•Innocence she turned to the good society of,the past. She never questioned the conception of an American aristocracy, which she might have done if she had considered why the rich fam ilies of New York and Boston did not conform to her aristocratic ideals. She did not move to a broader realism, but she ended in writing romantic- trivialities. Joseph Hergesheimer and James Branch Cabell indulged in a combination of romanticism and affected pessimism and were both venal frauds. Wllla Cather wrote at first with vigor of the pioneers of the prairie but later indulged in 192

nostalgic sojourns into the past. She could not confront

the sterility of contemporary life. Dreiser, Anderson, and Lewis took the other road, trying to portray the realities of contemporary society.

Theodore Dreiser came from a poor family and sought riches and success according to the conventional dreams of most Americans. He soon became disillusioned and looked upon life as a futile struggle against unseen forces that men

could not control. Sister Carrie was a novel that expressed Dreiser's bewilderment, but it had living men and women in

a world we recognized, and it shattered many sacred conven­ tions. He showed the forces that worked through his characters in spite of his own confusion. "Despite innumerable faults," Hicks said, "his. six massive novels, built on the rocks of honesty and pity, stand while the works of shrewder architects crumble." {p. 229) Sherwood Anderson expressed a terror of the mystery of life similar to that of Dreiser though he dealt with the psychological effects of small town life and the destruction of rural values by the advance of industry. He later had taken his stand with the party of revolution, as Dreiser had, and this might make a difference in the future, though his strike novel Beyond Desire was confused. His communism was personal; the economic and philosophical implications of communism meant little to- him. But his interest in it 193

might Indicate a shift in the interests of the American people, since he had always been close to them.

Sinclair Lewis had not joined with Anderson and Dreiser in becoming Communists, but he knew what he wanted to destroy: provincialism, complacency, hypocrisy. The trouble was that he secretly sympathized with the characters like Kennlcott and Babbitt whom he was at the same time

satirizing. Arrowsmlth was his most unified novel. In Ann Vickers. though, he had surrendered to the standards

that he had been satirizing. These three writers lacked adequate comprehension of the forces of society. They had

made real advances, however, over the muckrakers in their freeing writing from "boarding school standards," their use of natural speech for the language of their books, and their creation of several convincing and representative men and women. Poetry wa.s vitalized to some extent during this period, for it finally threw off the restrictions of the genteel

tradition. Amy Lowell concentrated on immediate impressions and specific Images, an overly subjective kind of poet, but she did free herself from the old traditions with the stock themes and "threadbare phrases." .Vachel Lindsay advocated th e se a rch fo r b ea u ty among common p e o p le in th e r u r a l l i f e , drawing from the language of the folk a certain power, but he ended his career doing endless repetitions of commonplaces. 19^

Carl Sandburg tried to beautify the waste places of America

and expressed a sympathy for the oppressed, but he was always dealing with unrelated entities. Edwin Arlington

Robinson created, an abstract world in which to explore problems of the personality, especially regarding success and fa ilu re.. His admirers defended his abstractions

because he was concerned with eternal problems, but the only problems we knew, Hicks said, were those of our own age. "There are-no eternal problems; each age has its own

dilemmas, and, though some of these recur, they take their character from a particular situation." (p. Zkk-) Robert Frost also dealt with a narrow world a ll his

own. He had achieved unity by exclusion. He had never written of the industrialism of New England but of certain rural scenes and situations. He satisfied us by describing experiences close to ours, but he did not deal with the new objeots before our eyes such as factories, skyscrapers, and machines. We needed a poet who could conquer this new territory for us. These five representative poets, Hicks said, showed that the period produced many fine poems but no mature poet. The whole dilemma of this middle generation could be seen in the inadequacy of the critics, Hicks said. The primary battle occurred between the impressionists like James Huneker and J. E. Spingarn and the Humanists. No one appeared who could bring clarification, who could be a 195

"map-maker" for American culture. The im pressionists

avoided problems they did not care to examine and misrepre­ sented literature and underplayed its importance. They did not see that the artist expressed his own civilization and that he influenced it as well. H. L. Mencken also thought literature was a poor substitute for facing reality and did not see its value. But he and the other impressionists encouraged the writers and urged them to throw off conserva­ tism . The development of American life enabled them to weaken the influence of the conservative critics, without answering their arguments. Irving Babbitt, for example, asserted that the critic should not only ask what a writer's aim was and whether he achieved it but also whether it was worth while. But the Humanists were forced back on religion for support of their reliance on self-restraint and ancient precedents. They had little to say about their own literature, and they served to consolidate the position of the privileged class, for the idea of the inner check could be used to stifle protest and oppose a ll humanitarian proposals without specifically defending capitalism. "Neither the humanists nor the Impressionists were w illing to examine the social order and analyze the relations of . literature to it." (p. 251) Van Wyck Brooks did make such an attempt. He attributed the failures in American literature to money-mad America, but he did not formulate any social program. He only 196 advised artists to Ignore their environment If it threatened their artistic integrity and to work with a' consciousness of their worth. This advice was easier to give, though, than to live up to. No critic emerged who could help writers overcome their pessimism and to assert that though this civilization was dying, a new one was "being born. Artists might then have had confidence.

The pessimism grew, though, and was reflected in the plays of Eugene O’N eill. He expressed many kinds of frustra­ tion in the men of his. society but never found the solution. Though his audiences were affected emotionally by his plays, they always felt that the truth was somehow eluding them. Like the other writers, O'Neill could not overcome his frustration and pessimism, so a generation of writers with promise had again "met a dismal fate." (p. 256) Writers turned away from society in the period after I925 and concerned themselves with aesthetics, Hicks said in Chapter VIXi. They began a revaluation of the middle generation of writers, whom they repudiated as naive for being concerned with sexual emancipation and provincialism. Xhe young writers came to see literature as isolated from society and the artist as a craftsman creating works of aesthetic-value only. The poet was to cultivate and express his oxen sensibility and ignore society, which was stupid, h ostile, and unmanageable,, as the War and other experiences 197

had demonstrated. Besides, a ll social problems would be solved by capitalism and mass production. Host writers came from a prosperous middle class and could afford. Hides said, to ignore what displeased them. They could argue that what was important was the achievements of the minority, not the problems of the majority. Implicit in their attitudes was faith in the stability of the. existing social order. But before the new attitude could even be clearly stated, the Depression began and raised doubts, slowly, about whether writers could ignore social problems. Uriters either had to accept the existing-order and defend it, Hicks said, or they had to oppose it. These writers were ' pessim istic, too, even as they turned their backs on society and concerned themselves with ’'aesthetic1' matters. Joseph Hood Krutch stated clearly the pessim istic mood in his book The Modern Temper. Krutch honestly rejected the idea that the masses were on the march because he felt they would destroy civilization as he knew it. Robinson Jeffers In his poetry expressed a similar attitude. William Faulkner was a writer of despair and abnormality, Hicks said, possibly because of the decline of his own family, the war, - and economic decay in the South. He would not write simply sind realistically of the life he knew but was preoccupied with pathology. He often presented his jumbled narrative in order to shock usi not In order to elaborate-a theme. 198

T. S. Eliot expressed his bitter awareness of contempor­ ary life in new and exciting forms, but he turned away from that society to take refuge in the high church and in conservative politics. His need for security was strong enough that he did not bother to answer the obvious questions of ". . . how so melodramatic a skeptic can accept

the dogmas of Anglicanism, or what so intelligent an observer can expect from the King of England," Hicks said. (p. 270) His poetry since his conversion had gained little. Many other writers and critics had turned to the high church, but not of course to evangelical Protestantism, "strongholds of the lower middle classes." For those who did not care for the church, there was, Hicks said, ". . . the pleasant halfway house of humanism." (p. 271) But the dualism of man and nature and the guidance of the ethical imagination were poor substitutes for established religion.. Humanism.did serve to justify the existing order as. religion did. Thornton Wilder pandered to the appeal of both Catholicism and Humanism in his novels, depicting the life of Christianity among aristocrats in ancient and faraway lands. He failed to give realistic pictures of even aristocratic life. "His mild and timid spirit longs for freedom from the noise and dirt, the to il and worry, the confusion and complexity of contemporary civilization. He longs for the 199

security, material and intellectual, of a Christian aristocracy." (p. 273)

Hemingway presented him self frankly as a spokesman of a lost generation. He refused to face or think about

contemporary society but instead substituted violent physical activity for thought. Die artist, Hicks said,

made his contribution to society by ", , , seeing it

clearly himself and helping others to do the same," which Hemingway had not been doing.

Other writers turned to regionalism to escape by refusing to see the nation as a whole. This was what, after promising early novels, Elizabeth Madox Roberts had done. Glenway Wescott wrote frankly of the grievance he felt toward the puritanical, utilitarian attitudes of the frontier and their destruction of a sense of life and beauty, then turned away to seek an ideal audience of people whose growth had not been stunted. The young esthetes sought to .make literature an exclusive activity, esoteric, suitable only to be read to their own friends. This was an understandable result of their isolation from the masses of people. "I-Iuch of the poetry of E liots followers is almost completely unintelli­ gible if one has not lived a certain kind of life. And the criticism, of . . . Yvor Winters . . , and R. P. Blackmur resembles the impassioned quibbling of devotees of some

game." (p. 283) 200

The esthetes hoped also to create a leisure class

audience who could appreciate their esoteric output. This seemed possible before the Depression. As a result, many writers would seek to defend indirectly the power of the capitalists. "They w ill, in short,*' Hicks said, "become fascists." (p. 28?) The alternative was to do what John Dos Passos had done. In spite of his middle-class Harvard, esthete background, he could not ignore the stultifying conditions under which the majority lived, and his experiences in war had increased his distrust in the social order and given him a sense of Impending crisis. Rather than seeking to escape, Dos Passos had confronted his age and sought to portray it. The concepts of the class struggle and the trend towards revolution had given him "a principle of selection" in The *j-2nd Parallel and 1919. the first two parts of his trilogy so far completed. America was moving toward a crisis, the novels said. Dos Passos was growing, while other writers were not. Hart Crane had shown promise but had ended in tragedy, a clear symbol of other writers, for his affirma­ tions of America in The Bridge had been based on a vague mysticism; he did not know what the forces were that would bring about the America he dreamed of. Dos Passos, though, was at least historically important for "... having been a challenge to a generation that considered itself safely lost." (p. 292) 201

In the first edition of 1933» Hicks ended The Great

Tradition with Chapter VIII. He summarized the a r g u m e n t s o f

the book and suggested briefly the direction revolutionary literature was taking. It was giving hope and direction to numerous writers besides Dos Passos, he said, and he

predicted that in time a genuine proletarian literature would develop. The great tradition of contemporary

literature in most of the world had been realism, and this

was true in America, too. But it had met with peculiar

difficulties here and had a peculiar importance. The writer could overcome his difficulty by allying himself with the working class and working for the socialization of production. The revolutionary writers were the continuation of the writers who had expressed ". . . the spirit that

moves in the noblest creations of the past . 11 (p . 3 0 5 » 1s t ed.) It had been a literature also of hope, ”... touched

again and again with a passion for brotherhood, justice, and

intellectual honesty." (p. 305) Now they could not refuse to "strike at the sources of the evils they so constantly attacked." Not a ll writers could, but many would, break the ties with the bourgeoisie and give support to the working class, the only class that would be able to overthrow capitalism . In the Hevised Edition of 1935* Hicks shortened Chapter VIII and added a new chapter in which he discussed 202 more fully the revolutionary movement in American literature. In this new Chapter IX he gave his reasons for believing in the strength and future growth of revolutionary literature. He named the novelists, dramatists, and poets in whom he saw growth and clarity because of their association with the revolutionary movement. And he briefly described what he saw as the strengths and weaknesses of their work. Writers were being forced to consider social problems, and. they were seeing the strength that lay in an alliance with the masses. Evasion of these issues created problems for the writer, as was the case with Archibald MacLeish, Thornton ’Wilder, Elizabeth Madox Roberts, and Ernest Hemingway. Revolutionary writers had concluded that capitalism was unsound and that it had to be destroyed. Most had also concluded that only the working class could destroy capitalism. Many-writers had identified themselves with the workers and given their aid to m ilitant workers* organizations. Most of them also supported the Communist Party. They agreed more on fundamental political questions than did the writers of any other preceding radical movement. Michael Gold was a link with the radicalism of the war period; he had survived the demise of that movement and was now the dean of revolutionary literature. His strength came, Hicks said, from "the depth of his roots in the working 203

class." But in spite of agreement on politics, there was

still diversity. Biere were differences in party allegiance and approach to workers and literary styles; there was a. .new variety of themes and subjects, a broader range than in bourgeois literature.

Revolutionary literature showed growth as it expressed new impulses and attitudes and used new images and selected details that other writers would not have seen. Much of this growth came, Elclcs said, from the sloughing off of blindness and prejudice and the acceptance of the revolu­ tionary view. Josephine Herbst had grown in her novels; there was a movement from the disillusionm ent of Nothing Is Sacred through the sympathetic, tender treatment of lower middle class failures and the near nostalgia of Pity Is Not Enough to the clarity of The Executioner Waits. James T. Farrell had been clinical in the first two novels of his.trilogy; Young Lonigan and The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan seemed 11. . .t o Indicate that he was committed to the casebook method." (p. 303) But Farrell’s connection with the social crisis made him examine his work; the result was a difference in Judgment Day, the last novel of the trilogy. Farrell showed that life had ended for Studs as well as his class because of the capitalist collapse of opportunity for the lower middle class, the Ignorance of his family, and the superstitions of his church. 204

a ll of which made Studs unable to understand himself and th e w o rld .

Erskine Caldwell was associated with the Communist Party because of his sense of hopelessness for the poor farmers of the South, but he did not always portray revolutionary Insight. Many of his books had a'goatish" quality, which accounted for the success of the play Tobacco Road. He was better in portraying simply the tragic sense of oppression, as in the short stories "Kneel to the Rising Sun" and "Daughter." Albert Halper had .grown from his early uninformed attempt at satirizing the fringe of the radical movement in Union Square to writing about his own experience as a laborer in The Foundry. This novel showed his sk ill in portraying character and his appreciation of the strength and common sense of the workers. ' He depicted the bosses, also, with tolerance and affection as he showed their pettiness and uselessness.

Robert Cantwell took pains in Laugh and Lie Down to say things that perhaps were not worth saying, Hicks suggested, but in The Land of. Plenty he had.discovered the significance of his own factory experience. He portrayed the lives ?of workers and foremen and the h ostilities with the bosses, but he did not clearly show the events of the strike because he knew little of strike strategy. He had 205

displayed some talent In the first hook but fulfilled the promise of that talent in the second book because he had found a new direction. Jack Conroy had dreamed of rising from the working class via a literary career and had had pallid adventures on the bohemian fringes of the world of letters. Literary maturity came in his discovery that he could be proud of his working-class background, and he wrote The Disinherited. Ihe book was vivid because Conroy included in it details he would have wanted to forget if he had been trying to get away from the working class. A World to Win told more of

his experiences, including the bohemian ones. Both of his novels were best, though, when they were dealing with labor and laborers.

These novelists had needed to re-orient themselves to the proletarian point of view, but younger writers like Edward Newhouse were not having to do that. His You Can't Sleeo Here was not a perfect novel, for it suffered from ". . . a too facile use of terse and elliptic phrases, and, attempting to suggest depth of character while portraying only surfaces, it sometimes stops at the superficial."

(p. 309) But Newhouse had none of the weaknesses of a divided mind, and his faults in writing could be remedied. He treated Communists as human beings because he could take Communism for granted. He was the forerunner of a neitf 206

generation of revolutionary writers.

Growth had been the result of writers allying themselves with the revolutionary movement, Hicks said. American literature had also been broadened because of the new interests of these writers. Strikes, for example, had been the themes of many novels, but they had been treated in a variety of ways. A bourgeois writer saw all strikes as b e in g v e r y much a l i k e , "... but the revolutionary novelist knows that each strike raises not only its own tactical questions but an infinite variety of human problems." (p. 312) The differences in strike- novels could be seen in those by Cantwell, Mary Heaton Vorse, William Rollins, Jr.,

Grace Lumpkin, Sherwood Anderson, Mi/ra Page, and Fielding

Burke. The revolutionary movement had contributed a major discovery for literature: that workers were people of strength and had great potential for the future and were worthy subjects for literature. Previous writers had treated them from the outside, as people who deserved a better lot but who were from another world than that of the writer. The Marxian analysis and awareness also helped writers to see some of the false ideas of the ruling class.

"It would be begging the question to say that the revolution­ ary writers’ interpretation of middle-class character is truer than that of any middle-class writer, but it has a 20?

strangely satisfactory way of explaining what have hitherto been mysteries. One has only to compare Josephine Herbst's Nothing Is Sacred with The Executioner Waits to feel how much better she understands the middle class now. that she has divorced herself from it." (pp. 315- 3 1 6 )

New forms were taking shape along with new attitudes

and themes. Dos Passos and others had tried the collective and the complex novel. But old forms were used effectively, too, as in the case of B. Traven. There was a great deal of diversity in the sensibilities and styles of the revolutionary writers along with their unity of viewpoint. Revolutionary drama showed the same trends, of both experimentation with new forms and the use of simple ones. . John Howard Lawson's Processional had worked as an experi­ mental venture, while plays by Gold, Dos Passos, and Emjo Basshe had not. The Theatre Union's Stevedore was straight­ forward, and it had worked, as did Albert-M aitz's Black P it. Clifford Odets 1 Awake and Sing was.conventional but effective because of his revolutionary understanding and knowledge of Jewish life. Waiting for Lefty was experimental and grew out of the openly agitprop form in Russia. It transcended the form, and its ". . . appeal for action emerges from its sure sense of working-class reality. 11

(p. 323) Revolutionary drama was healthy, even by the admission of most conservative critics. 208

Revolutionary poetry reflected the questions of form, too, with Horace Gregory being more direct than Kenneth Fearing and Isidor Schneider. Gregory accepted the marginal role of his poetry for the revolution, and thus no change had occurred in his poetry, as it had in Schneider's, and

Fearing had not had so far to go as Schneider in trying to

be a poet of the revolution. Revolutionary poets were

feeling their way, but there was a mass of their work that

stood out as ". . . bold, original, and impressive." (p. 326) These poets did not want to be mere sloganeers, as

the poets of the old Masses had been, nor did they want to

omit love and nature as themes. The revolutionary poet had to ". . . sternly avoid slogan-making and over­ sim plification, and at the same time bear in mind that he is a poet for the masses," Hicks said. "There is no single poet who consistently measures up to this ideal, but there

is revolutionary poetry." (p. 327 ) Hostile critics often said that prosperity would end

the revolutionary movement in literature, Hicks said, and they did not know how Marxist they were in saying that.

"Confidence . . . in the future of the movement rests on confidence in the Marxian analysis of history." (p. 327) As workers- became more m ilitant, writers would identify more with them, and revolutionary literature would grow richer and fuller. The cultural possibilities of the _ workers had hardly been touched, Hicks said, and literature 209

would grow not only during the revolutionary period but also after the revolution during the dictatorship of the

proletariat. Proletarian literature would continue to grow as the classless society evolved and 11. . .b y almost

imperceptible stages ripen into something finer and nobler than itse lf, something finer and nobler than any literature the world has ever known, broad as a ll mankind and free to devote itself to men as men and not men as enemies.11 (p. 328) If the Marxian analysis was right, revolutionary literature

marked a new beginning. Furthermore, it was the fulfillm ent

of the spirit of all America's best literature of the past.

Hicks rested his interpretation on the thesis that revolutionary literature promised to fu lfill the direction that American literature had been heading toward. He admitted that revolutionary literature had not yet accom­ plished much, but he was banking bn the future. The book followed the.approach Hicks had been outlining for the application of Marxist principles, except that he did not concern himself directly with the effect, these authors would have on their readers. Much of what he said in the book is useful and informative, especially on earlier . . periods. But the book has some faults. The vhlue of the book lies, I think, in the abundance of historical background and information about writers and movements. Much of. this, of course,.was derivative, but it was put together conveniently and clearly. In evaluating 210 writers by the revolutionary yardstick, Hicks tried to recognize the value of each writer's contribution. He maintained, however, that no writer had gone far enough in adopting a revolutionary world-attltude, except contem­ porary writers in the radical movement of the thirties. Anyone interested in literary history can profit from Hicks* analysis, even if he rejects Hicks* insistence on the radical conversion. The mind boggles at the thought of evaluating all the sweeping generalizations Hicks made. He presented few specific facts to back up his generalizations.

Indeed, he could not do so in a book covering so long a period and so many writers. For the most part, though, his historical generalizations seem accurate.

On occasion, he seemed to superimpose economic causes upon certain literary phenomena, or at any rate did not sufficiently prove the connection between economics and literature.. For example, in talking of the writers after World War I, Hicks said that mpst authors belonged to the middle class that was being undermined by large industrial­ ists. Capitalism was in its imperialist stage; the writers did not know this, but they sensed the debasement of the middle class. The sense of frustration of the writers of the middle- generation was caused, he said, by the fact that their class was on the wane. (p. Zlk) Their protest relied on individualism as the answer, Hicks said, which could not 211

stop the capitalists. Attributing these writers’ troubles to the economic decline of their class seems an oversim plifica­ tion. Hicks offered little to prove his generalization. Sometimes, Hicks did show that economic causes played a major part in certain results. He noted that the Southern

Agrarian poets, for example, were trying to turn back the tide of industrialism. This effort, Hicks said, was perhaps admirable but was quixotic. The young Confederates were ignoring the political and economic forces they had to contend with. The Agrarians showed ". . . that regionalism is meaningless as a literary program unless it can be founded on economic and political realities." (p. 282) The fundamental Marxist questions that Hicks asked in examining American writers did shed some light on them. Certainly his is not the only possible approach, nor does it give as complete a picture as Kicks thought. Hicks set out to prove his thesis that revolutionary literature was the culmination of the great tradition; the value of that thesis is debatable. But some of the social insights he presented are useful. He got into trouble when he tried to explain the weaknesses of certain writers on the basis of their class alignments, as in.the case of his treatment of Crane, the muckrakers, James, Faulkner, and Wilder. What- . ever faults can be found in those writers are not to be discerned simply by applying class labels. On such minor 212

writers as Thomas Bailey Aldrich he did effectively show that they stood for shallow, "middle-class" values. It

was, however, their values and not necessarily their class alignments that were at fault.

In dealing with writers of the thirties, he too hastily rejected those who did not present life from the proletarian (i.e ., radical) point of view rather than considering how well they depicted life: for example, Cather, Faulkner, Wilder, IlacLeish, and Hemingway. And he tried to milk every drop of worthiness that he could.from the work of leftist writers. The mystique of the proletariat also led him astray. Workers were a long way from being revolutionary In America; furthermore, they ignored literature. For the most part they blamed themselves for being out of work and either tried to hustle more or looked to the existing government to relieve their plight, which it eventually did. Culturally they indulged In escapist entertainment. . The socialization of ■ - • production, was a long way from coming. Revolutionary literature was not to have the influence—at least not so directly and immediately—that Hicks dreamed In this book it would have.

Figures of Transition

While keeping a m oralist's eye on contemporary literature and advocating involvement of writers in the social struggle,

Hicks also turned, In the second half of the decade, to 213

English literature, hoping to write a book on 20th Century writers. He decided, however, to do a book first on the

writers at the end of the Victorian period and the beginning of the modern period. The result was Figures of Transition,

published in December, 1939# two months after Hicks had resigned from the Communist Party and four months after the Stalin-H itler pact of August 21. Hicks signed his

Introduction to the book, "Grafton, New York, August 1,

1939." book received little critical attention but is a better piece of literary history and criticism than The Great Tradition, partly because it covers fewer writers

and gives more supporting details but also because it is less polemical. Lee Baxandall in his bibliography on Marxist aesthetics calls it a "valuable and neglected study" of the writers covered . 10

Before examining his representative "figures of transition," Hicks discussed in Chapter I the Victorian period in England from its time of full strength down to its demise. His primary focus was on considerations of the economic and political ideas of writers in relation to the working class. He divided writers into two basic groups, those who favored utilitarian ideas and the related evangelical spirit (related because it stood for piety, individualism, and frugality) in social matters and those who opposed them. The chief opposition came, he said, from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle, Benjamin D israeli, 214-

Charles Kingsley, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Charles Dickens. They all in effect offered spiritual solutions for what

they considered spiritual problems. They did not think the working class should take over and help govern itself but instead believed that the rulers of society had to be

made to see and understand the need for improvement of the workers' lot, as well as the falseness and emotional narrowness of utilitarian ideas. After the turbulent years of 1832 to 184-8, labor unrest subsided, and the evangelical spirit prevailed, with Anthony Trollope as perhaps its best and most representative novelist. Soon, however, the evangelical spirit.was undermined, by the discoveries of science and evolution that destroyed its theological basis and by writers like Matthew Arnold and George Meredith who attacked the commercial sp irit, prudery, and smugness of the middle and upper classes. Hicks hastened to recognize the richness of the literary output in the period, giving credit in spite of their social views to Carlyle, Tennyson, Thackeray and others. The middle class.had established itself in the seat of power, and prosperity helped to reassure this group. But then prosperity declined, too, and insights were needed into what -was happening and why. The writers of the eighties and nineties had to cope with uncertainties of all kinds, economic, religious, and scientific. "The passing of the Victorian certainties was necessary and desirable," 215

Hicks concluded* "but perhaps the generation that saw them slip away deserves our sympathy.

In Chapter II, on the rise of socialism, Hicks

championed William Morris, because he was a Marxist and not a Fabian or romantic socialist. Hicks traced the battles in the rise of socialism and the workers' cause and showed that Morris was started on that road from John Huskin's anti-

iridustrial ideas, although Morris did not believe in a return to feudal society. As an artist creating and selling better home furnishings and as a writer of medieval narrative epics, two Utopian novels, working-class songs, and ligh t prose romances on medieval themes, Morris sought to clear the way for better art by improving society and had no high pretensions for his work. Capitalism was on the defensive and reforms came, but Morris insisted the workers would have to destroy capitalism eventually. In forceful, clear pamphlets and speeches, Morris exposed the vulgarity of the Victorian middle class and'the anti-liberty, im perialist feelings of many upper-class people. Morris believed in developing the full animal life for man. Both asceticism and luxury were to go, but the result need not be monotony in conditions and habits, He did not see the artistic possibilities of machines-, Hicks said, but did see that they should be used to eliminate uncreative, dull labor, because once men were freed from this, he believed they would recognize the joy of true work. Why had 216

Morris turned on his own class? Because, Hicks said, like the proletariat, he had nothing to lose, nothing, that is, of value to him.

Of his two Utopian romances, The Dream of John B all. though less well known, was better written, more perfectly integrated and more moving than Mews from Nowhere. which was full of long expository passages and was not a convincing story, except in .the last part in which he described a trip up the River Thames in the 21st Century when the industrial blight along the river, which Morris knew so well and hated, had supposedly been removed. Morris was not afraid of reality, but he could not write- of his time, though he tried, for a ll he had to say was that he hated 19th Century England. His imagination dwelt on the past and the future. His works were not models for future socialist writing, but his example as a man was a model. Hicks attributed more importance to Morris than to # Bernard Shaw and H. G. W ells, the leading Fabian w riters, who believed in the gradual, peaceful transition to socialism with the middle class in the lead. "Morris could not be satisfied with less than Communism, and that was fortunate,." Hicks concluded, "for many who could be satisfied with less deceived themselves into believing that they had got or were about to get all they wanted. . . . Morris was right on fundamentals and the Fabians simply not 217

right at all." (p. 108) (Hicks did not explain what he meant by the Fabians not being right, which seems strange, since the program of the Fabians has come closer to what has happened in England than the predictions of Marx. He apparently assumed that any concessions the capitalists had made would be lost later, for he thought capitalism would soon collapse—unless fascism prevailed.)

The kind of optimism and serenity that Morris showed was rare for his time. Thomas Hardy, whom Hicks discussed in Chapter III, was on the other hand more preoccupied with the question of an indifferent or unjust universe than most other thinkers, though most were bothered by the doubts raised by science. But Hardy explored the problems as an artist and stated different speculations in different works; he was not a systematic philosopher. He felt man was too sensitively developed to live in this world happily, but he did believe that men should work to alleviate social ills and harmful attitudes. And he had respect and sympathy for humans; his was no "cheap pessimism at the expense of human nature," Hides said. He did not get much involved In fighting social evils, however, because of his personal shyness-and sensitivity and the disappointments he faced as a young man. Hardy turned away from London, Where he had been unhappy trying to learn architecture, and went back to Wessex, away from much of the fight for reforms. His ■ 219 had nothing to believe in but clear-sightedness and courage and the decency of the human race," Hicks said, "but this was enough for him to go on for more than sixty years." And he never whined. Hicks gave numerous examples from the letters, the biography, and the works of Hardy to support his arguments. He kept his eye on Hardy's attitude toward the universe, toward common men, toward work, toward social evils, and toward social meliorism. Hardy's pessimism was a way, Hicks showed, for playing safe and not being disappointed. In Chapter IV he characterized Samuel Butler as a "cautious rebel" who bolted from the tyranny and orthodoxy of his father, who wanted the church to be a social institution and who was a thinker not indifferent to the social consequences of unpopular views. He stumbled onto his theories about evolution and the role of unconscious memory and got into a battle with Darwin partly to assert himself rather than to further science. He was a man, Hicks said, who wanted to be the friend of socially prominent people like high churchmen. His evolutionary theories have been rejected since. Butler was a snob, Hicks said, who thought the rich swell was ‘the epitome of what man had been striving for, and he concerned himself little with labor conditions or the working class. He satirized imperialism to some extent, 220 but never doubted the permanence of capitalism. He argued for the importance of money and expressed a utilitarian basis for morality. His fame rested, Hicks said, on his posthumously published The Way of All Flesh. for by 1903 many were ready to agree with what he said in the book. He wanted to destroy sentimental ideas that made parental tyranny possible, he wanted to free religion from its commitments to the obviously incredible, and he wanted 11. . . a r e a l i s t i c , common se n se u t i l i t a r i a n is m in m orals; he wanted more freedom and less bother, particularly less bother, for he knew that freedom had always, to a great extent, taken care of itself.” (p. 17^) Butler had blundered in his search for money and personal success, Hicks said, but he had come to express what many who revolted against Victorianism were thinking. The uses and demands on the hovel began to change from what they had been at the height of the Victorian period. Writers demanded that they use more realism and asserted that truth was the only justification the writer needed, rejecting the demands of the ruling class. Morris, Hardy, and Butler had helped bring about new freedoms for writers. Now George Gissing and George Moore, Hicks said in Chapter V, emerged to-write of the lower strata of the population, for different reasons and with different results. Gissing had grown up among the poor and knew the misery 221

of their lives and could write about them from this knowledge. At first he wrote to protest their conditions, as in Workers in the Dawn. But his motivation was to escape from their disgusting lives, at first by writing about them and advocating social change, but later by escaping into a study of the classics and writing confession­ al novels about his abandonment of social reform, as in his second novel The Unclassed. He continued to write about the poor, but he wrote of them with either contempt or only moderate sympathy, and never from the point of view of militant workers. He expressed distaste for industrial civilization, with the "brute force of money," but he wanted money and admired those who had it. As a realist, Gissing operated within accepted lim its. He showed sexual passion in the poor with disapproval and referred to the vices of the rich. He was frank, Hicks said, only when by im plication he condemned what he described. His depiction of the poor was nevertheless "moving as well as true," Hicks said, but he wrote only superficially of other classes. What Gissing gave to the modern novel was emancipation from Victorian taboos and the sense of possibilities in new themes. Hicks then asserted that time had proven in America and England that even a clumsy craftsman could reach our Imaginations if he was absorbed in his material and honest 222

and patient. "We have "been forced, almost in spite of ourselves, to respect saturation in the commonplace." (p. 203) Gissing, he said, had been showing the way. Hides was groping for a way, it seems to me, to justify social

realism and the work of revolutionary writers of his time. Not many critics would noif hold that a dull, dreary realism

poorly done is sufficient to hold our attention. Hides treated Gissing objectively, however, and built his case for and against him with substantial examination of details.

George Moore, coming from the upper class, approached the novel of the lower class with motives inspired by the naturalism of Emile Sola. He held his romantic tendencies in check in order to show his characters as products of their environment. His Esther Waters was remarkably modern as realism, with its objective presentation and its lack of sermons and comments to the reader by the author as in Gissing*s and most Victorian novels. He proved, Hicks said, that the public would accept a truthful novel about the lower classes. Moore then turned to psychological novels, and he became self-conscious about style and wrote nothing of importance. Moore was the only avowed British naturalist of any importance, Zola had little direct influence on English literature. But English writers learned in the eighties and nineties that their French colleagues had been attacked 223

too for sinning against the bourgeoisie, and had insisted they were only revealing truth. Not only the French but

Ibsen and the Russians reassured British authors. As a result writers in England asserted many freedoms in the novel. "Ihe novelist . . . had his freedom; the question was what he would do with it." (p. 215) Hardy, Gissing, and I-Ioore had made beginnings but then forsook the realistic novel, and back of all their reasons, Hicks said, lay ". . .a sense of the difficulty of coming to terms with contemporary society." (p. 216) Their successors would have to meet the problems they turned away from. In Chapter VI Hicks dealt with Oscar Wilde and esthetlclsm . Wilde, he said, was more determined to make him self noticed than he was in championing any one theory, including that of estheticlsm . He became a symbol of the decadence and of the esthetic movement because of his self- advertisement. Since he represented a threat to Victorian institutions, he achieved the fame he wanted, and then was destroyed.when with over-confidence he went too far in making his homosexuality public through a trial he could have avoided. Art for art's sake was not really what Wilde stood for, Hicks contended. "All' his life he was preaching some sort of doctrine—his own version of paganism, or Socialism, or Christianity—and his doctrines had at their core his zzk

dissatisfaction with the society of the eighties and nineties." (p. 2H-1) Wilde's work was a criticism of the way of life commonly followed then, and the more he tried to conceal that fact, the more he added to his symbolic q u a li t y . Hicks treated the writers of the Yellow Book and Savoy as the true original decadents. Artist Aubrey Beardsley, he said, was more the proper symbol of decadence than Wilde. Of all the writers associated with this short­ lived movement, besides Wilde, only William Butler Yeats proved to be of importance, and he because he developed beyond the others and became something else. The work of the esthetes, Hicks argued, "... had always rested on a non-literary principle, that is, on hatred of the bourgeoisie. As Wilde's career has already made plain to us, the doctrine of art for art's sake was a protest against contemporary standards and a way of escaping from bourgeois controls." (p.259 ) -The feverish­ ness of their attack, however, resulted in a closer look at prevailing standards; ultimately they got their revenge on Victorianism, although they were ill-equipped for s u r v iv a l. The late Victorian writers contributed to disintegra­ tion, Hicks said, and they were met with anger. The middle- class public wanted reassuring books. It was the new rise 225

of Imperialism, which had declined at the end of the 18th

Century, along with the change from industrial to finance capitalism , that gave the English middle class new optimism, Hicks said in the last chapter. And two writers who gave

them the assurance that they wanted came along to serve them: Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling. Stevenson offered a shallow moralism but a sense of honor, dedication, and courage. "To keep the old morality but rid it of asceticism, to defy the new despair, to disparage the gospel of respectability and success—that was Stevenson's aim." (p. 268) -Stevenson had had a brief flirtation with socialism, but he came to dislike Industrial society and longed for the pre-Industrial era. He could feel sympathy for courage and heroism, but he could not grasp the meaning of industrial growth and decay and exploitation or struggle against it. Late in life he went to Samoa for his health and defended the Samoans against im perialist abuse and wrote a few things about the islands. His work on the whole was juvenile, Hicks concluded, and lost its charm once the reader had grown up. Kipling was the ideal spokesman for the Empire, Hicks s a id , a man who grew up o v e r s e a s a s the so n o f a m ilit a r y father and who took for granted the ideals of serving the British Empire, His extraordinary talents showed themselves in the dozens of stories he wrote while a hard-working 226

journalist in India and In his verses about m ilitary life in the colonies. When he returned to England as an established writer, he saw that the English were not aware of the importance of the holy mission of imperialism. So he set about making himself the spokesman for It. His were not Ideals of avaricious capitalists exploiting foreign natives. He saw the Empire as a stern, God-given obligation for Englishmen to civilize the world, the "White Man's Burden." The natives of India were admirable In many ways, but they needed iron rule over them. All this talk of liberty and democracy and religious skepticism made little sense, he said, when one was close to the harsh realities of life, as one was in India and elsewhere.

Kipling was a didactic writer for the most part, and he was poor at showing human relationships on any complex level. His strength came from his verbal sk ill and his early tales of life In India. Without India, his v?ell soon

ran dry. He did not much mature as a writer, Hicks said. In later years he was frustrated by the softness he saw in Englishmen as the capitalists became parasites amid luxury and the poor were, in his eyes, coddled. With Victorianism dead and with changes In the economic system bringing prosperity again, Englishmen came to see that it was possible to tolerate changes in outlook and behavior that once would have been thought Intolerable— 227

as long as capitalism was preserved. Victorianism was dead,

and writers were freed, Kicks said, "but the newly confident

Edwardians could have been told that the major problems s till remained. ’'Finance capitalism was not a better basis than industrial capitalism on which to build a culture; the growth and the effects of parasitism proved the contrary.”

(P. 3*5) Die Edwardians could never be more than post- Victorians, "an aftermath, not a beginning,” Hicks concluded. Figures of 'Transition is a solid piece of literary history. Hicks did what he set out to do In relating social background to Individual writers and their works. Im plicit, of course, in his approach was the premise that

capitalism had reached Its height in the 19th century and then began to decline, and that socialism.was on the rise.

He examined these representative writers to catch any glimpses of socialist trends In them and to measure their attitudes toward the capitalist rulers and the exploited workers. He still had his Communist point of view. But he treated these writers fully and objectively, giving generous credit for what he thought they had contributed. He built his case with impressive details, both from background material and from the literature they wrote. Perhaps It' was easier to treat writers of another age and ' another nation with less passion, Hicks seemed to be less able to keep a balance-in treating writers who were then 228 producing. But then that Is always more difficult.

Hicks showed the value, I think, of asking the questions concerning class Background and alignment, economic forces, and individual attitudes and motives that he had advocated. The responses of the esthetes may have been caused by other factors than dissatisfaction with the bourgeoisie, for example, but the insights that his analysis gave seem to me shrewd and useful. The esthetes' pose was an attempt to escape from unpleasantness in their society. He made a strong case for Hardy as a m eliorist and a man sympathetic for humanity. And he asked pertinent questions about the value and the danger of the attitudes of Stevenson and Kipling. He examined their works, in short, as a humane moralist wanting to know the causes and the implica-r . tions of their works. He succeeded in doing what he had done only superficially in The Great Tradition. The book was neglected more because of political events than any lack o f q u a l i t y . Communism was d is c r e d it e d in Am erica by th e time it was published, and Hicks himself had resigned from th e p a r ty .

Conclns ions

Here .was Hicks .the radical critic, then, proclaiming the value of seeing society from the point of view of the loitfer classes and inrieed using that approach to some advantage— but carrying the approach too far and insisting that the 229 writer speak as a m ilitant worker expressing the revolution­ ary apocalypse. Here was a champion of contemporary realism who said that the class struggle should be central to a literary work if it was to be important, thus rejecting a great deal of the subject matter of literature. Here was a stern, almost humorless moralist pointing to the perception of revolutionary hope as a source of new inspira­ tion for the bewildered modern writer. He expressed the sensible idea that a writer had to have something to say and a certain amount of passion and insight to inspire him to say it-w ell. But he went too far in insisting that the revolutionary attitude was the only source of vision and that the writer should superimpose revolutionary hope upon his spontaneous creations, rather than letting the creation speak for itself. He went too far also in implying that Indignation at social injustice was the only source of inspiration. He used certain Marxist approaches to literature, but he did so in a much less sophisticated way than Marxian aestheticists have since advocated. For example, he applied the criterion of class attitudes and alignments too sim plistlcally. He saw the proletariat, in short, as marching toward a revolutionary solution to a ll conflicts/ including those reflected in the artist and his work. To examine the treatment Hicks gave to any specific 230

■writer during his radical period is to see the narrowing effect of dogmatism. Hicks often had important things to say about social background, politics, and philosophical attitudes expressed in literature. He often stated aptly what a writer was up to. But he denied the value of or expressed no interest in many of the imaginative insights that literature affords. What Hicks had to say about literature or a specific literary work was only part of

what could have been said. He brought to literature a narrowing dogmatism which cramped his insights and did not allow his imagination to operate freely. Nevertheless, Hicks made a valuable contribution as a critic. The social commitment of writers did result in a worthy burst of creativity. The lives of common people indeed offered a rich area to be explored and expressed. The escapism and subjectivity of many writers did need to be criticized. Hicks made mistakes in much of what he advocated, but he did not make the mistake of denying that literature had any connection with the society from which it came or any obligation to that society, as the esthetes did. He was astute enough to detect the hidden assumptions of critics who tried to deny the social relationship of literature' while making their own judgments from conservative or even reactionary points of view. His approach to criticism , if we make allowance for some of the narrowing, . 231 sectarian influences of Communist dogma, offered a fruitful attitude for a critic, certainly as fruitful as other approaches. For we must certainly modify the ideas of the other schools of criticism , such as impressionism, Humanism, and aestheticism, if we are to get a sensible balance. He are reduced, I suppose, to saying that the ideal critic or writer must ultim ately be one who serves "truth,” which leaves us with an abstraction. The ideal critic must somehow be a free-floating spirit who gets anchored to no s e t ■dogma.

i NOTES CHAPTER V

^■"Proust and the Proletariat," rev. of The Remembrance of Things Past. by Marcel Proust, New Masses. 20 Nov. 193^7* pp. 21 -2 2 .

^Lukacs, studies in European Realism (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 196^77 P* -I*

3Rev. of Vachal Linds a?/, by Edgar Lee Masters, New Masses, 2k Dec. 1935. P* 26.

^"Liberalism and Tragedy," rev. of A Modern Tragedy, by Phyllis Bentley, New Masses, 13 Feb. 193^7 P. 26T

5"Salamanders and Politics," rev. of Now in November, by Josephine Johnson, New Masses , 25 Sept. 193^» P. 27.

6"A Yankee Tragedy," rev. of Poor John Fitch, by Thomas Boyd, New Masses. 5 Nov. 1935» P. *2^7

?Rev. °f To Have and Have Not, by Ernest Hemingway, New Masses. 26~Oct. 1937» PP. 22-23. ^Rev. of Sirocco and Other Stories , by Ralph Bates, New Has s e s , Ik Feb. 1939 * PP. 25-27.

9Quotations from The Great Tradition are cited below b y page numbers in the 1935 revised edition unless otherwise noted. The pagination and content in both the 1933 edition and the revised edition are identical down to p. 2 9 2.

10Lee Bazandall, ed., Marxism and Aesthetics: A Selective Annotated Bibliography (New York: Humanities P r e s s , 1 9 6 8 ), p. 209.

^ Figures of Transition: A Study of British Literature at the End of the 19th Century TNew York: Macmillan, 1939")» p. 6 8 . Quotations” are cited below by page numbers in parentheses.

232 CHAPTER VI THE BREAK WITH COMMUNISM AND AFTER

Hicks had become a kind of public symbol of the native American intellectual who turned to Communism in the thirties. And he acted just as symbolically in resigning publicly from the party after the Stalin-Eltler pact. This act and his candid statement of the disillusionment he felt saved him from ruin as a man and as a writer, but he did not recover quickly from the debacle. It took him a few years to really come to terms with his political views. It took him even longer to redefine his critical theories. But he survived it a ll with courage and humility. Hicks tells in his autobiography of that fateful day: . . on the morning of August 22 . . . as I stepped into the kitchen, I heard a radio announcer say that Germany and Russia had agreed to sign a non-aggression pact. 'Jesus C h r is t , 1 I said to Dorothy, 'that knocks the bottom out of e v e r y t h in g . 1 . . . I realize now that I had had more doubts about the Soviet Union and about the Party, too, than I had ever admitted to myself. . . . What confronted me at the moment was the simple fact that Russia was no longer in the

233 2 jUr

anti-Fascist camp and therefore was not on my side. "3- His letter of resignation was published on October A, 1939» in The New Republic. He said that he did not know what was going on in Europe and that he would keep an open mind and certainly wanted to see the rights of the Party protected. The American C. P. had been caught unawares and was trying to justify Soviet policy. The party leaders had shown, he said," . . . that they are strong in faith—which the future may or may not justify—but weak in intelligence." Ihe party's effectiveness had been destroyed, Hicks said. He s till believed in socialism and would defend Russia's achievements. "I know as well as any party member that the pact is not the cause of the present drive against the party, and I know too that no progressive movement is safe if the party is suppressed. The whole progressive cause has

suffered, and we must repair the damage as rapidly as possible. . . . I value my years in the party . . . for the opportunity they gave me of fruitful work for a cause I believed in. My problem now is how to continue that work. "2 During World War II, Hicks busied him self with many things, including the writing of novels and civic improve­ ments in his community, but for a while he lost interest in criticism.-- At forty he took account of himself. "Two years had passed since I had left the Party, and I had not discovered what I wanted, though I had. learned a lot about 235

what I didn't want. Not only had literary values changed; I had largely lost interest in criticism ."3 In 19^0 he had published The First To Awaken. a utopian novel about the year 20^0. In 19^2 Only One Storm, a novel about the Involvement

of a New York ad man in his small New England home town,

became a best seller (30,000 copies). Behold Trouble came

in 19^* a novel about a conscientious objector; In 19^ also he wrote Small Town, a non-fiction account of life in Grafton, New York; and in 1952 he published the novel There Was A Kan In Our Town about the involvement of a man In a small town. • He wrote a great deal during the forties and fifties about Communism, his involvement with it, and its

continuing development. He gradually increased his activities as a book reviewer and by the fifties was again doing three or four dozen reviews a year.

1 His Social Ideas After the Thirties

A year after his resignation from the Communist Party, Hicks repudiated Marxism. He still called himself a socialist, but a democratic socialist. He later defined his position as that of a critical liberal. In "The Blind Alley of Marxism," Hicks said that the ideas of Marx and Engels were faulty because they put too much emphasis on the unrest of the victims of capitalism as the source of its downfall and not any on the desire for a more just and more rational society, even though they themselves exhibited humanitarian motives. The revolutionaries came largely from the bourgeoisie, which complicated the problem of motives, a problem for which Marxism offered no solution. Furthermore, Marx assumed that elim inating economic problems would solve a ll other problems. Marxism helped us to understand economic forces. "But when it [Marxism] ignores motives other than self-interest and class interests, even though its own existence cannot be explained in terms of such motives, we have a right to be suspicious."

Power had to be seized at a ll costs, but the question of what the power was to be used for was not answered. What happened was that a corps of professional revolutionaries took over and ashed for blind obedience from the masses. "Only when they are 3h power, when, in other words, it is too late to do anything about it if they have betrayed you, can you clearly discern their intentions." The fault lay not only with Stalin or anyone else, but with the Marxist concept of power and of history. "Ue cannot leave it to history, as Ilarx and Engels did, to put the brake on the misuse of power. . . . We want power for socialism 's sake, not for power's sake, and if the Leninist way does not take us to that goal we must find another."^ . In 19^-7 Hicks contributed "On Attitudes and Ideas" to a series in Partisan Review on "The Future of Socialism."

In it he outlined further the shortcomings of Marxism and 237

defined his idea of critical liberalism. Marx and Engels had Jumped to the generalization that a ll past history could be explained in terms of class struggles and that social and cosmic laws would bring about what they desired from the start. Their preoccupation with historical processes was a great contribution to understanding, Hicks said, but they refused to define clearly what kind of socialist order was to come about, lie had to re-examine goals and the means used to reach them. Hicks questioned whether capitalism was bound to collapse and whether the proletariat was its heir; rather, what had happened was that capitalism had been weakened by a stronger government and that the leadership of workers had not come from those who were most exploited. The discontent in the world, he said, was not merely economic; there were also psychological and moral discontents, such as the meaninglessness of much industrial work and the questionable values of capitalism. The biggest tendency was toward totalitarianism , not the inevitable class society, and socialists and liberals had to be concerned with controlling the bureaucracy that socialization made necessary. The means and ends were not simple, either, and trying to make them all look simple led to disillusionment. "The kind of optimism that is worked up in Communist and neo-liberal circles makes straight thinking impossible. That is why the writings of certain religious authors—Toynbee, Niebuhr, 238

Eliot—are so often more impressive than the writings of radicals and liberals. Orthodox Christianity at the very least presents a view of human nature that is not flagrantly at odds with the facts we have experienced in these recent decades . 11 Hicks defined leftists, not as ex-Communists, but as

persons with certain attitudes they held in common. These attitudes made them leftists; the fact that some were ex- Communists stemmed from the fact that their attitudes made them s u s c e p t ib le to Communism in th e f i r s t p la c e . The leftists were 11. . . united in their profound dissatisfaction with existing society, in their realization that not only the intellectuals but all classes of people suffer from the defects of the social order, in their adherence to conceptions of the good life that have been evolved in the

course of mankind's six thousand years of experience with civilization, and in their sense of personal responsibility

for present and future." Leftists had to begin with self-examination and define

what kind of good society they wanted; these ideas needed to be brought into the open, criticized, and revised, with the results being used as criteria for choosing means to reach them. Hicks said he was against intransigent radicalism such as that of Dwight Macdonald because it would accept nothing less than perfection. The critical liberal, on the other hand, "thinks the possible is worth achieving." 239

"Although the critical liberal is aware of the lim itations of reason, he sees reason as our best reliance. What the critical liberal lacks in the way of dramatic boldness, he can make up for by persistence." Communication betxtfeen intellectuals and non-intellectuals was also essential,

for attitudes had to be clarified before any discussion of new political organizations could be useful. "If we can

clear away some of the moral and political confusion, a new party, if one is born, may amount to something."-5 - During the early fiftie s, with all the talk about the

menace o f Communism and th e r i s e o f M cCarthyism, H icks t r ie d to serve as a moderating force, agreeing that Russia was a threat and that espionage had to be counteracted, but arguing that civil liberties also had to be protected. In "The Liberals Who Haven’t Learned," he argued that the overall effects of the statements of certain writers, notably in The Nation, was to give Russia the benefit of the doubt and to express distrust of the United States in matters of foreign policy. "If the pro-Soviet front has any strength in America today, it is because there are still liberals who provide the verbal cloak of 'social betterment 1 that hides the nakedness of the brutal revolutionary totalitarianism that is the Communist aim." Many pro-Soviet liberals felt that it was better to favor Russia, Hicks said, than to be duped by American reactionary forces. 240

The argument had an air of plausibility, he said, hut it showed how little they had learned. Anti-Communists "... seem to assume that nothing matters but the defeat of Communism and that a ll anti-Communists are their friends, but if the past two decades teach any lesson, it is that the wrongness of one extreme does not prove the rightness of the other." The pro-Soviet liberals, on the other hand, asked how they could be wrong if they opposed Senator McCarthy; the answer, Hicks said, was "... that on these scores they aren’t wrong, but that doesn’t make them right

about much else."^ Hides wrote several other magazine articles and essays

on the subject of Communism and the history of radicalism in America, and in 1954 he published Where We Came Out, in which he told of his experience with Communism and explained what he thought should and should not be done about it and why he had hope for America. He had bet on the wrong horse when he backed Communism in the th irties, he said. "The mistake that I and so many others made in the thirties . . . was in assuming that there must be a solution for the . . . problems created . . . by the depression. . . . We wanted to have the whole mess cleaned up once and for a ll. That is the kind of mistake that intellectuals are prone to make...... Today I regard with skepticism all dogmas—religious, social,

political, or economic."? 2 4 l

H ick s came to tie a c le a r -h e a d e d h is t o r ia n o f Communism and radicalism and -wrote in his simple, lucid style a good many interesting pieces about what had been happening in America since the twenties. He does not strike one as an original thinker or a high-powered mind. His strength came from his experience, his simple honesty, and his moral integrity. As a footnote to one of his articles for Harperfs said, Hicks had become ", •. , a well known student of American social and Intellectual history,"®

His Later Critical Ideas In the summer of 1940, Hicks wrote a vigorous essay called "The Fighting Decade" in which he tried to get a perspective on the literature of the thirties. He traced the development of the fight for freedom in form and from unconventional morality, the disenchantment of writers in the twenties, the concentration of aesthetics, and then the effect of the depression. The faults of left-wing writers in the thirties were not caused by political dogmas so much as by ignorance, failures of Insight, and Incompetence. The writers wrote from their perceptions and emotions, and the Depression had made them feel a certain way. The c r i t i c a l d e b a te s in th e t h i r t i e s w ere n o t over Communism but were about the changes in emphasis from aesthetics to social concern; the arguments were symptoms of change. On the whole, radical literature was Independent of dogma, 242

he said, pointing to Josephine Herbst, James T. Farrell,

and John Steinbeck as writers who had learned from Marxism

but who knew how to assim ilate what they learned. Novels

like those of Fielding Burke, Robert Cantwell, and Albert Halper had been novels of American life , not novels of party struggle. The leftist writers were the "hopeful and vital" writers of the thirties. The pessimism of the twenties had been a shallow pose, and even though some of the hope of the thirties was too easy, radicalism delivered writers from the snobbishness of the twenties. At any rate, he said, the decade had ended, both on the calendar and in spirit. Writers had scattered, and there was confusion in criticism . Estheticism' would be important again in the forties; some writers seemed to be moving toward mysticism. The decade would be marked by militarism; politics would be essentially fascist, but mostly writers would try to escape from politics. The strength of the radical literature of the thirties would come from the writers who profited from their mistakes and kept building. And, he affirmed, this literature was strong. "It is not invalidated by the collapse of a political dogma or the revision of critical theories. If a sound American radical movement Is built, firmly rooted In national traditions, free from reliance on doctrinal orthodoxy, it w ill recognize this literature as its own."9 Hicks at this 2^3

point s till had. hopes for a radical movement. He wrote with

more hope and affirmation in 194-0 than he did in the folloi'Ting few years. But much of what he said about literature in that essay proved to be prophetic. Estheticism did become important. Many writers did turn to mysticism, and they tried to escape from politics. That year Hicks also wrote "The Failure of Left C r it ic is m . 11 He explained the connection and the lack of connection between Communist politics and the le ftist critics of the New Masses. No one had told him how to review a book or ever changed his reviews, he said, but he still regretted the political connection. "By joining the Communist Party, I had committed my future to a group of politicians, and I ought to have kept a much sharper eye on them than I did." Two schools of leftist criticism had been at work, he said, one group that emphasized general principles, economic forces, the class struggle, etc., and another that talked of technical excellence. In neither group were there critics who were "... capable of consistent analyses and mature and well-rounded evaluation." L eftist criticism was hurt also by the virulent arguments over politics and by the critics* notion that they were to use criticism as a weapon in the class struggle. Marxist critics had tried to argue that capitalism should be destroyed while at the same time evaluating literary works; this was wrong* Hicks said, "because 11. . . we were in no position to make our statements about the author and our statement about capitalism part of the same proposition." Leftist criticism had not been valueless but had been less effective than it could have been. Hie leftist critics had helped make people aware of the Depression and the books about it and had helped them to read such books as

The Grapes of Wrath and Native Son with understanding. They were now less certain about many things and did not feel criticism could be a major weapon, but perhaps they could now go farther.10 Hicks did not get into questions of the philosophy of Marxism and its connection with literature. Except for pointing out the fallacy of using criticism for a political weapon, he said nothing about the philosophical and aesthetic principles of Marxism. One gets the feeling that the philosophical premises of Marxism had never penetrated too deeply in the first place. In recent years Hicks has advocated a closer look at the literature of the thirties and a revaluation of it.

For example, in 19&3 3n "Literary Horizons" column for Saturday Review, he wrote "The Thirties: A Reappraisal."

Uriters like Faulkner and Fitzgerald, who had been Ignored in the thirties, were in the fifties and sixties greatly admired, he said, while characteristic.writers of the thirties like Dos Passos, Farrell, and Steinbeck were downgraded. The reaction had gone too far, and we could expect a revaluation. He argued that U.S.A. , Studs Lonigan, and The Grapes of Wrath were too good to be ignored, although

he was not ready to say they belonged with the very best of American literature. He did not argue for a return to the literary standards of the thirties, Hicks said, but rather

". . . the writing of the thirties has to be given another and more searching look. Such an examination, I am confident, would make the decade seem much less simple than we tend to

suppose and much richer in literary achievement. In 1970, reviewing Albert Halper’s memoirs of the thirties,

Hicks said, "There was great diversity on the left, even among Communist party members. Because it gives glimpses

of the diversity, Halper's book is a useful addition to an ever-expanding bibliography. n^2 Hicks has recognized some of the lim itations in subject matter of the kind of novels he was advocating in the thirties but has also argued for the importance of the social and political connections in fiction. He suggested In 1952 that a distinction could be made between the novel of social protest and the novel of social criticism . The protest novel aimed at an Immediate wrong that could be remedied; 'the novel of criticism dealt with the social

structure In general and was broader and deeper. Social criticism had been a mighty force in our literature, he said, although he would not go so far as to call it our ’•g r e a t11 tradition. After the thirties, novels of social protest had vanished, hut, more important, he said, . . the whole tradition of social criticism has been w aning. ’1 He pointed to the typical postxtfar novelists, Capote, Vidal, Buechner, Goyen, Styron, as conspicuously nonpolitical. There were strong elements of social criti­

cism in Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway, but "... t h is is not the element that is praised by the molders of literary o p in io n. 11 Norman Mailer, James Jones, and Irwin Shaw were rendered partly Impotent in their social criticism because they had to sp lit emotions two ways; for example, Shaw was against Communism and at the same time against reaction. Novelists after the thirties saw that changing the social organization was complicated and was a never-ending job. Young writers turned from social protest because they were rebelling from the previous generation of writers, because they felt a sense of their own helplessness, and because the radical movement of the thirties had ended ignominiously. They now wrote the novel of the human condition, which included some of the greatest novels, but there were dangers of artificiality, of abstractness, and of triviality. Meanwhile, social novels had become more conservative, as illustrated by the works of Herman Wouk, J. P. Marquand, and James Gould Cozzens. Conservatism probably could not 2^7

provide a basis for a postwar literary renaissance because society was changing too rapidly. Sensitive writers would feel estrangement, which was a characteristic of modern civilization. A writer could dramatize his estrangement in symbols or he could analyze it, and the analysis would take the form of social criticism . Either way might be good. "Good novels can and w ill be written about the

American scene, and I believe that most of them w ill belong in the tradition of social criticism ."^3

Hicks had broadened his views and had become less dogmatic, but he was still' interested in the novel as a way of examining society, and as he pointed out, during the fifties this approach was not emphasized. Hicks was not opposed to a certain rise of conservatism, since he felt the liberal-radical tradition had become confused, and he was w illing to pay compliments to writers like Cozzens. In 1950* he wrote that Cozzens seemed very dispassionate in his work. American literature needed Intelligent Tories, Hicks said, and he did not wish to quarrel with Cozzens on political grounds. "What I do wish is that he had given fuller expression to his Toryism." Cozzens l e f t ' o u t ’sotae- * very important elements: 3 ". . . Mr. Cozzens not only eliminates irrelevant ideas and emotions but frequently strains out some part of the vitality that is the essence of Imaginative literature." But Cozzens had kept on improving. 248

His last novel (up to that time) was Guard of Honor. and it was his best one.*** Sixteen years later Hicks wrote a University of Minnesota pamphlet on Cozzens and was s till w illing to see value in his work, although he pointed out that Cozzens had Ignored many of the social and political and artistic events of our era. "Cozzens has made the traditional novel an effective medium for the expression of his vision of life. That other novelists, with other methods and other aims, have made revelations about the human con­ dition that seem more valuable to some of us than anything we find in his work should not persuade us to underestimate the substance and validity of what he has done . 11 *5 H icks discussed Cozzens1 style in more detail and gave more examples of it than he ordinarily did in treating other writers. But he still did not go into great detail about style in the way that some form alistic critics do. In 1956 Hicks wrote an article that indicated he had found a solution to problem of politics in fiction. Novels often showed certain political attitudes, Hicks admitted, but If the novel were to last and be of interest to readers a few years hence, the Immediate political situations out of which It grew would probably count for little ; what was important was that the novel created a fictional world of Its own. He pointed to Graham Greene *s The Quiet American, which some reviewers had blasted for being anti-American 249 concerning our policy in Indochina, and also to Robert

Penn Warren's A ll the King1s Hen, which had prompted some critics to say the book advocated dictatorship and white­ washed Huey Long. There was no virtue in writing about political and social matters, as he and others had believed in the thirties, Hicks said, but there was no virtue, either, in not writing about them. Writers who leaned to either extreme would have to transcend these self-imposed lim ita­ tions. If most of the political novels of the thirties were dead, that was because of their literary, not their political, shortcomings. We neither refrained, from reading novels by Dickens and Trollope because they were p olitical, nor did we read them any more because they were p olitical, since we were no longer interested in the political issues involved; instead, we read them because they had the breath of life in them. There was a difference, perhaps, between the literary critic and the literary journalist; the critic, Hicks said, had to look at a work in the largest possible perspective, while the journalist could not forget that he and his readers lived in the present. "A political novel, whatever else it may be, is a political act, and has to be judged as such." But the responsible literary Journalist had to be prepared to Judge a political novel on more than one level and could not let immediate Issues blind him completely to 250

qualities that might make the book last. "He w ill do well to remember that sound ideas—whatever his standard of soundness—are not enough to make a good novel or unsound ideas enough to make a bad one. He w ill also remember that the ideas are there and that dealing with them is part of his responsibility to the moment in which he lives." ^

Hicks tried to live up to both these responsibilities in his long career after the thirties. It is interesting, too, that.he often referred to himself as a literary journalist rather than a critic. It Is a mark of the man's integrity and humility that he profitted from the mistakes of dogm atism and e g o tism he made in h i s y o u th . Hicks made some significant statements about his errors in criticism during the thirties in the foreword and afterword that he wrote for the 19^9 reprint of The Great Tradition. He had not been an expert on Marxism, nor had he been speaking officially for the:C.P. in the book, Hicks said, for he had known as little about Marxism in 1930 as the average college student. He tried In the next two years to learn and by the time he had finished the book in 1933* he was "... bold.enough, and ignorant enough, to call myself a Marxist, but I knew in my heart that I was an amateur." He came to feel, Hicks said, that he had discovered a' great revelation in the Marxian Interpretation of history and that through criticism he could show the American people these great truths and thus advance the revolutionary cause. 251

"Such certainty is intoxicating and dangerous, and I hope t h a t . . . my e x p e r ie n c e may be a w arn in g. . . . 11 Marxism was useful for analysis, Hicks said, but not for evaluation. He still believed, for example, he had been right in The Great Tradition when he said that greed, cynicism, and vulgarity In the Gilded Age had had something to do with the weakness of post-Civil War literature and had caused writers to retreat to other times and places for their subjects. "I might have stopped there, as some others did, saying that Marxism was a useful instrument for the explaining of literary phenomena but had nothing to do with evaluating them. Thus one could say that, from a Marxist point of view, such-and-such was a very reactionary book but on literary grounds was very good indeed." Another misconception of his had been on the subject matter of literature: My major error was the assumption, never specifically stated, that the principal and proper concern of literature is man-in-society, I can say in explanation if not in extenuation that that was the way I felt in the thirties. It wasn't, that is, the result of Marxist dogma; it was a bias induced by my sense that society was falling apart. I wasn't interested just then in either metaphysical or psychological problems. That seems to me pretty sad, Man's social relations are still the subject of much fiction and rightly so, but some of the greatest literature of our own as well as earlier times grows out of a concern with man's place in the universe, and the attempt to see the individual in depth, to examine all the selves, has Inspired some of the most original work of our time. In practice, to be sure, these three Interests need not be separated, and all three may be found in some n o v e ls — a s , fo r I n s ta n c e , Thomas Mann's The Magic M ountain. 252

As for the evaluations he had made of specific writers in The Great Tradition. Hicks said he had changed his mind about several of them. Walt Whitman, for instance, said many things he approved of, but . . the truth is that I wasn't particularly responsive to his poetry, and I'm afraid t h a t I'm s t i l l n o t g r e a t ly moved by i t . . . . Some o f th e democratic and humanitarian affirmations that I then felt obliged to admire seem now to be marred by a forced and false rhetoric .11 Hicks felt that he had done well in treating the local colorists, Henry Adams, the muckrakers, Bellamy, Garland, London, the writers and conditions before and after World War I, and, on the whole, the writers of the late twenties. As for Mark Twain, he had said that Twain had turned his back on his own times and reverted to his youth. "Now I am glad that he did; what he had to say about the human condition he said beautifully in Huckleberry Finn, and nothing else matters." Henry James was, he said, "... my greatest stumbling block." He had enjoyed reading James before he came to write The Great Tradition, but as a radical could not approve of the man or his writings because. James was a leisure class hanger-on and because he believed in ". . . not so much art for art's sake as in life for art's sake." The idea of art being a form of action was one of the dogmas of radical criticism . "Some works of art do have recognizable 253

consequences, but it is not by their consequences that we judge them; these are incidental, 'Enjoyment,1 though i t does not tell the whole story, comes closer to the truth than *action .1 If you don't enjoy a work of art, then it doesn't exist for you,” James could not transcend his class politically as a person, but as a writer he did, "As an examiner of life . . . ,” Hicks said, "he was superb. There were large and important areas of life that he was not equipped to examine, but no writer is omniscient. What James looked at he looked at persistently and fearlessly, and he looked at some of the roots of human behavior," Hicks said he had been wrong, also, in asserting that the world James wrote about became more and more remote from the real world. Hicks regretted that he had condemned Robert Frost because he had not written about industrialism, for he should have been loyal to his own tastes "... instead of whoring after dogmas, I enjoyed reading Frost more than any other contemporary poet. Obviously he xias saying some­ thing that was important to me even though I tried to pretend that it wasn*t,” His opinions on the new writers of the twenties had changed, Hicks said, because his principles had changed and because there was now more information about them. He now appreciated the experiments of William Faulkner, for 2 5^

instance, as "well as Faulkner's greatness. "The real reason for ray failure, however, was simply that I was blinded by dogma to the qualities that make Faulkner great." He had judged Eliot too much by his p olitics, although he had enjoyed his poetry and had known many lines by heart. "I never did accept his ideas, but Four Quartets came to seem to me one of the few great poems of our tim e."^7 Thus, thirty years after his break with Communism, H icks summed up th e le s s o n s he f e l t he had le a r n e d about American literature and about the principles of literary criticism . It is an interesting and significant summing up of a long and Interesting career.

Conclusions After 1939» Hicks slowly worked out in his mind a rational explanation of the mistakes in political and critical thinking which he felt he had made in the thirties. Politically, he became a liberal who still held to the humanitarian values that he had started with in the twenties, but who was skeptical about quick solutions to complicated problems. As a ctitlci, he came to believe that literature and criticism could not be used as weapons for political reform; that while a critic might have to judge the immediate political meaning of a book, he also had to consider the long-range value the book might have; that the subject matter of literature could not be limited strictly to the social but also included the psychological and the metaphysical; that the sense of pleasure derived from literature was a better judge of its value than was its adherence to any set dogma. Hicks became a special sort of im pressionistic critic who was aware of social background, philosophical assumptions, and political attitudes as influences and meanings in literature. Although he acknowledged the Importance of matters of form and commented on them when he felt it was important, he seldom spent much space in going into details. He remained a critic of the substance of literary works. He was well equipped for this task from much reading and extensive knowledge and experience. NOTES

CHAPTER VI

•^Part of the Truth (New York: Harcourt, Brace & W orld, 196577 P. 17^7

2.»a Communication: On Leaving the Communist Party," New Republic. 4 Oct. 1939* PP. 244-245. 3part of the Truth. p. 202. 4»The Blind Alley of Marxism," Nation. 28 Sept. 19*1-0, pp. 264-2 6 7 . 5»On Attitudes and Ideas," Partisan Review, 5 (March- April 1947). PP. 117-129. 6»The Liberals Who Haven't Learned," Commentary. 11 (April 1951), PP. 319-329. 7Where We Came Out (New York: Viking Press, 1954) • pp. 243-244. ^ E d ito r s 1 note to "How Red Was the Red Decade?" by Granville Hicks, Harper's. 207 (July 1953). P. 53. 9 "The Fighting Decade," Saturday Review. 6 July 1940, pp. 3-6, 16-17. 10"The Failure of Left Criticism," New Republic. 9 Sept, 1940, pp. 345-347. llttThe thirties: A Reappraisal," Saturday Review. 4 May 1963* PP« 27-28. 12''Good-bye, U nion Square," rev. of A W riter's Memoir o f the Thirties. by A lb e r t H alper, New York Times Book Review , 1 Nov. 1970. P. 4. 13««Flction and S o c ia l Criticism," C o lle g e E n g lish , 13 (April 1952). pp. 355-361.

256 257

^"The Reputation of James Gould Cozzens," College English. 11 (January 1950), pp. 177-183. 15james Gould Cozzens (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1963T, pT^5. ^^"In a Novel It's the Life, Not the P olitics, That Counts," New York Times Book Review. 12 Aug. 1956, p. 5.

^Foreword and Afterword to The Great Tradition (1933; rpt. Chicago: Quadrangle, 1969), pp. vii-xi, 307- 322. CHAPTER V II HICKS AND MARXIST CRITICISM IN PERSPECTIVE

Granville Hicks was led. astray In his critical evaluations during the thirties "by his moral zeal and his narrow adherence to Marxist dogma; there can "be little question about that. But did the fault lie with Marxism or with Hicks* application of it? I think that Hicks did apply his Marxist precepts more narrowly than other Marxist critics have. But even In the hands of a more sophisticated critic, X do not think Marxism offers a completely satisfactory critical approach. Although Marxism is not solely adequate, however, it presents our consciences with a^persistent and bothersome moral challenge. The makers of literary fashion since the collapse of the radical movement In the thirties have dismissed the literature and criticism of the radicals as ridiculous, sim plistic, and naive. Such an easy dismissal does not answer the moral imperative of the literary left. Any satisfactory answer must take this challenge into account. In this final chapter I would like to clarify the reasons for my conclusions about Hicks and Marxist criticism and to

258 259

point to the theories that "best account for the connection between literature and the moral challenge of the left.

There is something appealing about the movement of the th irties, an appeal that seems to come and go in human

society. Hicks was expressing, I think, a desire in artists and thinkers to feel that they are a part of a unified culture and that they are working for the general good, rather than to feel the alienation they have often

expressed, especially in modern times. William Butler Yeats dreamed of a sim ilar thing when he spoke of wanting to return to the medieval unity of Byzantium, where "... religious, aesthetic and practical life were one ..." and \Jhexe "... architect and artificers . , . spoke to the multitude and the few alike."! It seems that the thirties was a:time when certain latent Impulses and appeals came to the surface: a desire for action to bring about basic justice, since many people lacked basic needs, and a desire to depict In art certain common injustices. Hicks was r e f l e c t i n g th e need fo r one kind o f a r t . Communism seems to have served as a rallying flag around which these latent impulses organized and vrere released. Ever since the thirties, there has been an undercurrent of interest in proletarian literature, a phenomenon that David Hadden has testified to.2 While most writers and lovers of literature forgot the protest literature of the thirties after the 260

Depression ended, some did not forget. In the sixties some of this latent Impulse surfaced again in the awareness of a large number of people, inspired by the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war. In light of the recurring appeal of protest literature and the dream of unity, Hicks 1 concept of his public role during the thirties does not seem so ridiculous. He dreamed of being an intellectual worker in a unified society, working with and for a ll mankind. He dreamed of doing his part as a critic to further the ideals and clarify the portrayal in literature of a new consciousness. He dreamed the utopian dream, or a dream sim ilar to the dream of medieval unity. The dream was built on a poignant awareness of hard times and on illusions about the proletariat. It did not take into account certain political realities about the workers1 attitudes and the machinations of the Communist Party, Nevertheless, the dream grew out of the moral imperative of the humane tradition. The most satisfactory theories about literature take this ethical concern into consideration, as I hope to demonstrate. This study of Hicks' criticism has shown that he was primarily concerned with the ethical values expressed in literature and that he was quick to point out hidden assump­ tions and attitudes held by writers and by critics.

Hicks during the thirties assumed that capitalism and the culture it supported were soon to collapse 261

and that hope lay In revolution by the workers. He conceived of literature and criticism as weapons to be used in the revolutionary fight. He was concerned with the effects literature might have on the proletariat and offered prescriptions for proper revolutionary literature, Hicks lim ited his Interests so that he excluded many imaginative insights that literature offers. Ihe study has shown, finally, that he approached his task as a critic with a strong sense of morality and that he often lost his sense of humor and delight in the process. But how does he compare with other Marxist critics? It would appear that each Marxist critic has his own peculiarities. No two are alike. But for my purposes it w ill be useful to compare Hicks with two Marxists who are highly esteemed: Christopher Caudwell of England and Georg Lukacs of Hungary. One is Immediately struck by Christopher Caudwell*s thorough integration of dialectical materialism into all of his thinking. Whether he was talking of physics or of love, he had a Marxist explanation. He approached litera­ ture with this same philosophical depth, and it was as a Marxist philosopher that he analyzed it. Art resulted from the tension, he said, between old and new, between "... changing social relations and outmoded consciousness." In a time of new synthesis—of revolution—the artist 262 became aware of things outside his work. "Thus In art the tension between individualism and the Increasing complexity and catastrophes of the artist's environment, between the free following of dream and the rude blows of anarchic reality, wakes the artist from his dream and forces him in spite of himself to look at the world, not merely as an artist, but also as a man, as a citizen, as a sociologist." Bourgeois art had become moribund and was in a stage preceding art's rebirth. Two paths during the thirties were possible, he said; one was Fascism, the other Communism. A rt cou ld "... either create the future or go back to old primitive values, to mythology, racialism, nationalism, hero-worship, and participation mystique. 11 The difficulty with D. H. Lawrence was that he, being troubled by the instability of bourgeois art, wanted to r e g r e s s : It is Lawrence's importance as an artist that he was well aware of the fact that the pure artist cannot exist to-day, and that the artist must inevita­ bly be a man hating cash relationships and the market, and profoundly Interested in the relations between persons. Moreover, he must be a man not merely profoundly interested in the relations between persons as they are, but interested in changing them, dissatisfied with them as they are, and wanting newer and fuller values in personal relationships. But it is Lawrence's final tragedy that his solution was ultimately Fascist and not Communist. It was regressive. Lawrence wanted us to return to the past, to the 'Mother. 1 He sees human discontent as the yearning of the solar plexus for the umbilical connexion, and he demands the substitution for sharp sexual love of the unconscious fleshly identification of foetus with mother. All this was symbolic of regression, of neurosis, of the return to the primitive. 263

Lawrence confused thinking with consciousness and feeling

with unconsciousness, Caudwell said, and tried to argue that we needed to return to a state of unconsciousness. "Consciousness can only be abandoned in action, and the first action of Fascism is the crushing of culture...... It is impossible therefore for an artist and thinker to be a.consistent Fascist. He can only be like Lawrence, a self-contradictory one, who appeals to the consciousness of men to abandon consciousness."3

Caudwell challenged Lawrence1s absurd theories about sex and the primitive rather effectively. But he was look­ ing at Lawrence’s philosophical assumptions, not his overall depiction of life. He was approaching literature, indeed all learning, with a set of premises about the state of society in the 1930’s. He assumed, like Hicks, that capitalism would soon be replaced by either Fascism or Communism. And he never doubted that eventually society would progress toward revolution. He believed In the Marxist Idea of progress. He evaluated literature upon these criteria. Caudwell was killed In 1937 w h ile fighting against the Fascists in Spain. He did not live to see the collapse of the radical movement and the Stalin- Hltler pact. He might have been able to come to terms with the Russians’ political betrayal, but I wonder if he could have explained the political events of the last three decades both In the Communist and the non-Communist world. The new 264 synthesis has not come about, at least not In the way the Marxists predicted, Caudwell offers fascinating ideas about the material­ ist connections between consciousness and art. He says, for example, that 11. . . the artist makes use always of Just those verbal or pictorial Images of reality which are more charged with feeling than cognition, and he organizes them in such a way that the affects re-inforce each other and fuse to a glowing mass, . , . This Is art’s mission.

Art is the technique of affective manipulation in relations to reality.11^ His ideas on art and consciousness Intrigue us, and perhaps he furnished Insight Into the relation of art to reality. Meanwhile, however, we must find ways to analyze and evaluate literature, ways that do not depend on unproved hypotheses and on political predictions that did not come about. No, in spite of his Intellectual depth and fascinating mind, Caudwell does not offer us a comprehensive system for criticism . Even though he had a better grasp of dialectical materialism than Hicks, he was tied to sim ilar assumptions about the state of society. Literature must be granted its own existence; It cannot wait upon the evidence that proves or disproves the philosophers* hypotheses.

Caudwell died young, before his ideas had been tested In society. But Georg Lukacs, who was active during the 265

thirties and who survived the Russian purges and the whole Stalin era, perhaps offers a better case for the validity of Marxist criticism . Caudwell did not put himself in the public role of the critic serving the new mlllenium, as Hicks did. He did not prescribe methods and attitudes for revolutionary writers, as Hicks did; Caudwell contented himself with analyzing existing literature. But Lukacs did play something of a public role in the Communist world. He was a minister of culture in Hungary during the Stalin era and apparently was forced to make pronouncements about Soviet expectations from artists in order to please the Stalinist censors and to save himself from the purges. Lukacs asserted, for example, that writers in a revolutionary time would profit from involvement in the social struggle, although bourgeois writers would not. "It depends," he said, "on whether the society in which the writer lives contains historically significant social and ideological trends to which the writer can dedicate himself with all the fervour of his p e r s o n a l i t y ."5 Lukacs believed that a writer would be inspired by being close to a mass movement o f th e common p eo p le s t r u g g lin g fo r improvement. The world needed a realist literature, he argued, and thus he had turned, he said, to an evaluation of such writers as Tolstoy, Balzac and Walter Scott. But these writers were not to be Imitated. "The practical road to a solution for the writer lies In an ardent love of the 266

people, a deep hatred of the people's enemies and the people's own errors, the Inexorable uncovering of truth and reality, together with an unshakable faith in the march of mankind and their own people towards a better future. Lukacs approached literature with the philosophical and political assumptions of other Marxists, although he was more flexible in his appreciation than Hicks was during the thirties. He spoke against naturalism and symbolism as signs of capitalist decadence; he, like Hicks, talked of the alienation of the modern writer and suggested that the revolutionary viewpoint would inspire the writer; and he advocated popular art rather than exclusive art. He allowed his mind to roam over large areas of realism. In spite of his wide Interests and his philosophical depth, however, Lukacs had lim itations. As Alfred Kazin suggested, . . Lukacs, in the last analysis, w ill never take a chance on a writer who is of the wrong type, or on a writer who s t r a y s from b e in g th e r i g h t ty p e ." Only Marx h im s e lf and Trotsky were really free in their commentary on literature, Kazin argued. Marxist critics, he said, seemed to praise writers for their attitudes. "This prizing of certain authors and books for their 'tendency' only, and the automatic disparagement of valuable books because they do not clearly show the 'right* tendency, is the besetting weakness of even the most intelligent Marxist critics. It 26?

follows from the habit of thinking in social c a t e g o r ie s . . . ."7 Later writings by Lukacs do indicate, however, either thathe was more able to express his true views in the

post-Stalin era or that he had changed to a freer attitude. In Healism In Our Time, for example, Lukacs saw some hope

for writers in the non-Communist world to overcome what the considered to be Cold War prejudices against an Impartial evaluation of Communism. The writer who considers his own basic interests those of his nation and of mankind as a whole, and who decides to work against the forces prevailing in the capitalist world, is now no longer alone. The further his explorations take him, the firmer his. choice w ill be, and the less isolated will he feel. . . . The real dilemma of our age is not the opposition between capitalism and socialism , but the opposition between peace and war. The first duty of the bourgeois intellectual has become the rejection of an all- pervading fatalistic angst. Implying a rescue operation for humanity rather than any breakthrough to S o c ia lis m .8 Lukacs s t i l l b e lie v e d Communism was b e t t e r than c a p it a lis m , but he was willing to entertain the idea of peaceful coexistence in the name of larger humanistic interests. He spoke out also against the Stalin era. Soviet literature during this period, he said, was harmed by

11. . . bringing Marxism too directly to bear on practical, day-to-day;problems. Marxism thus became something abstract. . . . In the writing of the Stalinist period . . . the real problems were overlooked and . , . the correctness of particular solutions became a matter of dogmatism."9 268

Not only did Lukacs criticize what he considered to "be bad Soviet writing; he also praised the bourgeois "critical re a lism " o f w r ite r s l i k e Thomas Mann. Insofar as Lukacs was able to view literature from a broad perspective of humane values, he offered valuable insights. And his concept of the typical character is often a fruitful approach to a literary work. The trouble is that he was not consistently broad and flexible. Furthermore, Kazin has pointed out another fault of Lukacs, which can be applied to most Marxist criticism , including that of Hicks, Lukacs, Kazin said, "... emphasizes formulations about the nature of a school or style rather than insights into a particular style starting from a direct concern with the t e x t ."*0 The tendency to get away from the individual work and not to consider the work in terms of its own content and purposes hampers this kind of criticism . It would seem also i that the Marxist is not as likely to spot new artistic break­ throughs and new types of sensibility as are other critics.

The advocates of Marxist criticism argue that Marxism can be used as a foundation, as a broad basic approach to literary criticism , and that it need not preclude aesthetic considerations or differences in politics. Peter Clecak has written a dissertation in which he argues that Marxism can be the basis of an aesthetic theory because as a method it shows the connection between economic systems and culture and because it shares the humanistic tradition of values. "The Marxist, then," says Clecak, "can proceed to develop varieties of ethical and aesthetic theories consis­

tent with and shaped (not causally determined) by the general ideals of value (abundance, freedom, and creativity) and the basic historical requirement for their realization— the elimination of class society.I can accept every­ thing Clecak says except the last idea, the elimination of class society. One cannot escape the political connection here, and thus criticism would have to be tied to a literal transformation of society rather than a set of ideals or values. I personally like the idea of eliminating class society, but it does not seem necessary to tie liter­ ary criticism to an actual social program. It would seem best to say that Marxism plus other critical methods can supply the needs of criticism rather than to say that Marx­ ism can be the foundation upon which the other methods are built., Marxism is tied to certain premises, such as the idea of progress and the inevitability of socialism. Aside from sharing a set of traditional humane values and ideals, criticism is not obliged to accept such premises as those of Marxism. One does not have to accept these premises, either, to see the value of the method of Marxism. The analysis of economic forces in society and the assumption of the point of view of the proletariat, the viewing, in other words, of society from the bottom up, does contribute 270

to Insights Into the creation of anlthe meaning of literature. The best answer would seem to come from those critics and scholars who have suggested that a -variety of approaches to a literary work .is-, useful hut that literature is entitled to its own existence independent of other learning. Morton D. Zabel said that criticism should

in v o lv e "... the undertaking of a whole view of literature which admits the possible benefits of diverse intellectual and critical disciplines but insists on keeping the central

integrity of literature intact, and holds in view the unity

of art with the total sum of human experience and its moral

values..Two other men have made interesting comments on this idea of a broad approach to literature. Thomas Mann, who moved during the th irties from conservative or even reactionary politics to a more liberal view, has worked out the problem rather w ell, it seems to me. Mann at first supported Hitler in the thirties but soon perceived that Hitler was a monster. He left Germany and later admitted that if he had not left he would have been murdered. Mann acknowledged the connection between Marxism and traditional humane values, but he s till reserved for art its own realm. The artist creates art in a mood of play,

Mann said, and, even though art may have a moral effect, the artist w ill ruin his Job if he tries to be a moralist. "The artist," Mann said, "... 'improves* upon the world 271

not by moral precepts but by quite different means. He improves upon it by endowing it with spiritual meaning; he uses thought, word, and image to set down his own life and, figuratively, life as a whole. His task is to animate"" just that and nothing more." The artist creates in a mood of jest against society, a jest which is critical. "His own view is that he is just playing the fool, and as a

member of human society, he even feels a certain guilt. tThat I am d e s c r ib in g i s th e 1 bohemian' temper of the artist, for indeed, 'Boheme, 1 psychologically speaking, is nothing but social irregularity, a guilty conscience to be resolved in levity, self-irony; and flippant humor about society and

its demands." The critical element inherent in a ll art, Mann said, involves the idea of the good, "... that idea rooted in the aesthetic as well as the moral." Concerning the moral connection, Mann said that, "The idea that the intellect by its very nature is 'left,' if I may use the sociopolitical epithet, has something natural, something instinctive about it. The intellect, accordingly, is bound up with ideas of freedom, of progress, of humanity." Such statements, he said, would put him in suspicion of being a Communist. "Such a4suspicion would wrong me—or if you w ill, do me too much honor. I am badly furnished for impersonating a Communist." His writings were full of faults abhorred by

Communism he s a id , such a s form alism , p sy c h o lo g ism , 272 skepticism, decadent trends, ". . . not omitting a sense of humor and a certain weakness for the truth. For the love of truth is a weakness, according to any absolutist partisanship. Even so, Communism remains an idea—albeit a utopic one—with roots far longer than those of Marxism and Stalinism; its untarnished realization w ill never quite cease to present itself to humanity as a task and a demand. Fascism, however, is no idea at all; it is mere b a d n e ss. . . . 11 Art, iiann concluded, was not bitter, no matter how much i t c r i t i c i z e d : She does not threaten life with cold, diabolic, nihilistic claw, instead of being life's animating spirit, as she should. She is bound up with the good, she is rooted in kindness which is akin to wisdom, even closer akin to love. If she likes to make men laugh, it is no scornful laughter she wants to provoke. She purveys a blitheness, in which hate and stupidity are resolved, which sets free and unites. , . . Condemner though she is of the base she has never been able to halt the march of evil. . . . She is not a force, not a power, she is only a comfort. Playing a game of the profoundest seriousness, she symbolizes man's eternal striving after perfection. Art has been granted to him as his companion from the very beginning of time. And from her unclouded innocence man w ill never be able to turn away his guilt-darkened e y e . ^3 Mann did not accept the idea of progress. His concept of art did not depend on that conviction. Thus, while recognizing the moral challenge of Marxism, he freed himself from the debate over Marxist premises.

Northrop Frye has presented similar arguments. He recognized that any really consistent moral criticism had 273

to be ". . . harnessed, to an all-round revolutionary philosophy of society, such as we find not only in Marxism but in Nietzsche and in some of the rationalizations of oligarchic values in nineteenth-century Britain and twentieth-century America." But the ideal society involved in these philosophies always exists only in the future, Frye said, so that 11. . . the present valuation of culture is in terms of its interim revolutionary effectiveness." The revolutionary view is an old way of looking at culture, dating back to Plato. "As soon as we make culture a definite image of a future and perhaps attainable society, we start selecting and purging a tradition, and all the artists who don*t fit . . . have to be throvin out. So, just as historical criticism uncorrected relates culture only to the past, ethical criticism uncorrected relates culture only to the future. ..." : Any attempt to build a future society involves indoctrinating the younger generation, Frye said, and thus Involves some kind of class structure. "Revolutionary action, of whatever kind, leads to the dictatorship of one class, and the record of history seems clear that there is no quicker way of destroying the benefits of culture. If we attach our vision of culture to the conception of ruler- morallty, we get the culture of barbarians; if we attach it to the conception of a proletariat, we get the culture of the populace; if we attach it to any kind of bourgeois Utopia, we get the culture of philistinism,11 The b e s t solution is to escape from such conflicts and seek to do away with classes, "The ethical purpose of a liberal education is to liberate, which can only mean to make one

capable of conceiving society as free, classless, and urbane. No such society exists, which is one reason why a liberal education must be deeply concerned with works of imagination." Ihe imperfection of reality out of which art grows remains in art, Frye said, but the imaginative quality preserves it. "No discussion of beauty can confine itself to the formal relations of the isolated work of art; it must consider, too, the participation of the work of art in the vision of the goal of social effort, the idea of complete and classless civilization. This idea of complete civilization is also the im plicit moral standard to which bthical criticism always refers, something very different from any system of morals." Frye recognized something that pure formalistic or aesthetic criticism fails to take into account adequately: that one cannot escape the ethical connection in art, the connection that made the radical criticism of the thirties so difficult to dismiss. Frye does not believe that the free, civilized society w ill ever be formulated, much less established. "Culture is a present social ideal which we educate and free our­ selves to attain, and never do attain." Culture cannot be planned for, unless the cmtput of culture is restricted 275

to culturally predictable standards, Frye said, which is what the Soviets tried to do, and what Hicks conceived of doing.. "The goal of ethical criticism ," Frye said, "is

transvaluation, the ability to look at contemporary social values itfith the detachment of one who is able to compare them in some degree with the infinite vision of possibili­ ties presented by culture. One who possesses such a standard of transvaluation is in a state of Intellectual freedom. One who does not possess it is a creature of whatever social values get to him first: he has only the compulsions of habit, indoctrination, and prejudice. The dream of social and cultural unity in some perfected society of the future or the past, though it is intoxicatingly appealing, does not seem to offer any lasting solution, since it leads to the kind of dogmatism that Frye speaks of. That is what happened in the case of Hicks. The best answer seems to lie in judging humanity and art according to those universal ideals that Mann and Frye speak of: the ideal civilization that is "free, classless, and urbane." If Hicks had been able to free himself from the moral and p olitical dogmatism of Communism and if he had conceived of literature as the playful but serious, the civilizing but Intellectually free thing that it is, he would have been a much better critic during the thirties. His shortcomings, however, do not completely negate the work he did. At a time when American writers needed to turn back to the roots of their art, Hicks was calling for them to do so. In his two books he presented much of the social and cultural history behind the literature involved. One can learn a great deal about the backgrounds of American writers since the Civil War by reading The Great Tradition. I11 Figures of Trans ition he did an even better Job on the backgrounds of late 19th-century English writers. In his essays and reviews, too, he often pointed out important facts about writers* social and personal backgrounds, and he was quick to infer hidden assumptions and ethical implications in literary works. His criticism was often dogmatic, but always informative, and his clarity and candor gave his work the virtue of showing what his biases were. He cannot be accused of concealing the basic assumptions and premises behind his criticism . Hicks* most enduring contribution is the cultural back­ ground that he presented in his work. Though his analyses were often incomplete, they enabled readers to put litera­ ture into a social context. His greatest failure lay in not digging thoroughly and imaginatively enough into any specific literary work, though this incompleteness was partly due to the nature of book reviewing. His criticism was useful for analys is. As for evaluating literary works, he was often right, but his method was unreliable, and as a result his 277 evaluations were sometimes wrong.

Hicks attempted something very d ifficu lt, the analysis of art and the culture from which it springs. The fact that he did not wholly succeed should not blind us to the fact that he was motivated by a sense of high purpose—in fact, an overly exalted, overly earnest sense of purpose. Given the context of the times, the work of Hicks and others on the left need not be such an embarrass­ ment, either to them or to American culture, for the radical movement of the thirties was not the first example in history of intellectual movements tending toward excesses, nor w ill it be the last. We need not rewrite history in such a way that we distort the truth about the thirties. We need to correct the errors, acknowledge the good, and build on what has been left to us. NOTES CHAPTER V II

■^William Butler Yeats, A Vision. 2nd. ed. (1938; rpt. New York: Macmillan, 1961), p. 279. ^David Madden, "Introduction” to Proletarian Writers of the Thirties (Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1968 ), p. xxvii. 3christopher Caudwell, "D. H. Lawrence: A Study of the Bourgeois A rtist," in Studies in a Dying Culture (London: John Lane, the Bodley Head, 193^), pp.:-5^59* ^Caudwell, pp. 63-64-. 5Georg Lukacs, Studies in European Realism (New York: G r o sse t & Dunlap, 1964), p. 1^0. ^Lukacs, Studies in European Realism, p. 19. 7Alfred Kazin, "Introduction" to Studies In European Realism, by Georg Lukacs, pp. XII-XIII. ®Georg Lukacs, Realism in Our Time (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 91-92. 9j,ukacs, Realism in Our Time, p. 119. 10Kazin, p. XIII. llpeter E. Clecak, "Iteirxism and American Literary Criticism," Diss. Stanford Univ., 1965* PP. 78-79. 12lforton'D. Zabel, "Summary in Criticism," in Literary History of the United States. 3rd ed. rev., Robert E. Spiller, et. a l . , eds. (New York: Macmillan, 1963) , p . 1373. ^Thomas Mann, "The A rtist and Society," in The Study of Literature. ed. Sylvan Barnet, et. al. (1953; rpt. Boston: L ittle, Brown, i960), pp. 253-59. ^Northrop Frye, Anatomy of Criticism (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univ. Press, 1957)* PP. 346-48.

278 BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORKS BY GRANVILLE HICKS

A. BOOKS Figures of TransItIon; A Study of British Literature at the End of the 19th Century. New York: Macmillan, 1939. The Great Tradition: An Interpretation of American Literature Since the, Civil War. New York: Macmillan, 1935". I Like America. New York: Modern Age Books, 1938. James Gould Cozzeus. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota P r e s s , T9oE~. Part of the Truth. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965. Where We Came Out. New York: Viking Press, 195^.

B. ESSAYS, REVIEWS,.LETTERS "American Authors," rev. of Classic Americanst "by Henry Seidel Canby. Nation, 18 Nov. 1931» PP. 5^5-^^. "American Caravanserai," rev. of American Caravan, IV, ed. Alfred Kreymborg, et. al. New Republic, 1 April 1931, pp. 185-86. "American Literature: A Marxian Interpretation," rev. of The Liberation of American Literature. by V. F. Calverton. New Republic, 7 Sept. 1932, 10^-05.

279 280

"The American Tragedy, 11 rev. of Portrait of the Artist as an American, by Matthew Josephson. New Republic, 18 June 1930, pp. 131-32. "The American Nriter Paces the Future," in The Mriter in a Changing World. Ed. Henry Hart. Equinox Cooperative P r e s s , 1937*, “pp. 180-9*!-. "Another Authority on Marxism." New Masses, 25 Dec. 1934, pp. 22- 2 3 . "Assumptions in Literature." English Journal. 25 (Nov. 1936), 709-17. "Balm in Gilead?" rev. of The New American Caravan, ed. Alfred Kreymbourg, et. al. Hound and Horn, 3 (1930), 278 - 80 . "The Blind Alley of Marxism." Nation, 28 Sept. 19*1-0, pp. 26*!--67 . "Bulls and Bottles," rev, of Death in the Afternoon, by Ernest Hemingway. Nation, 9 Nov.* 19*32, p. *1-61. "Bright Incidents," rev. of Shadows on the Rock, by U illa Cather. Forum, 86 (S e p t. 19*31)* v i l - v l l i . " "Call for An American M riters’ Congress." New Masses. 22 Jan. 1935. P. 20. "The Case Against V.rilla Cather." English Journal. 22 (Nov. 1933). 704-10. "The Catholic Enigma," rev. of Hhlle Peter Sleeps, by E. Boyd Barrett. Nation, 10 April 19*29* PP. 428-29. "A Christian Literatus." American Mercury, 15 (Oct. 1928), 2 3 5 -4 2 . "The Collective Novel." The Anvil, Sept.-Oct. 1933* PP. 5 7 -5 8 . "A Communication: On Leaving the Communist Party." New Republic. 4 Oct. 1939. PP. 244-45. "Conrad After Five Years." New Republic. 8 Jan. 1930, pp. 192-94. "The Conversion of John Hay." New Republic, 10 June 1931. pp. 100- 01. 281

"The C r is is in Am erican C r itic is m ." New M asses, 8 (Feb. 1933), PP. 3-5. "David Graham Phillips: Journalist." Bookman. 73 (Hay 1931) , 26^ - 66.

"Days of Despair," rev. of The Modern Temper, by Joseph Hood Krutch. Forum, 81 (June~T9™29T,~'x-xii. "De Gustibus," rev. of The -Ihirlipig of Taste, by E. E. Kellett, nation, 27 March 1929," p ." 378 .

"Docility and the Depression," rev. of The Plebianfs _ Progress, by Frank Tilsley. Nation, ”l3 . S ep t. 1933, pp. 305- 06. "Dos P a s s o s1 Gifts." New Republic, 2k June 1931. pp. 157- 5 8 . "Educating the Middle Class," rev. of Hie Coming Struggle for Fower, by John Strachey. New Masses, 22 Oct. 1935, PP. 26-27. "Eliot In Our Time," rev. of The Achievement of T. S. E liot, by F. 0. I-Iatthiessen. Men Masses", ll"*Feb. 193"6,~ pp. 2 3 -2 4 . "An Epic of Collectivization," rev. of Seeds of Tomorrow, by Mikhail Sholokhov. Hew Masses, 26Hov. 1935, pp. 22- 23.

"Ford Madox Ford—A Neglected Contemporary." Bookman, 72 (Dec. 1930), 370. "The F a ilu r e o f L e ft C r itic is m ." Hew R e p u b lic , 9 S ep t. 1940, pp. 3^5-47. "False Start," rev. of American Writers on American L ite r a tu r e . ed . John" Kacy. Na t i o n , 13 Jan . 1932, PP~ 50-5*1. "Fenimore Cooper," rev. of Fenlmore Cooper, by Robert E. Spiller. Nation, 30 Dec. 1931,"p. 728. "Fiction and Social Criticism." College English, 13 (April 1952), 355-61. "The F ig h tin g D ecade." Sa tu r day R dyiew , 6 July 1940, pp. 3-6, 16-17. 282

"Foreword" and "Afterword" to The Great Tradition. 1933* rpt. Chicago: Quadrangle, 1969 • PP. vli-xi, 307-22. "Garland of the Academy," rev. of Companions on the T rail, by Hamlin Garland. Nation. 21 Oct. 1931» PP. 4*35-36. "Good-bye, Union Square," rev. of A W riter's Memoir of the T hirties. by Albert Halper. New York Times Book Review, 1 Nov. 1970, p. 4-. mGood News* In American Literature, A Symposium." New Masses. 12 Oct. 1937* PP. 18-19. "Granville Hicks Comments." New Masses. 4 Sept. 1934-, PP. 2 9 -3 0 . "Greenwood's Second Novel," rev. of The Time Is Ripe, by Walter Greenwood. New Masses. 2 April 1935* P. 33- "The Gutter—And Then What?" Forum. 80 (Dec. 1928), 8 0 1 -8 1 0 . "Hemingway Treats Ohose Who Have and Have Not," rev. of To Have and Have Not, by Ernest Hemingway. New Masses. 26 Oct. 1937* PP. 22-23. "How I came to Communism: A Symposium." New M asses. 8 (Sept. 1932), 8. "In a Novel It's the Life, Not the P olitics, That Counts." New York Times Book Review, 12 Aug. 1956, p. 5* "Industry and the Imagination.11 South Atlantic Quarterly. 28 (April 1929). 126-35. "In Reply to Authors." New Masses. 3 July 1934-, p. 32. "John Dos Passos." Bookman. 75 (April 1932), 32-4-2. Letter to Terry L. Long, 25 Aug. 1971. "Liberalism and Tragedy," rev. of A Modern Tragedy, by Phyllis Bentley, New Masses. 13 Feb. 1934, p. 26.

"The Liberals Who Haven*t Learned." Commentary. 11 (April 1951). 319-29. "Life, Liberalism and Revolution," rev. of Ablnger Harvest, by E. M. Forster. New Masses. 7 July 1936, pp~26-27, 283

"The Lion and the Lamb," rev, of Tradition and Experiment in Present-Day Literature, by City Literary"lnstitute of London. New Republic, 12 Karch 1930, pp. 105-6.

"Literary Criticism and the Marxian Method." Modern M onthly . 6 (Summer 1 9 3 2 ), 4 4 -4 7 . "A Literary Swell." American Mercury, 16 (March I 929) , 369.

"Literature and Revolution." English Journal, college ed .. 24 (March 1935), 219-39. "The Magic Mountain's Mouse," rev. of Joseph and IkLs_ ; B r o th e r s, by Thomas Mann. New M asses, 19 June 1934, P. 25. "Melodrama," rev. of Pylon, by Milllam Faulkner. Nevi Masses, 14 May 1935, P. 25. "The Menace to Culture." New Masses, 7 April 1936, p. 29. "Mystery and M ystification," rev. of The Life and Mind of Emily Dickinson, by Genevieve Taggard. Nation. 25 June 1930, pp. 735 - 36. "The Mystery of the Best Seller." English Journal, 23 (Oct. 1934), 626-29. "Notes of a Novelist," rev. of In All Countries. by John Dos Passos. New Masses, zW ~ April 1934, pp. 25-26. "On Attitudes and Ideas." Partisan Review, 5 (March-April 1947), 117-19. "The O neida Commune," r e v . o f A Yankee S a in t , by R obert Allerton Parker. New Masses. 4 Feb. 1936, p. 27 .

"An Open Letter." New Masses, 2 Jan. 193^, P. 24,

"The Parsons and the War," American Mercury. Feb. 1927, pp. 129-42.

"The Passing of James Kuneker," rev. of Essays b?/~ James Gibson Huneker, ed. H. L. Mencken. Nation. 25 D ec. 1 929, P. 780. " "The Past and Future of Poetry," rev. of Lyrical Poetry of the Nineteenth Century, by H. J. C. Grierson; Phases of English Poetry, by Herbert Read. Nation, 6 Feb. 1929, pp. 165-667 284

"The Past and Future of William Faulkner." Bookman, 74 (Sept. 1931). 22-24. "Portrait of the A rtist," rev. of Look Homeward. Angel. by Thomas Wolfe. New Freeman. 5 April 1930, pp. 93-4. "Proust and the Proletariat," rev, of The Remembrance of Things Past, by War cel Proust. New Hasses. 20 Nov. 19347 PP. 21-22. "Purged of Dross," rev. of A Farewell to Arms. by Ernest Hemingway. Forum, 82 '(Dec. 1929), xvii-xx. "Red Pilgrim age," rev. of Beyond Desire, by Sherwood Anderson. New Republic. 21 Dec. 1932, p. 169. "Religion," rev. of The History of Christianity in the Light of Modern Knowledge, no author; The Story of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe; The Story of Religion, by Charles Francis Potter. Nation, 23 Oct. 1929, pp. 469-70. "The Reputation of James Gould Cozzens." College English. 11" (Jan. 1950), 177-83. "Revaluing Ford Madox Ford," rev. of Great Trade Route, by Ford Madox Ford. New Masses , 27 April 1937, p. 22. "Revolution and the.Novel: 1. The Past and Future as Themes." New Hasses, 3 April 1934, PP. 29-31. "Revolution and the Novel: 2. Complex and Collective Novels." New Masses. 10 April 1934-, pp. 23-25. "Revolution and the Novel: 3 . Drama and B iography as Models." New Masses, 17 April 1934, pp. 24-25. "Revolution and the Novel: 4. Characters and Classes." New Masses, 24 April 1934, pp. 23-25. "Revolution and the Novel: 5. Selection and Emphasis." New Masses, 8 May 1934, pp. 22-24. "Revolution and the Novel: 6. The Problems of Documenta­ tion.'" New Masses, 15 May 1934, pp. 23-25; "Revolution and the Hovel: 7 . The Future of Proletarian Literature." New Hasses. 22 Hay 1934, pp. 23-25. 285

Review of The Chute, by Albert Halper. New Masses, 23 Nov. 1937, PP. 20-21. Review of Expression in America, ed. Ludwig Lewisohn. New Republic. 13 April 1932, pp. 240-41. Review of Five Masters. A Study in the Mutations of the Novel, by Joseph Mood Krutch. New Republic, 26 Nov. 1930, pp. 50-51. Review of The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck. New Masses. 2 Kay 1939#”PP. 22-24. Review of The Land of Plenty, by Robert Cantwell. New H a sse s. 8 May 19"3^» pp." 2 5 -2 6 . Review of A Sign for Cain, by Grace Lumplcin. New Hasses, 12 Nov." 1935". P. 23. Review of Sirocco and Other Stories, by Ralph Bates. New ’Masses, l4 Feb. 1939. pp. 25-27, Review of A Stone Came R olling, by Fielding Burke. New Masses, "3 Dec. 1935# p. 23. Review of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, by B. Traven. New Has s e s . 16” July 1935# p."23".” Review of Uncle TomJ_s Children, by Richard Uright. New l o s s e s , 29" March 1938# PP. 23-24. Review of Vachal Lindsay, by Edgar Lee Masters. New Masses, 24 Dec. 1935”. P- *26. "Robert Herrick, Liberal." New Republlc. 17 June 1931# p . 129. "Salamanders and P olitics," rev. of Now in November. by Josephine Johnson. New Masses. 25 Sept^ 1934, p. 27. "Samson as Symbol," rev. of Eyeless in Gaza, by Aldous Huxley. New Masses. 21 July 19*3^# pp. 23-24. "Sinclair .Lewis and the Good Life." English Journal, 25 (April 1936), 265-73. "Sinclair Lewis—Anti-Fascist," rev. of It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis. New Hasses . 29 Oct". 1935# pp. 22- 23. 286

"Small Game Hunting," rev. of Green H ills of A frica, ■by- Ernest Hemingway, New Masses. 19 Nov. 1935, p . 2 3 .

"The Social Interpretation of Literature." Progressive E d u c a tio n . 11 (Jan . 1 9 3 4 ), 49-5*1-. "The State of Britain," rev. of Love on the Dole, by Walter Greenwood, and other novels. Hew Masses.4 Sept. 1934, P . 2 5 . "Southern Transition," rev. of Mamba1s Daughters. by DuBose Heyward. Forum. 81 (April 1929") ,” xvi-xvii.

"The Threat of Frustration." New Masses. 15 June 1937* pp. 16-18. "Three Writers," rev. of Elizabeth Barret Browning, by Louise Boas; The Frail Warrior: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson, by Jean Ilarie Carre; The Strlc3ren Deer: The Life _of Cowoer, by David Cecil. New Freeman, 3 Sept. 1930, pp. '594-95. "The Thirties: A Reappraisal." Saturday Review. 4 May 1963, PP. 27-28/ "This Side of Greatness," rev. of Hawthorne. by Newton Arvin. Nation. 13 Nov. 1929, p . 554. "Those Who Quibble, Bicker, Nag, and Deny," rev. of New Letters in America, ed. Horace Gregory, New Masses. 28 Sept. 1937, PP. 22-23. "To All What?" rev. of Good-Bye to All That, by Robert Graves. Hew Freeman, 12 April 1930, p. 117. "Traditional Values," rev. of Adam, the Baby and the Man from Mars, by Irwin Edman. Forun, 82 ("Sept. 192977 x v l. "The Urbanity of Mr. Krutch." New Masses. 23 Oct. 1934, pp. 2 3 -2 4 . "The Vigorous Abandon of Max Eastman's Mind," rev. of Art and the Life of Action, by Max Eastman. New Masses. "6"~Nov. 1 9 3 4, pp. 22- 2 3 .

"Weather Report," rev. of The Years. by Virginia Woolf. New Republic. 28 April 1937, P. 363. 28? "What Can I Do?" New M asses. 30 Aug. 1938, pp. 19-20, "Wisdon and Insight," rev. of The Flowering of New E ngland. by Van Wyck B rooks. New M asses. 1 S e p t. 1936, pp. 27-28. "The World o f E rn est Hemingway." New Freem an. I929, pp. 4 0 -4 2 . "A Yankee Tragedy," rev. of Poor John Fitch, by Thomas Boyd. New M asses. 5 Nov, 1935* P. 24.

OTHER WORKS CITED Aaron, Daniel. Writers on the Left. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, I96I. Abrams, M. H. The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition. New York: Norton, 1953. Anon. "Granville Hicks." Current Biography. 3 (May 1942), 4 3 -4 6 . Baxandall, Lee, ed. Marxism and,Aesthetics: A Selective Annotated Bibliography. New York: Humanities Press,

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