The sun., 1910-08-19
AS TO TAGGING AUTHORS
LITERARY Reform PROPOSED
~ JOHN kENDRICk BANGS.

~ JOHN kENDRICk BANGS.
! American writers should Take TheIr
Proper Place IN the verdi. re thinks.
Instead sT Be,ng DesrTibed as ne
sembIlnE ThIs sr That Past CeIebrti,.
-For long time We have held the view
writes John kendrick Range IN the August
.S1uG SCI. that like some motorists. Ne
are too coy with the horn. We are plunR
ing along tho highway 81 national great
ness without sufficiently notifying the re-t
of the World of our presence thereon. and
I merely hecaus. We have made mOdesty .
habit. out nf respect no doubt To the
teachings of our fathers
3 That -. Mr. Rangs imples that Ame'
car literature has been allowed To hide
, the hack ground. and the makers Thereon.
alsp. II will b~ a glad day when an Allu-
| siol To Shakespeare mad" hy anybody.
| anN where on the ciVth'ed glots. to any
l,olV els shall H. met With III" answer
>iaSssr"ars' oh yes. Won mean the
Gus Thomas ~ Avon
: Similarly the humorist would like to see
th'. tables turned on the poet Herrick
1t has always veAed us exceedingly IN
the past he saws. to hear the late Thomas
Haley Aldrich descrbed by literary big-
wigs IN and ont 20 this country "a the Her
p rick ~ America HerriCk. forsooth' \
sooilv poet no doubt. and We have moth
ing ~ say against him a. long as he aud
MS friends stay where they belong and do
not try to inch up 20 where they do not
belong
Indeed We admire Herrick and would
D. consider ourselves bereft OF much that ~
lovely and appealing n he were to he taken
awAv from IA But much as "" have de-
: Izhi..d IN him and fond of him ~ We have
ever h@en and shall over continue 20 be.
whether IN his Hesperider. his Noble
Numbers or has la Nohla Epigranis. We
protest against this undue ale ratlon ~
such a poe, as he Is hv using M n as an
/ eClaircissem"nt ot Aldrich
Z -l'is impossible 20 submit tamAlr to he
impos ton of such a tag. 30 limited. after
' all IN ~. sIgnlfcanca upon a native poet
whosa only limitation in ~ far az his work
shows tina, he had any az all Waa that I'M
pos~d nv his own acrupulous regard for
the literary artistry ~ his work and his
own integrity A. a loyal follower " loftv
literary ideals Compare this ~ Her
b rIChs
ave me- q eell
TO dwell
Mh-rc no foot hath
Path
Th~r~ will srend
And end
NJ ~earied years
In tears
Compare Ne say this hlt 81 lyrical
gloom from the pen " the tAg'with The
Miltonlc splsndor ~ Aldrichs sonnet
beginning I v~N mo not wIth hrooding
on th~ years and YOU Will have a fair
ssampl~ ~ the propriety ~ this tagging
system ~ long m vogue. a. u has worked
IN the past and has b~~n worked even nv
certain Acknowledged leaders in American
literary criticism
And then whom you have settled u IN
your own mind - YOU r'ost aSsuradly
will have n YOU have any literary dis.
cernmen' A. aA how unjust ~ - to put rho
Herrick lahel On such a poet A. Aidrich
was. you NAV consider further whether
IN the whole range 81 the work ~ this
80, on tenth century lvrist Their" was anv
sign u even - lttle aS the germ ~ Tom
Bailey or So much a. a glimpse INTO the
dotngs ~ the Rad Roy ~ RiNernouth. tho
narration - which has IN other lines than
poetry done 50 much - pac" IN" I'M
p"ri-hahl" la,sr"l~ upon th" brow u N"
American H"rriCk''
Ican names INTO foreign literary BOTTLES
reversing the fashion he decries and thus
becomes Mr. Hall Game. the Laura Jean
i.lbr.-v NJ the British Islands and -Nr
Anthony Hog. the Gaprg. Barr MCCui
chaon ~ Hyde Park- and 20 Bernard
shaw the Emma Goldman ~ Trafalgar
square aud MIR Alfred Austin who -
paid for hI- song m canary and sings like
ou. The Bloodgood " Cutter - PicCa.
dilly ~ the Horace D"dd GastIt ~ Blooms
hurry SQUARE
When some one mentions io "a tho
name ~ Dickens We must assert our
selves and assuming a patLonlzlng air
reply Dickens Al yes The Richard
was very good very good indeed eX-
ralent m fact We have read nothing -
hls except Daisy Miller and Ne liked !,
liked II very much bat do YOU think u al
al compa rattle ~ hit - literary genre
20 Van B.hhar' -
-Or n ThaCkerav - spoken Of let rs
scratch our heads meditatIvely and muir
muT 1hackeray. Thackeray. yes We We
heard that nam" somewh"re let M"
see he was sort Of Pre- -RaDhaelits .
Robert " Chanhers was he not' or
was he that sort ~ British Churchill who
wrote Vanity square or some such book
IA the early So 81 the last century,
or course We must do these thinKs in
such a way that the person TO whom
oVr remarks are addressed will fully IN
derstHnd that we know well enough that
Dickens did not write Daisy Miller and
that are quite aware that ThaCkeTay
Rs a writer of keen satire and Irr.proach-
able English had undeniHbls claims 10
distinction In short our IRONY must 10
perceived hv the consIgnee ~ n ~ IN b@
AT all effective. and ~ would leave us
far short of the bullsaye Of our desires
II IN shooting AZ fhls particular target
our exhibition ~ aggressive american
as-~rtivenNss lHf, behind II only an i'm
preston ~ = vastItudnous ignorance
We are no longer IN the fedging lit
erary stage, as We appeared 10 be In the
days when all We had to show along liter
ary lines were few shelves full of poetry
and essays hy Ionefellow and Emerson
and somr clever but wholly provincial
fiction writers like Edgar Allan Poe and
James feninore Cooper and Nashingt on
Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne. and u
is not fitting. therefore. that We should
continue 10 hear the tags that once re-
joiced us
BOOks ROiS REtD.