The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-10-02

pEcbdNOn Vi AmeFlChn biJeTdCuEc
since the Civil War. BY Granville
Hicks. Macmillan. $3.50.
The beginning of the present dec
ade marked new phase in the
revolutioniHing Of American litera-
ture. Although a small group Of
writer's gathered around the New
Masses-had Stoutly defended the
Communist position during the
last half of the 1905, their at
tack against capitalist society struck
only minor chord in American
letters. 1t was at the beginning Of
the present decade, with the col
lapse of the stability of American
capitalism, that something like a
major movement toward the left
began. For the first time in our
history number of outstanding
writer's followed the trail which had
already been blazed by John Dos
Passos, Michael Gold, Joseph Free
man and a number Of poets and
critics Of lesser stature.
The literary products of this left
ward migration have, SO far, been
rather disappointing. Edmund Will
son seems to have strayed off the
leftward path into the swamps of
literary Trotskyism. Blinded by his
entire background, Sherwood Ander-
son has splashed the mud of petty
bourgeois ideas all over his attempt
at proletarian fiction in Beyond
Desire" Theodore Dresser temper
arily abandoned the path of fiction
to venture along the unfamiliar road
way of economics in his Tragic
America"-with disastrous results. In
every instance failure to create rev.
dictionary literature has been due to
avoidance OF the serious study of
Marxism -Leninism together with the
absence of dynamic contact with the
revolutionary proletariat, or has been
due to abstract study of Communist
theory without close relationship to
the Communist movement.
1t is entirely because Granville
Hicks, one of the foremost literary
critics of Our time, has grappled with
the problems of MarXisfn and has
drawn close to the Communist move
ment, that his book, "The Great
Tradition" is the first sound major
production of the leftward tendency
which has developed in American
culture during the past few years.
AS the subtitle indicates, THE Great
Tradition" is study of American
literature from the Civil War to the
present day. Equipped with a keen
aesthetic sense which is refined and
disciplined by a knowledge of the
basic principles Of Marxisn, Hicks
does not give us mere literary his
tory but a sustained and consistent
evaluation of our literature during
the rise and decline Of capitalism
The conference Of all of Hicks ap-
praisals of individual authors is a
result of the application of the Marx
ian principles upon which "The
Great Tradition" Is based. 1t is
this groundwork of Marxism which
distinguishes this volume from the
haphazard and contradictory: judg-
ments OF, imressionate criticism. 1t
is this foundation which enables Hicks
to shape the diverse materials of our
literature into an ordered whole with
out destroying their individuality.
1.-THE Great Tradition" challenges
comparison with the only other pub
lished volume which pretends to
apply the MARKHAM approach to AM
erican letters-"The Liberation of
American Literature" Comparison,
however, is impossible the two books
are a study in contrast. Whereas
Hicks has investigated the work of
each outstanding literary figure with
considerable care, the vulgar bour-
geois "Marxist," v. F.. Calverton, has
strung together half digested analyses
by bourgeois scholars and fragment
airy excerpts from the writings of
poets and nevelists quoted in volumes
on literary and social history. In
contrast to Mr.. Calverton's garbled
second hand scholarship, Hicks gives
us number of excellent miniature
sketches of American literary genius
pen portraits which in some instances
are revaluations of American authors.
Whereas our literature is pictured by
Mr.. Calverton as an actual tug-of-
war contest between two metaphy-
steal distractions (the Colonial
Complex VS.. the Frontier Force")
Hicks makes brave attem/ to COM
prehend the dialectial relationship of
each author to the social force of his
time.
The central theme of Hicks book
is the development of the main
stream Of American literature in the
age of industrialism. Aided by Marx
ian guideposts, he is able to chart the
course Of this major tradition and
to show its forward direction. But
he does not neglect other currents
and tendencies in our literary his
tory. He is very sympathetic toward
the sincere literary artists who at
tempted to escape from the perplex-
ing problems ushered in by industrial
capitalism; at the same time he
demonstrates the inevitable disinte-
grafton Of escapist literature with the
growth Of the conflicts of capitalism.
He dissects the "genteel tradition"
in our letters, showing its class basis
and indicating the anemic character
Of leisure class literature. He reveals
the deterioration of writer's like Bret
Harte and Mrak Twain, who pros
tituted their talents to become mere
entertainers"
Hicks discovers IN the work Of John
Dos Passos and our new revolution
ary literature the true inheritors of