Definitions

By Canby, Henry Seidel

Book Id: WPLBN0000632682
Format Type: PDF eBook
File Size: 284.59 KB
Reproduction Date: 2005

Title:	Definitions
Author:	Canby, Henry Seidel
Volume:
Language:	English
Subject:	Literature, Literature & thought, Writing.
Collections:	Blackmask Online Collection
Historic Publication Date:
Publisher:	Blackmask Online


Citation APA MLA Chicago Canby, H. S. (n.d.). Definitions. Retrieved from http://self.gutenberg.org/

Description
Excerpt: THE unity of this book is to be sought in the point of view of the writer rather than in a sequence of chapters developing a single theme and arriving at categorical conclusions. Literature in a civilization like ours, which is trying to be both sophisticated and democratic at the same moment of time, has so many sources and so many manifestations, is so much involved with our social background, and is so much a question of life as well as of art, that many doors have to be opened before one begins to approach an understanding. The method of informal definition which I have followed in all these essays is an attempt to open doors through which both writer and reader may enter into a better comprehension of what novelists, poets, and critics have done or are trying to accomplish. More than an entrance upon many a vexed controversy and hidden meaning I cannot expect to have achieved in this book; but where the door would not swing wide I have at least tried to put one foot in the crack. The sympathetic reader may find his own way further; or may be stirred by my endeavor to a deeper appreciation, interest, and insight. That is my hope.

Table of Contents
Table of Contents: Definitions, 1 -- Henry Seidel Canby, 1 -- Preface, 2 -- I. ON FICTION, 3 -- SENTIMENTAL AMERICA, 3 -- FREE FICTION, 8 -- A CERTAIN CONDESCENSION TOWARD FICTION, 14 -- THE ESSENCE OF POPULARITY, 19 -- II. ON THE AMERICAN TRADITION, 25 -- THE AMERICAN TRADITION, 25 -- BACK TO NATURE, 30 -- THANKS TO THE ARTISTS, 36 -- TO?DAY IN AMERICAN LITERATURE: ADDRESSED TO THE BRITISH, 37 -- TIME'S MIRROR, 42 -- THE FAMILY MAGAZINE, 43 -- III. THE NEW GENERATION, 48 -- THE YOUNG ROMANTICS, 48 -- PURITANS ALL, 52 -- THE OLDER GENERATION, 54 -- A LITERATURE OF PROTEST, 55 -- BARBARIANS A LA MODE, 56 -- IV. THE REVIEWING OF BOOKS, 59 -- A PROSPECTUS FOR CRITICISM, 59 -- THE RACE OF REVIEWERS, 62 -- THE SINS OF REVIEWING, 65 -- MRS. WHARTON'S THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, 68 -- MR. HERGESHEIMER'S CYTHEREA, 69 -- V. PHILISTINES AND DILETTANTE, 72 -- POETRY FOR THE UNPOETICAL, 72 -- EYE, EAR, AND MIND, 77 -- OUT WITH THE DILETTANTE, 78 -- FLAT PROSE, 79 -- VI. MEN AND THEIR BOOKS, 81 -- CONRAD AND MELVILLE, 81 -- THE NOVELIST OF PITY, 85 -- AFTER SCENE, 87 -- HENRY JAMES, 89 -- VII. Conclusion, 92 -- DEFINING THE INDEFINABLE, 92 -- Definitions -- i