THREE GENER&TIONS
55
The proletarian generation has not yet fulfilled its promises. Malcolm
Cowley has been able to write. "This wartime generation has undoubtedly
produced more writers of distinction than the generation preceding it ...
and probably more than will be produced by the generation which fol–
lows." The maturing of the proletarian generation is slowly puncturing
this prophecy. Besides, the development of a proletarian literature and
criticism ushers in new critical standards. How the work of the lost
generation will fare in the Marxian judgements of future generations
cannot be entirely predicted. At present, however, much of the fine
writing of the older critics is closed to us, because such writing requires
a fundamental irresponsibility. An idea could always have been shaped
to a sentence-and who would object? But much of this fine writing
is already tasting flat to us as .we see how irtesolute and empty are many
of the ideas embodied in it.
There are great tasks ahead of us. I have merely touched on our
successes and failures, and our conflicts over theory a.nd method. From
one angle a literary generation represents a relation to other generations.
An
understanding of the technical and social aspects of this relation helps
to clarify our own tasks and controversies. These, in turn, will have to
be analysed in relation to the trends .within revolutionary literature, par–
ticularly m relation to the thin line of maturing revolutionary writers
who, in steering their way through mechanism on one side, and opportu–
nism ·on the other, are clearing the road ahead for a great proletanan art.
