32
PARTISAN REVIEW
described by the word,
vulgarity.
The main cause of such a state of affairs
is political pressure. Continually, both literary sections show a Stalinist
bias. The only interesting section of either magazine is the correspondence
column where one finds intelligent criticisms of the editorial policies.
If
both magazines •abandoned their literary sections and used the space thus
saved to enlarge their correspondence columns, they would have infinitely
more interesting and valuable issues. The literary sections are no better
than the Sunday literary supplements, and the latter cost less.
4. I make my living from writing, hut that is a precarious livelihood. It
seems •as if our present economic system has less and less place for litera·
lure as a profession. Hollywood is the introduction of the factory system
in the field of the arts, and its influence
is
corrupting.
5; I want my writing to have allegiance to what I think is true.
6. There was an energetic and healthy realistic tendency in American
writing during the early years of this decade. It took a leftward turn and
was informed hy a critical spirit. Continual attempts were made to politi·
calize this tendency. Among the critics most vocal in this effort were Gran·
ville Hicks, Michael Gold, and Joseph Freeman. But these men have now
ahandohed everything they then asserted with such irritating dogmatism.
This, plus the silence of so many of the younger writers whom they praised
is, in itself, an epitaph of that effort. The attempt to politicalize literature
continues under the banner of the Popular Front. But it uses a new
demagogy. Under the guise of defending culture, Popular Frontism ahan·
dons literary criteria of judgement, inflates many mediocre and even
commercial writers beyond their merits, re-emphasizes anachronistic lit·
erary movements such as Populism, and turns literary criticism into a
welter of political sentimentalities.
It
heads directly into cultural and
literary nationalism. I ·am opposed to this literary nationalism. In our
day, intellect, thought, science, art must he international. Literary national·
ism and Popular Frontism leads to such ineptitudes and feats of political
legerdemain as the retroactive admission of Emerson, Whitman, even the
late Mary Austin, into the Popular Front. It is a method of assuming
literary gains in terms of inches, when losses are being sustained by miles.
It collects inconsistencies all along-.J!le line as it grows, and it affords the
Philistine countless excuses for his Philistinism. It substitutes conven·
tionalizations and demagogy for serious social protest in literature. It
does all this in the name of a false unity. The answer for those who hit·
terly attack the honest artist for rejecting this fictitious unity is to
be
found in a remark of James Connolly. Once when asked about unity with
such men as Redmond, he said: "Unity is a good thing, hut honesty
is
better, ·and if we can only have unity at the expense of honesty, then
unity is not worth the price we are asked to pay for it." One of the most
precious values in the world today is that of the critical spirit. The current
