TWILIGHT OF THE THIRTIES
5
states, literature--in the qualitative sense of the term-has been
"liquidated"; but very few people understand-as there is some–
thing like a conspiracy of silence on the subject-that in the demo–
cratic countries a similar course of liquidation is being followed.
There are differences, of course, yet not so much differences of
historic direction as of form and tempo. Whereas in the Third
Reich, for instance, all free and authentic creation as well as
thought are forcibly suppressed, in the democracies no force is
employed because its application is as yet uncalled for. Here most
of the artists and "thinkers" are voluntarily subjecting themselves
to a regimen of conformity, are "organically" as it were-–
obediently and at times even with enthusiasm-adapting their
products to the coarsening and shrinking of the cultural market. In
this, the late hour of our society, one begins to perceive that what
we are really witnessing is the first stage of a process that might be
called the withering away of literature. Being the most ideological
more than any other art literature responds openly and directly to
changes in the social weather-the first to venture out into the
bright and clement air, the first to turn tail when wintry darkness
falls.
Consider the present situation. This is the one period in many
decades which is not being enlivened by the feats and excesses of
that attractive artistic animal known as "the younger generation."
With very few exceptions, the younger writers today, instead of
defying, instead of going beyond, are in fact imitating and falling
behind their elders. There still are remnants, but no
avant-garde
movement to speak of exists any longer. The old boys have every–
where regained their authority. Everywhere the academicians, the
time-servers, the experts in accommodation, the vulgarizers and the
big money adepts are ruling the literary roost; and those few whose
conscience in such matters is still awake have begun to look back
at the nineteen-twenties as at a golden age, since that period,
though not marked for its political wisdom, was exceedingly alive
with
experiment and innovation. For more than a hundred years
literature, on a world scale, was in the throes of a constant inner
revolution, was the arena of uninterrupted rebellions and counter–
rebellions, was incessantly renewing itself both in substance and
in
form. But at present it seems as if this magnificent process is
drawing to a close.
