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believe my critics have done their best, in both praise and blapte, and I
have also done my best in giving them something to write about. As each
book is published, the writer has, for the moment, a particular advantage
over all who write about it: he has had his say. Even the most adverse or
venal critic cannot unsay it. Therefore, I believe it foolish for any writer
to find fault with his adverse critics, or to attack them-when he might
better employ his time by continuing work on his next hook. h.) "Serious
literary criticism" has always been a rarity. And in America perhaps the
last twenty years has produced more critics worth reading than any equal
period of time in our literary history. Of those who have published hooks
since 1919 the names of such diverse and excellent critics of literature, such
as Vernon Louis Parrington, Paul Elmer More, Ezra Pound and George
Santayana are almost certain to he remembered. A more detailed sum·
mary of this period may he found in M. D. Zabel's anthology, "Literary
Opinion
In
America." c.) Unless one has a private income or a subsidized
paper for which to write, I agree that it is extremely difficult to find time
or place for "serious literary criticism." This does not mean that critics
and reviewers are writing dishonestly for New York newspapers and lib–
eral weeklies: hut their wings are often clipped and, in most cases, they
are docile and easily persuaded individuals. Among them there are always
the few who write for "audiences" with both eyes on the boss and who
must do so, either for a living or political advancement-or both. The
difference between the newspapers and the liberal weeklies (I am still
speaking of their literary reviews) is slight, but well defined: and that
difference may be measured by the higher quality of an occasional essay
appearing in The Nation or The New Republic. Such an essay, when it
does appear, is obviously exempt from the demands of a bnsiness depart–
ment or an advertising agency and is of greater "value" than anything one
reads in the literary sections of a newspaper. Whenever "political pres–
sure" has been exerted upon the literary policies of a liberal weekly, it is
also clear that these very policies have been modified by the greater forces
of New York literary politics which is a subject too complex, too enervat–
ing, too destructive and yet too effete and trivial for any writer to waste
his time evaluating it.
4. a.) No. The only other alternative is a system of patronage, whether
from individuals, or grants or funds or publishers. b.) I doubt it. But has
there ever existed an "economic system" that supported writers merely
because they were poets? One always returns to the alternative of patron–
age or earning one's living: and it depends upon the character or moral
strength of the writer as to whether or not either alternative becomes
dishonorable.
5. a.) I have answered this question in answering questions
l
and 2.
6. a.) Frankly, I don't know what a "political tendency" "as a whole"
