STATE OF AMERICAN WRITING
Qua
writer he is only interested necessarily in what he can write about
successfully. I do not mean, however, that the writer does not invest
his
whole personality in his writing. What I do mean is that his
whole personality may not be invested in his interest in the struggle
against Stalinism, or, for that matter, in any sort of politics.
It must be obvious to anyone that the volume and social weight
of middlebrow culture, borne along as it has been by the great recent
increase of the American middle class, have multiplied at least ten–
fold in the past three decades. This culture presents a more serious
threat to the genuine article than the old-tin1e pulp, dime-novel,
Tin Pan Alley,
Schund
variety ever has or will. Unlike the latter, which
has its social limits clearly marked out for it, middlebrow culture at–
tacks distinctions as such and insinuates itself everywhere, devaluating
the precious, infecting the healthy, corrupting the honest, and stultify–
ing the wise. Insidiousness is of its essence, and in recent years its
avenues of penetration have become infinitely more difficult to detect
and block. In this matter it is necessary for each of us to suspect, and
correct, himself. For we are all of us becoming guilty in one way or
another. We wouldn't dream of being Edgar Rice Burroughs but any
one of us could all too easily become the equivalent of John Marquand
or William Saroyan. Respectable people here and abroad have taken
both the latter for important American writers, a mistake not made
so far in the case of Burroughs. (The situation is no better
in
paint–
ing and music.)
John Crowe Ransom:
A critic addresses himself to these big questions w1tn somt
embarrassment; it feels portentous, and he feels self-conscious. He
would find it easier to examine the individual artists than to lay down
reports and strategies for literature in general.
What is the condition of a great artistic creativity? I believe it
is
a kind of exuberance of animal spirits which is just the opposite
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