PARTISAN REVIEW
own temperament and takes its color from his own emotional biases
and obsessions. His major characters are likely, in fact, to be projec–
tions of emotional forces within his own personality just as much as
are those of the avowed symbolist or fantasist.
Every writer, however, grows up as a member of a particular
society, and the structure of his personality, his view of life and
his emotional conflicts and consummations are conditioned by social
factors. He is likely, moreover, to be generally receptive to those
broad currents of thought and feeling which are shared by the other
members of his society. For this reason the content of his work, in–
cluding its deeper emotional quality as well as its subject-matter, can–
not be explained without reference to the social background. In re–
vealing himself the writer also reflects his society; he indicates what
type of personality and what forms of emotional experience may
develop within that society, and this reflection may often be most
significant where it is least deliberate.
While a knowledge of social forces is necessary for a full under–
standing of literature, the study of literature may, in turn, illuminate
society. It may enable us to understand it more completely, and on
a deeper psychological level, than if we restrict ourselves to the rela–
tively superficial level of its political and economic organization. The
literature of a society may show not merely how its members acted
but what they thought and felt; it may indicate those emotional as–
pirations, conflicts and frustrations which do not manifest themselves
overtly in political programs but which are, nevertheless, among the
ultimate determinants of the course of history. Such a use of literature
as sociological material is hazardous unless there is corroborative evi–
dence. For a writer is not necessarily typical of his society, or even
of that elite group which initiates changes of attitude; his experience
is often eccentric and his degree of maladjustment greater. But it is
often possible to trace a high degree of correlation between literary
evidence and subsequent historical developments. To cite one obvious
example, the debacle of European civilization was foreshadowed
much more clearly in the imaginative literature of the nineteen-twen–
ties than in the writings of any economists, sociologists or political
theorists.
I propose to illustrate these suggestions by considering certain
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