BOO KS
465
If
there are greater authors in the future, it will be partly the
result of Gide's example and the knowledge of both his virtues and
his shortcomings. There have been greater authors in our own era, but
none can be said to be as fully and as adequately a witness to the truth
about the apocalyptic period between 1870 and 1950: a living and
marvelously articulate witness to the truth, despite enormous handicaps
which would have silenced most men; despite fears, anxieties, and various
other psychological disabilities; and most difficult of all, various social
pressures, whether Catholic or Communist, which have made many an–
other gifted author feel that it was not dishonest to be silent, indif–
ferent, prudent, careful, and in the end incapable of distinguishing
between patience and opportunism.
Gide is representative and he is a symbol.
It
is certainly fair enough
that those who have serious doubts about modem literature as a whole
should make his work the subject of the most careful examination. But
the partial repudiation of modem literature which is now so fashionable
would be more convincing if the critics and readers who participate in
it were all devoutly reading and rereading Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Balzac,
Flaubert, Shakespeare and Sophocles; and drawing their standards of
judgment from the great works which belong to a period prior to our
own; and demonstrating that Proust's faults became clear when one had
judged him in comparison with Tolstoy, Stendhal, and the author or
editor of
The Iliad.
Perhaps it is in the light of such studied comparisons-such a satura–
tion in the experience of literature-that the authors of the twentieth
century are being repudiated. But if this is the true reason, it has not been
made explicit by the critics who declare that the time for a new revalua–
tion and a partial rejection has arrived. Meanwhile in the great world it–
self many momentous cultural changes are occurring and perhaps this too
has something to do with the new doubts about modem literature.
If
these cultural changes are troubling the doubtful readers and critics, one
can only conclude that they are not troubled enough:
2
they are carping;
they are cultivating subtle qualifications and reservations in the face of
what may very well be an overwhelming change.
For it must be admitted that, in a way, after all, the classics are best
sellers and hits right now.
Kiss Me Kate
has enjoyed a longer run than
any other play by Shakespeare, with or without music, and we can
2. It is certainly true that you can't fool all the readers all the time. But all the
time is a long time to wait.
