586
PARTISAN REVIEW
traditional picture of Europe as the garden of art, or of America
as a culturally barren land.
All this changed, of course, in the '30's, when the earlier aesthe–
tic estrangement gave way to social commitment-writers and intel–
lectuals discovered they had been remiss in ignoring their civic
responsibilities. Though they still rejected America, the reasons were
chiefly political rather than aesthetic. But after a few years the new
commitments had to be re-examined because of the disillusionment
with Stalinism, which had managed to identify itself with the ideals
of social progress and responsibility. More recently, with the threat
of Soviet totalitarianism and with the exhaustion and political con–
fusion of Europe, American artists and intellectuals have acquired
a new sense of belonging to their native land, and generally have
come to feel that their own fate is tied to the fate of their country.
The new "Americanism" has affected our thinking and our per–
sonal lives, for the writer has not only changed his attitude to Amer–
ica and to Europe, but he has also come to see himself in a dif–
ferent light. While we still value the European tradition, we are
no longer awed by it; we now believe that our literature and our
literary life cannot grow outside our national experience.
This
is
not necessarily a chauvinistic rejection of the internationalism of art:
it is in part, at least, an attempt to realize our national identity. But
in his concern with the national identity, the writer has had to
question his own identity. For he has found it difficult to think of
himself at the same time as an
American
writer and as an outcast.
Often the search for roots in America has meant fitting into
the community and adapting oneself to the rules of middle-class
morality and respectability. This accounts, I think, for the death
of bohemianism. The past always lingers on, but on the whole such
symbols of alienation as the cold-water flat are gone; the jobless,
wandering artist is almost extinct, and writing has come to be re–
garded more as a profession than a form of exile. The most serious
artists are now concerned with sales, markets, publicity and public
response. This does not mean they are less dedicated; it does suggest,
I think, a shift in the idea of success: where in the '20's, for instance,
achievement was located in the fringes of society or in posterity,
which was merely a pseudonym for the values of the avant-garde,
today the artist feels the need for immediate social approval-from a
public that used to be considered beyond the pale of
art.
