BOOKS
279
that Mr. Kazin, after the prodigal success of
On Native Grounds,
has
firmly and solidly established himself as an articulate, individual, and
intelligent voice in American criticism. (It is interesting to note, how–
ever, that the present collection does not contain a single essay on the
American literary scene after World War II.) Mr. Kazin's own profile
as a critic emerges most clearly in the friendly portraits he has drawn
of fellow critics, like Edmund Wilson and Paul Rosenfeld, with whom
he feels a sense of community. In the essay on Wilson, he reminds us
that "it is frightening to see how far we have come-under cover of
the literary charades and academic triviality which our criticism has
become-from the democratic affections that once held our writers to–
gether" and concludes on the affirmation that "a literary critic is first
of all a man and a citizen, a man who would be as ashamed to take
the side of power as to write a bad sentence." In the essay on Paul
Rosenfeld, his own critical credo is stated still more forthrightly: "The
revolt against 'softness' and 'romanticism' in literature has carried with
it a fear of the humanistic moral passion that is still the great heritage
of our romantic and democratic past. And to this, in an age of in–
creasing depersonalization and the outward hardness that conceals per-
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