DISCOVERY 



81 



before producing it, and their poets — even in revo- 

 lutionary periods — have meekly resigned themselves 

 to the dictates of criticism. Were other literatures 

 conducted on similar orderly lines, it would certainly 

 make our attempt to peer into the future an easier 

 and more fruitful task than it is. 



Some months ago an enterprising Scandinavian 

 literary journal, Litteratxiren, organised an inquiry on 

 the probable effect of the European War on literature. 

 The results were disappointing in so far as the part 

 which writers other than Scandinavians took in it was 

 small ; three or four of our English writers responded, 

 but France was hardly represented at all. From the 

 replies one might conclude that the older generation 

 is inclined to be sceptical of the good that will come 

 out of the War : Dr. Georg Brandes, the doyen of 

 Scandinavian critics.is, for instance, frankly pessimistic; 

 to him the War has been merely the undoing of a 

 century of literary evolution, a throwing back of 

 Europe into barbarism. But Brandes' whole attitude 

 to the events of the last five years has been, in spite of 

 the liberation of North Slesvig, Poland, and Palestine, 

 a peculiar one. On the other hand, the younger 

 generation appear buoyantly confident that the new 

 era will be really a new era, although they may not be 

 ver\' clear as to v.'herein the novelty shall consist. 

 They hope, at least, that the literature of the future 

 will be characterised bj' a larger-hearted humanity 

 than the literature of the past, and will abandon its 

 preoccupation with the individual, to seek inspiration 

 in problems of society, of nation, of race. This, how- 

 ever, is an attempt to answer only half the problem ; 

 it leaves the question of the fashioning of the new 

 literature untouched. 



Beside a natural reluctance to take stock in literary 

 matters, there is another factor which has to be 

 reckoned with. Those whose business it has been to 

 follow the evolution of literature in the past generation 

 have a disheartening record to lay before us. Quite 

 frankly, European literature had, in 1914, reached a 

 point not very far off bankruptcy. We hasten, how- 

 ever, to add that we are not here thinking of individual 

 achievement ; but of the ideas, tendencies, and form 

 of literature. The literature of the mid-nineteenth 

 century — to look somewhat farther back — moved in 

 all countries on a monotonous, uninspiring level ; the 

 dead hand of a moribund Romanticism — or was it 

 the disillusionment of 1848 ? — lay heavy on it; we in 

 this country called it Early and Mid-Victorian ; and 

 something very like Early Victorianism was to be seen 

 in all the greater literatures of Europe, the representa- 

 tive writers being either belated romanticists or 

 disgruntled revolutionaries. Only in the little nations, 

 from the young and \arile literatures of the North 

 and, to some extent, from the grotesquely old-young 



literature of Russia, were new voices to be heard ; 

 but these voices were unable to gain much hearing 

 amidst the general pessimism and conventionalism 

 that held Europe in its bann. The first step towards 

 regeneration is to be seen in the movement known as 

 realism or naturalism. The generation that was young 

 in the seventies and eighties of last centurj' pinned 

 their hopes on the new faith, flocked enthusiasticallv 

 to its standard ; literature, they proclaimed — unmind- 

 ful of the fact that every fresh movement in Uterature 

 justifies itself in almost identical terms — was to be 

 no longer a juggling with threadbare motive and banal 

 expression ; it was to be life, to be a fresh vision of 

 reality, reality " seen across a temperament." For a 

 time all went well ; the new wind swelled all sails ; 

 progress was rapid. Realism in literature became 

 increasingly realistic ; and before long the pioneers 

 were set aside by a more resolute generation, who, 

 accusing their predecessors of half-heartedness, un- 

 masked their former leaders as really incorrigible 

 romanticists at heart ; a " consistent " realism took 

 the place of a mere realism of " compromise." And 

 then, with a suddenness which is not easy to accouni: 

 for, realism petered out. The ineradicable craving 

 for something more inspiring than photographic truth 

 reasserted itself ; overnight realism had become out- 

 of-date ; even its most ardent adherents were forced 

 to admit that their shibboleth was powerless to create 

 a new heaven and earth in poetry. In its place came 

 first what was camouflaged as psychological realism, 

 then a new symbolism, a new spirituahsm^all con- 

 cessions to idealism, which were suspiciously like 

 the old effete thing once repudiated and scorned as 

 romanticism. The realistic creed disappeared amidst 

 contemptuous phrases like fin de siecle and the like ; 

 once more a new foundation was laid down, and the 

 optimists were confident that on it the twentieth 

 century might hopefully build. If literature, they 

 said, can widen its spiritual horizon and still maintain 

 that sense for reality acquired in the previous period, 

 it may escape the danger of drifting back into the 

 deadening conventionalism under which latter-day 

 romanticism had suffered. But the new formula, the 

 second within the experience of one generation, proved 

 to be no more a remedy for the decadence than its 

 predecessor. The post-realistic movement was in- 

 effectively tentative, without whole-hearted backing ; 

 its timid and hesitating experimenting was no substitute 

 for the discarded realism ; and thus, when 1914 came, 

 literature was still in most countries floundering in 

 the morass of " fin-de-sieclism." 



This, briefly, is the main reason why Uterary stock- 

 taking has not been an alluring or profitable under- 

 taking in these times ; we have had nothing ver}' 

 creditable to take stock of. But there is a brighten 



