1. Consider separately Mr. Tarkington’s studies of boy life (especially Penrod), and of adolescence (especially Seventeen and Clarence). Judged by your own experience and observation, are they presented with true knowledge and humor, or are they a farcical skimming of surface eccentricities? Compare them with Mark Twain’s books about boys and with Howells’s Boy’s Town.

2. Consider separately the historical novels. Is pure romance Mr. Tarkington’s field? Why or why not?

3. Consider the justice or the injustice of the following:

According to all the codes of the more serious kinds of fiction, the unwillingness—or the inability—to conduct a plot to its legitimate ending implies some weakness in the artistic character; and this weakness is Mr. Tarkington’s principal defect.... Now this causes the more regret for the reason that he has what is next best to character in a novelist—that is, knack. He has the knack of romance, when he wants to employ it: a light, allusive manner; a sufficient acquaintance with certain charming historical epochs and the “properties” thereto pertaining...; a considerable experience in the ways of the “world”; gay colors, swift moods, the note of tender elegy. He has also the knack of satire, which he employs more frequently than romance ... he has traveled a long way from the methods of his greener days. Why, then, does he continue to trifle with his threadbare adolescents, as if he were afraid to write candidly about his coevals? Why does he drift with the sentimental tide and make propaganda for provincial complacency?

4. In what direction lies Mr. Tarkington’s future? Is he likely to become more than a popular writer? What, if any, elements of enduring value do you find in his work?

5. What “Hoosier” elements do you find in his work? Compare him with Ade, Riley, Nicholson, and with the older writers of Indiana, Edward Eggleston, and Maurice Thompson.

Bibliography

For bibliography of unpublished plays, cf. Who’s Who in America.

Studies and Reviews