Studies and Reviews
- Harkins.
- Pattee.
- Toulmin.
- Acad. 59 (’00): 35; 76 (’09): 800; 88 (’15): 234.
- Bk. Buyer, 20 (’00): 350, 374.
- Bookm. 32 (’10-11): 360, 640.
- Cur. Lit. 29 (’00): 147; 35 (’03): 129 (portrait).
- Lamp, 27 (’03): 117, 119 (portrait).
- Mentor, 6 (’18): 2 (portrait).
- Outlook, 96 (’10): 811.
Sherwood Anderson—short-story writer, novelist.
Born at Camden, Ohio, 1876. Of Scotch-Irish ancestry. Father a journeyman harness-maker. Public school education. At the age of sixteen or seventeen came to Chicago and worked four or five years as a laborer. Soldier in the Spanish-American War. Later, in the advertising business.
In 1921, received the prize of $2,000 offered by The Dial to further the work of the American author considered to be most promising.
Suggestions for Reading
1. The autobiographical element in Mr. Anderson’s work is marked and should never be forgotten in judging his work. The conventional element is easily discoverable as patched on, particularly in the long books.
2. To realize the qualities that make some critics regard Mr. Anderson as perhaps our most promising novelist, examples should be noted of the following qualities which he possesses to a striking degree: (1) independence of literary traditions and methods; (2) a keen eye for details; (3) a passionate desire to interpret life; (4) a strong sense of the value of individual lives of little seeming importance.
3. Are Mr. Anderson’s defects due to the limitations of his experience, or do you notice certain temperamental defects which he is not likely to outgrow?
4. Mr. Anderson’s experiments in form are interesting to study. Compare the prosiness of his verse with his efforts to use poetic cadence in The Triumph of the Egg. Does it suggest to you the possibility of developing a form intermediate between prose and free verse?