6. How far does Mr. Dreiser represent American life? Do you think his work will be for some time the best that we can do in literature?
7. Read Mr. Van Doren’s article (listed below) for suggestion of other points for discussion. The following passage is especially significant:
Not the incurable awkwardness of his style nor his occasional merciless verbosity nor his too frequent interpositions of crude argument can destroy the effect which he produces at his best—that of a noble spirit brooding over a world which in spite of many condemnations he deeply, somberly loves. Something peasantlike in his genius may blind him a little to the finer shades of character and set him astray in his reports of cultivated society. His conscience about telling the plain truth may suffer at times from a dogmatic tolerance which refuses to draw lines between good and evil or between beautiful and ugly or between wise and foolish. But he gains, on the whole, more than he loses by the magnitude of his cosmic philosophizing.... From somewhere sound accents of an authority not sufficiently explained by the mere accuracy of his versions of life. Though it may indeed be difficult for a thinker of the widest views to contract himself to the dimensions needed for realistic art, and though he may often fail when he attempts it, when he does succeed he has the opportunity, which the mere worldling lacks, of ennobling his art with some of the great lights of the poets.
Bibliography
- *Sister Carrie. 1900.
- *Jennie Gerhardt. 1911.
- The Financier. 1912.
- A Traveller at Forty. 1913. (Travel sketches.)
- The Titan. 1914.
- The Genius. 1915.
- Plays of the Natural and the Supernatural. 1916.
- A Hoosier Holiday. 1916. (Travel sketches.)
- Free and Other Stories. 1918.
- The Hand of the Potter. 1918. (Tragedy.)
- Twelve Men. 1919. (Biographical studies.)
- Hey-rub-a-dub-dub. 1920.
- A Book about Myself. 1922.
Studies and Reviews
- Mencken, H. L., Prefaces.
- Sherman, Stuart P., On Contemporary Literature, 1917.
- Acad. 85 (’13): 133. (Frank Harris.)
- Bookm. 34 (’11): 221 (portrait); 38 (’14): 673; 53 (’21): 27 (portrait).
- Cur. Lit. 53 (’12): 696 (portrait).
- Cur. Op. 62 (’17): 344 (portrait); 63 (’17): 191; 66 (’19): 175.
- Dial, 62 (’17): 343, 507.
- Egoist, 3 (’16): 159.
- Ind. 71 (’11): 1267 (portrait).
- Lond. Times, June 23, 1921: 403.
- Nation, 101 (’15): 648 (Stuart P. Sherman); 112 (’21): 400. (Carl Van Doren.)
- New Repub. 2 (’15): supp. Apr. 17, Pt. II, p. 7.
- No. Am. 207 (’18): 902.
- Review, 2 (’20): 380. (Paul Elmer More.)
- R. of Rs. 47 (’13): 242 (portrait).
- Spec. 118 (’17): 139.
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois—man of letters.
Born at Great Barrington, Massachusetts, 1865. Of negro descent but with large admixture of white blood. A. B., Fisk University, 1888; Harvard, 1890; A. M., 1891; Ph. D., 1895. Studied at the University of Berlin. Professor of economics and history, Atlanta University, 1896-1910. Director of publicity of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and editor of the Crisis, 1910—.
Mr. Du Bois is a distinguished economist and primarily a propagandist for the equal rights and education of the negro, but he belongs to literature as the author of Darkwater.