In 1914 the younger novelists of promise included Compton Mackenzie and D. H. Lawrence, J. D. Beresford and Hugh Walpole, Gilbert Cannan and W. L. George. The poets received less attention, in part because there were fewer of them and in part because poetry was less read before the war, though Masefield in his narrative poems enjoyed a greater popularity than had befallen any one since Kipling. The younger dramatists were generally ignored: apart from Houghton, Brighouse and Knobloch, few had succeeded in making their names known; and the stage was the almost unraided preserve of Barrie and Shaw, Pinero, Barker, Bennett and Maugham, Sutro and Jones, Carton and Chambers.
The impact of the war, unexpected and incomprehensible, beggaring the resources of language and yet demanding that it should be described and expressed even as it was felt, urged to write those who had not written before and urged those who had written before to write differently. It is not to be expected that the permanent literary fruits of the war will be seen for another ten years in the work of the younger and more impressionable writers.[48] Young authors of either sex were for the most part engaged in grimmer business than that of writing; and, alike among old and young, balance and perspective are not to be found in a time of dazing shock, of fierce indignation and of numbing grief; the repose in which great work is planned and executed was shattered by the noise of war; calm vision was disturbed by the vivid blaze of sudden contrasts; and, though inspiration has charged the atmosphere, the form in which it will materialise has not yet been revealed. The literature of the last six years should be regarded as contemporary documents to illuminate the psychology of a war in progress rather than as the considered and definite contribution made by the creative artists of a generation which had been shaken by war from the seating of tradition.
Among these contemporary documents many are of the highest quality.[49] Mr. Britling Sees It Through, Peter Jackson: Cigar Merchant, The Dark Forest, The Pretty Lady, Saint's Progress and Naval Occasions each commemorate, in a way that has not yet been excelled, a phase of experience, an attitude of mind towards the war, a mood of hysteria, a changing ethical standard or an unchanging spirit first interpreted and proclaimed. The authors of these documents were for the most part well known before the war; but the last six years have seen emerging the less familiar names of E. M. Delafield and Clemence Dane, Stella Benson and Enid Bagnold, Rebecca West and Dorothy Richardson, Frank Swinnerton, St. John Ervine and Eimar O'Duffy. While it is not surprising that war should give an unequalled opportunity to women writers, it is remarkable that in half-a-dozen years six young women of individuality so strong and so distinctive should all have made good their claim to a place in the sun; it is encouraging for the future free development of the English novel.
And individuality is sorely needed at a time when so many writers shelter themselves behind an illustrious model or conceal their native talent by using eccentric tools. In novel-writing the worst original is usually more valuable than the best copy; but the atmospheric effects of Dostoevski and Conrad, the exhaustive analysis of James and the sweeping abruptness of Wells prove too strong a fascination for many young writers. Of late, the study of psycho-analysis has obsessed more than one brain and distorted more than one novel. If a criticism may be ventured on the present phase of novel-writing, it would be that the whole is subordinated to one overgrown part: much is heard of "the novel of realism," "the novel of manners," "the novel of atmosphere," "the novel of psychology"; less of "the novel of perspective." In the hands of the great masters, realism and romance, manners and atmosphere, psychology and discussion had each its allotted place and proportion. It would have been as inconceivable for Thackeray to write a "novel of psychology"—so proclaimed—as for Vardon to play a championship round with a putter. This preoccupation with a single tool has injured the story-teller's art to the extent that the younger generation is less concerned than were the great masters with the business of telling a story.
If poetry be the highest form of literary expression and lyrical poetry the immediate response to the keenest stimulus, it might be expected that the war would have effected a rich output of the most precious material and that we should not have to wait ten years while the shock of war was absorbed. Although, once again, the judgement of a contemporary is impotent to predict what posterity will or should admire, there is a present test by which the poetry of the last six years must be regarded as disappointing: though its technical excellence has seldom been higher and never more widely diffused, it has not been assimilated into the thought, the language or the life of its own generation. While the novels of the war were read, discussed and quoted, while a passage from this one or that may seem the classic description of an episode or the flawless expression of a mood, the poems of the war have seldom caught and held an emotion so inevitably as to pass into the currency of a plain man's daily reflections. Two poems by Rupert Brooke and one by Masefield fix the mingled anguish, wonder and elation of the early days when the world was wrenched from the security of peace; they indeed register a frame of mind as clearly and finally as did The Loss of the Birkenhead and may become as much a part of the common stock as did The Charge of the Light Brigade. It is difficult to recall another of which the same can be said.
That modern poetry should remain so obstinately divorced from modern sentiment and modern life is the more disappointing in that it has never enjoyed more generous opportunities of making itself heard and accepted. Poetry is more read and bought than at any time within living memory; its single blossoms, too fragile to burgeon alone, are gathered into yearly anthologies; it is coaxed with prizes and encouraged with unprecedented space in weekly reviews and monthly magazines; but almost always it fades in the season that gave it birth.
The fault does not lie wholly at the door of an unappreciative public, for, though the English submit with incredible docility to the tenth-rate, they welcome the first-rate when they can get it. Within the last six years the normal conservatism of the London stage has been assailed by new writers, new plays and new modes of production. Drinkwater and St. John Ervine have established themselves; the long rule of inanity has been overthrown in places by The Lost Leader and Abraham Lincoln, by The Skin Game and John Ferguson, by The White-headed Boy and by the revival of The Beggars' Opera, all of which reflected as much credit on the audiences as on the authors.
Genius works at unexpected times and in unexplained ways: there is no obvious reason why the last months of the war should have been chosen for an experiment in biography which has upset the old-fashioned biographer's every standard. Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians occupies a place by itself in the literature of any period. Its wit and irony, its learning and lightness, its humour and mischief make of it a unique literary sport; its appearance at the close of an epoch encourages the hope that, in the new epoch, it will be the model for future biography.
How, then, should this stock-taking at the end of the war be summarised? Among old and young there was much activity; the former never fell below their standard, the latter gave promise of a standard not less high. The enthusiasm, the conscientiousness, the efficiency and versatility of those who stand in the front rank of contemporary literature are hopeful portents for the future. Into the Jellaby and Postlethwaite game of awarding premature immortality it is foolish to be drawn.