Review 3:41 Jl 14 ’20 80w
HEARN, LAFCADIO. Talks to writers. *$2 Dodd 814
20–19452
These chapters are reprinted from the author’s “Interpretations of literature” and “Life and literature”—lectures delivered at the University of Tokyo. Hearn writes as a craftsman and looks upon literature as an emotional art, a moral art and one requiring unceasing discipline. He insists on clearness of vision, on exactness in the use of words and holds that literature must grow out of the vernacular. He advises translating as a literary practice and preliminary discipline. The book is edited with an introduction by John Erskine and is indexed. Contents: On the relation of life and character to literature; On composition; Studies of extraordinary prose; The value of the supernatural in fiction; The question of the highest art; Tolstoi’s theory of art; Note upon the abuse and the use of literary societies; On reading; Literature and public opinion; Farewell address.
“The content, not the style, is here of first importance; these lectures, as they stand, not only furnish light on an interesting side of Hearn’s personality, but represent adequately his point of view as it had been ripened by study and thought.” F. N. A.
+ Freeman 2:501 F 2 ’21 360w
“Addressed to alien students, they are necessarily often elementary in subject matter and always simple in style. Out of the latter necessity Hearn made a virtue and achieved a naive charm, so that, as writing, the lectures are, like everything else he wrote, beautiful.”
+ Nation 112:sup248 F 9 ’21 340w
“No one who is beginning to write, or who is a student of composition, can afford to miss these lectures.” W. P. Eaton