With such insufficient and glaringly prejudiced treatment of giants like Sudermann and Hauptmann, it is not at all surprising that not one other figure in German and Austrian recent dramatic literature should have a biography. For instance, there is no biography of Schnitzler, Arno Holz, Max Halbe, Ludwig Fulda, O. E. Hartleben, Max Dreyer, Ernst Hardt, Hirschfeld, Ernst Rosmer, Karl Schönherr, Hermann Bahr, Thoma, Beer-Hoffmann, Johannes Schlaf, or Wedekind! Although every one of these names should be included in some informative manner in an encyclopædia as large as the Britannica, and one which makes so lavish a claim for its educational completeness, the omission of several of them may be excused on the grounds that, in the haste of the Encyclopædia’s editors to commercialize their cultural wares, they did not have sufficient time to take cognizance of the more recent of these dramatists. Since the editors have overlooked men like Galsworthy from their own country, we can at least acquit them of the charge of snobbish patriotism in several of the present instances of wanton oversight.
In the cases of Schnitzler, Hartleben and Wedekind, however, no excuse can be offered. The work of these men, though recent, had gained for itself so important a place in the modern world before the Britannica went to press, that to ignore them biographically was an act of either wanton carelessness or extreme ignorance. The former would appear to furnish the explanation, for under Drama there is evidence that the editors knew of Schnitzler’s and Wedekind’s existence. But, since the Überbrettl movement is given only seven lines, it would, under the circumstances, hardly be worth one’s while to consult the Encyclopædia Britannica for information on the modern drama in Germany and Austria.
Even so, one would learn more of the drama in those countries than one could possibly learn of the drama of the United States. To be sure, no great significance attaches to our stage literature, but since this encyclopædia is being foisted upon us and we are asked to buy it in preference to all others, it would have been well within the province of its editors to give the hundred of thousands of American readers a little enlightenment concerning their own drama.
The English, of course, have no interest in our institutions—save only our banks—and consistently refuse to attribute either competency or importance to our writers. They would prefer that we accept their provincial and mediocre culture and ignore entirely our own æsthetic struggles toward an individual expression. But all Americans do not find intellectual contentment in this paternal and protecting British attitude; and those who are interested in our native drama and who have paid money for the Britannica on the strength of its exorbitant and unsustainable claims, have just cause for complaint in the scanty and contemptuous way in which American letters are treated.
As I have already noted, the American drama is embodied in the article on the English Drama, and is given less space than a column. Under American Literature there is nothing concerning the American stage and its writers; nor is there a single biography in the entire Encyclopædia of an American dramatist! James A. Herne receives eight lines—a note so meagre that for purposes of reference it might almost as well have been omitted entirely. And Augustin Daly, the most conspicuous figure in our theatrical history, is dismissed with twenty lines, about half the space given H. J. Byron! If you desire any information concerning the development of the American theater, or wish to know any details about David Belasco, Bronson Howard, Charles Hoyt, Steele MacKaye, Augustus Thomas, Clyde Fitch, or Charles Klein, you will have to go to a source other than the Encyclopædia Britannica.
By way of explaining this neglect of all American culture I will quote from a recent advertisement of the Britannica. “We Americans,” it says, in a most intimate and condescending manner, “have had a deep sense of self-sufficiency. We haven’t had time or inclination to know how the rest of the world lived. But now we must know.” And let it be said for the Encyclopædia Britannica that it has done all in its power to discourage us in this self-sufficiency.
IV
POETRY
In the field of poetry the Encyclopædia Britannica comes nearer being a competent reference library than in the field of painting, fiction, or drama. This fact, however, is not due to a spirit of fairness on the part of the Encyclopædia’s editors so much as to the actual superiority of English poetry. In this field England has led the world. It is the one branch of culture in which modern England stands highest. France surpasses her in painting and in fiction, and Germany in music and the drama. But Great Britain is without a rival in poetry. Therefore, despite the fact that the Encyclopædia is just as biased in dealing with this subject as it is in dealing with other cultural subjects, England’s pre-eminence tends to reduce in this instance that insular prejudice which distorts the Britannica’s treatment of arts and letters.