Turning to Italy we find even grosser injustice and an even more woeful inadequacy in the treatment accorded her modern poets. To be sure, there are biographies of Carducci, Ferrari, Marradi, Mazzoni, and Arturo Graf. But Alfredo Baccelli, Domenico Gnoli, Giovanni Pascoli, Mario Rapisardi, Chiarini, Panzacchi and Annie Vivanti are omitted. There should be biographies of these writers in an international encyclopædia one-fourth the size of the Britannica. Baccelli and Rapisardi are perhaps the two most important epic poets of modern Italy. Gnoli is one of the leaders of the classical school. Chiarini is not only a leading poet but is one of the first critics of Italy as well. Panzacchi, the romantic, is second only to the very greatest Italian poets of modern times, and as far back as 1898 British critics were praising him and regretting that he was not better known in England. Annie Vivanti, born in London, is a poet known and esteemed all over Italy. (It may be noted here that Vivanti wrote a vehement denunciation and repudiation of England in Ave Albion.)
But these names represent only part of the injustice and neglect accorded modern Italian poetry by the Britannica. There is not even so much as a mention in the entire twenty-nine volumes of the names of Alinda Bonacchi, the most widely known woman poet in Italy; Capuano, who, besides being a notable poet, is also a novelist, dramatist and critic of distinction; Funcini (Tanfucio Neri), a household word in Tuscany and one held in high esteem all over Italy; “Countess Lara” (Eveline Cattermole), whose Versi gave her a foremost place among the poets of her day; Pitteri, who was famous as long ago as 1890; and Nencioni, not only a fine poet but one of Italy’s great critics. Nencioni has earned the reputation of being the Sainte-Beuve of Italy, and it was he who introduced Browning, Tennyson and Swinburne to his countrymen. Then there are such poets as Fontana, Bicci and Arnaboldi, who should at least be mentioned in connection with modern Italian literature, but whose names do not appear in “this complete library of information.”
But France, Belgium, and Italy, nevertheless, have great cause for feeling honored when comparison is made between the way the Encyclopædia Britannica deals with their modern poetry and the way it deals with modern German and Austrian poetry. Of all the important recent lyricists of Germany and Austria only one is given a biography, and that biography is so brief and inadequate as to be practically worthless for purposes of enlightenment. The one favored poet is Detlev von Liliencron. Liliencron is perhaps the most commanding lyrical figure in all recent German literature, and he receives just twenty-seven lines, or about one-fifth of the space given to Austin Dobson! But there are no biographies of Richard Dehmel, Carl Busse, Stefan George, J. H. Mackay, Rainer Maria Rilke, Gustav Falke, Ernst von Wolzogen, Karl Henckell, Dörmann, Otto Julius Bierbaum, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal.
There can be no excuse for many of these omissions. Several of these names are of international eminence. Their works have not been confined to Germany, but have appeared in English translation. They stand in the foremost rank of modern literature, and both in England and America there are critical books which accord them extensive consideration. Without a knowledge of them no one—not even a Britisher—can lay claim to an understanding of modern letters. Yet the Encyclopædia Britannica denies them space and still poses as an adequate reference work.
One may hope to find some adequate treatment of the German lyric to recent years with its “remarkable variety of new tones and pregnant ideas,” in the article on German Literature. But that hope will straightway be blasted when one turns to the article in question. The entire new renaissance in German poetry is dismissed in a brief paragraph of thirty-one lines! It would have been better to omit it altogether, for such a cursory and inadequate survey of a significant subject can result only in disseminating a most unjust and distorted impression. And the bibliography at the end of this article on modern German literature reveals nothing so much as the lack of knowledge on the part of the critic who compiled it. Not only is the Britannica deficient in its information, but it does not reveal the best sources from which this omitted information might be gained.
An even more absurdly inadequate treatment is accorded the poets of modern Sweden. Despite the fact that Swedish literature is little known to Americans, the poetry of that country ranks very high—higher (according to some eminent critics) than the poetry of France or Germany. But the Britannica makes no effort to disturb our ignorance; and so the great lyric poetry of Sweden since 1870 is barely touched upon. However, Mr. Edmund Gosse, a copious contributor to the Encyclopædia, has let the cat out of the bag. In one of his books he has pronounced Fröding, Levertin and Heidenstam “three very great lyrical artists,” and has called Snoilsky a poet of “unquestioned force and fire.” Turning to the Britannica we find that Snoilsky is dismissed with half the space given Sydney Dobell and a third of the space given Patmore. Levertin receives only a third of a column; and Fröding is denied any biography whatever. He is thrown in with a batch of minor writers under Sweden. Heidenstam, the new Nobel prize-winner, a poet who, according to Charles Wharton Stork, “stands head and shoulders above any now writing in England,” receives only eight lines in the general notice! And Karlfeldt, another important lyrist, who is the Secretary of the Swedish Academy, is considered unworthy of even a word in the “supreme” Encyclopædia Britannica.
It would seem that unfair and scant treatment of a country’s poetry could go no further. But if you will seek for information concerning American poetry you will find a deficiency which is even greater than that which marks the treatment of modern Swedish poetry.
Here again it might be in place to call attention to the hyperbolical claims on which the Encyclopædia Britannica has been sold in America. In the flamboyant and unsubstantiable advertising of this reference work you will no doubt recall the claim: “It will tell you more about everything than you can get from any other source.” And perhaps you will also remember the statement: “The Britannica is a complete library of knowledge on every subject appealing to intelligent persons.” It may be, of course, that the editors believe that the subject of American literature does not, or at least should not, appeal to any but ignorant persons, and that, in fact, only middle-class English culture can possibly interest the intelligent. But unless such a belief can be proved to be correct, the American buyers of this Encyclopædia have a grave and legitimate complaint against the editors for the manner in which the books were foisted upon them. The Encyclopædia Britannica, as I have pointed out, is not a complete library of knowledge on the subject of literature; and in the following pages I shall show that its gross inadequacy extends to many other very important fields of endeavor. Moreover, its incompleteness is most glaringly obvious in the field of American æsthetic effort—a field which, under the circumstances, should be the last to be neglected.
On the subject of American poetry it is deficient almost to the extreme of worthlessness. In the article, American Literature, written by George E. Woodberry, we discover that truly British spirit and viewpoint which regards nothing as worth while unless it is old or eminently respectable and accepted. The result is that, in the paragraph on our poetry, such men as Aldrich, Stedman, Richard Watson Gilder, Julia Ward Howe, H. H. Brownell and Henry Van Dyke are mentioned; but very few others. As a supreme surrender to modernity the names of Walt Whitman, Eugene Field, James Whitcomb Riley and Joaquin Miller are included. The great wealth of American poetry, which is second only to that of England, is not even suggested.
Turning to the biography of Edgar Allan Poe, we find that this writer receives only a column and a half, less space than is given Austin Dobson, Coventry Patmore, or W. E. Henley! And the biography itself is so inept that it is an affront to American taste and an insult to American intelligence. One is immediately interested in learning what critic the Encyclopædia’s editors chose to represent this American who has long since become a world figure in literature. Turning to the index we discover that one David Hannay is the authority—a gentleman who was formerly the British Vice-Consul at Barcelona. Mr. Hannay (apparently he holds no academic degree of any kind) lays claim to fame chiefly, it seems, as the author of Short History of the Royal Navy; but in just what way his research in naval matters qualifies him to write on Poe is not indicated. This is not, however, the only intimation we had that in the minds of the Encyclopædia’s editors there exists some esoteric and recondite relationship between art and British sea-power. In the Britannica’s criticism of J. M. W. Turner’s paintings, that artist’s work is said to be “like the British fleet among the navies of the world.” In the present instance, however, we can only trust that the other articles in this encyclopædia, by Mr. Hannay—to-wit: Admiral Penn and Pirate and Piracy—are more competent than his critique on Poe.