DOI Artikel:
Crackanthorpe, Hubert: Reticence in literature: some roundabout remarks
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21215#0263
Reticence in Literature
Some Roundabout Remarks
By Hubert Crackanthorpe
Düring the past fifty years, as every one knows, the art of
fiction has been expanding in a manner exceedingly
remarkable, tili it has grown to be the predominant branch of
imaginative literature. But the other day we were assured that
poetry only thrives in limited and exquisite editions; that the
drama, here in England at least, has practically ceased to be litera-
ture at all. Each epoch instinctively chooses that literary vehicle
which is best adapted for the expression of its particular temper :
just as the drama flourished in the robust age of Shakespeare and
Ben Jonson ; just as that outburst of lyrical poetry, at the begin-
ning of the Century in France, coincided with a period of extreme
emotional exaltation ; so the novel, facile and flexible in its Con-
ventions, with its endless opportunities for accurate delineation of
reality, becomes supreme in a time of democracy and of science—
to note but these two salient characteristics.
And, if we pursue this light of thought, we find that, on all
sides, the novel is being approached in one especial spirit, that it
would seem to be striving, for the moment at any rate, to perfect
Uself within certain definite limitations. To employ a hackeyed,
The Yellow Book—Vol. II. p and
Some Roundabout Remarks
By Hubert Crackanthorpe
Düring the past fifty years, as every one knows, the art of
fiction has been expanding in a manner exceedingly
remarkable, tili it has grown to be the predominant branch of
imaginative literature. But the other day we were assured that
poetry only thrives in limited and exquisite editions; that the
drama, here in England at least, has practically ceased to be litera-
ture at all. Each epoch instinctively chooses that literary vehicle
which is best adapted for the expression of its particular temper :
just as the drama flourished in the robust age of Shakespeare and
Ben Jonson ; just as that outburst of lyrical poetry, at the begin-
ning of the Century in France, coincided with a period of extreme
emotional exaltation ; so the novel, facile and flexible in its Con-
ventions, with its endless opportunities for accurate delineation of
reality, becomes supreme in a time of democracy and of science—
to note but these two salient characteristics.
And, if we pursue this light of thought, we find that, on all
sides, the novel is being approached in one especial spirit, that it
would seem to be striving, for the moment at any rate, to perfect
Uself within certain definite limitations. To employ a hackeyed,
The Yellow Book—Vol. II. p and