THE BATTLE CRY OF FREEDOM

On the pages of the current Harper's Mr. Ludwig Lewisolin has continued the battle of Classicism versus Romanticism with a ringing denunciation of the former. He has come running to the defence of the autobiographical impulse meanwhile digging his spurs sharply in the fact of "noble objectivity" as he runs. "Classical" is identified with "barbarism" "romantic" with "cultures." And after this trade at which all dead and lifeless classicists must achiever in their tombs he concludes be nightly. "The old, old controversy between classical and romantic objective and subjective is not so much destroyed as transcended. The function of literature is not to multiply the bad examples of old but to help save the world."

After all this is a highly name thought, but is it a consistent one? Mr. Lewisohn evidently is defending "modern" literature and does it well and intelligently because he chooses to point out those exponents of it who are worthy of praise. That Goethe's "Gah mitein Gott zu sagen was ich leids" is expressed in a good many of the moderns is not to be denied and that this expression is often artistic and beautiful is likewise true. But the idea of self expression "to help gave the world" would hardly fit in with true Romanticist idea of the order of things. The ground work of art in human experience does not allow it to become objective in the role of a savior and this also applies to literature. Mr. Lewisolin's true place is that of a defender of Romanticism as he shows in the early part of the article and not as a peacemaker or as a Man with a Higher Motive.