THOUGH THEY KNOW BETTER

The influence of the universities on modern literature--that is the subject of a trenchant and suggestive article in the current Nation. The immediate source for the topic was the Yale Alumni Weekly's recent plea for "honest criticism" from faculty members, that being, according to the Weekly, "the only cure" for the innumerable "sloppy and maudlin" books foisted annually on the public. The Nation agrees but points out that even at Yale faculty members was prolix with superlatives and too often lose touch with the active world of letters. Time was, recalls the magazine, when a professor of English at New Haven "snubbed the most vital living authors in order to sing in extravagant terms the praises of an innocuous and now almost forgotten novelist, Henry Sydner Harrison". And the years which have passed since the author of "Queed" was popular have brought equally significant and disappointing parallels.

The critic--even the trained critic versed in past as well as present literature--is never infallible. Professorial critics, however, who of all others should render verdicts most trustworthy, make too frequent concessions to that infallibility. Because one's judgement is respected by thousands is no reason for one to hall each worthy book as a new masterpiece--even though the foundation of one's criticism be admittedly purely personal and individual. Professor Phelps is undoubtedly the target for the Nation's rebuke, and it must be admitted that Professor Phelps has given sufficient cause on certain occasions. His penchant for superlatives has undermined his readers' faith in his often valuable criticism. He is not alone, however, John Erskine might well cry mea culpa to the Nation's charges; and so, to a much lesser degree, might Robert Littell.

No one asks that academic critics possess the universality of Aristotle, the purity of Longinus, and the dogmatism of Johnson. What is desirable--and what is growing more desirable with the increase of book production and the enlargement of public taste--are critics, whether from the universities or the newspapers, whose advice can be accepted with some trust and whose enthusiasms are restrained by a direct application of the eternal verities. The logical breeding place for such men would appear to be the universities, but the need has yet to be filled.