5. Discuss Mr. Dreiser's style in connection with the following topics:
(1) economy; (2) realism; (3) suggestion; (4) taste; (5) rhythmic beauty.
What deeply rooted defect is suggested by the following description of
the Woolworth Building in New York:--"lifts its defiant spear of clay
into the very maw of heaven"?
6. How far does Mr. Dreiser represent American life? Do you think his
work will be for some time the best that we can do in literature?
7. Read Mr. Van Doren's article (listed below) for suggestion of other
points for discussion. The following passage is especially significant:
Not the incurable awkwardness of his style nor his occasional
merciless verbosity nor his too frequent interpositions of crude
argument can destroy the effect which he produces at his best--that
of a noble spirit brooding over a world which in spite of many
condemnations he deeply, somberly loves. Something peasantlike in
his genius may blind him a little to the finer shades of character
and set him astray in his reports of cultivated society. His
conscience about telling the plain truth may suffer at times from a
dogmatic tolerance which refuses to draw lines between good and evil
or between beautiful and ugly or between wise and foolish. But he
gains, on the whole, more than he loses by the magnitude of his
cosmic philosophizing.... From somewhere sound accents of an
authority not sufficiently explained by the mere accuracy of his
versions of life. Though it may indeed be difficult for a thinker of
the widest views to contract himself to the dimensions needed for
realistic art, and though he may often fail when he attempts it,
when he does succeed he has the opportunity, which the mere
worldling lacks, of ennobling his art with some of the great lights
of the poets.