superiority indicated. The article contains the most fulsome praise, and
we are told that her “eminence among latter-day women novelists arises
from her high conception of the art of fiction and her strong grasp on
intellectual and social problems, her descriptive power ... and her
command of a broad and vigorous prose style.” (The same enthusiastic
gentleman who wrote Mrs. Ward’s biography also wrote the biography of
Oscar Wilde. The latter is given much less space, and the article on
him is a petty, contemptible attack written from the standpoint of a
self-conscious puritan.)
Thackeray is given equal space with Balzac, and in the course of his
biography it is said that some have wanted to compare him with Dickens
but that such a comparison would be unprofitable. “It is better to
recognize simply that the two novelists stood, each in his own way,
distinctly above even their most distinguished contemporaries.” (Both
Balzac and Victor Hugo were their contemporaries, and to say that
Thackeray stood “distinctly above” them is to butcher French genius to
make an English holiday.)
In Dickens’s biography, which is nearly half again as long as that of
Balzac and nearly two and a half times as long as that of Hugo, we
encounter such words and phrases as “masterpieces” and “wonderful books.”
No books of his surpassed the early chapters of _Great Expectations_
in “perfection of technique or in the mastery of all the resources of
the novelist’s art.” Here, as in many other places, patriotic license
has obviously been permitted to run wild. Where, outside of provincial
England, will you find another critic, no matter how appreciative of
Dickens’s talent, who will agree that he possessed “perfection of
technique” and a “mastery of all the resources of the novelist’s art”?
But, as if this perfervid rhetoric were not sufficiently extreme,
Swinburne is quoted as saying that to have created Abel Magwitch alone is
to be a god indeed among the creators of deathless men. (This means that
Dickens was a god beside the mere mundane creator of Lucien de Rubempré,
Goriot, and Eugénie Grandet.) And, again, on top of this unreasoned
enthusiasm, it is added that in “intensity and range of creative genius
he can hardly be said to have any modern rival.”
Let us turn to Balzac who was not, according to this encyclopædia, even
Dickens’s rival in intensity and range of creative genius. Here we find
derogatory criticism which indeed bears out the contention of Dickens’s
biographer that the author of _David Copperfield_ was superior to the
author of _Lost Illusions_. Balzac, we read, “is never quite real.” His
style “lacks force and adequacy to his own purpose.” And then we are
given this final bit of insular criticism: “It is idle to claim for
Balzac an absolute supremacy in the novel, while it may be questioned
whether any single book of his, or any scene of a book, or even any
single character or situation, is among the very greatest books, scenes,
characters, situations in literature.” Alas, poor Balzac!—the inferior
of both Dickens and Thackeray—the writer who, if the judgment of the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_ is to be accepted, created no book, scene,
character or situation which is among the greatest! Thus are the world’s
true geniuses disparaged for the benefit of moral English culture.
De Vigny receives adverse criticism. He is compared unfavorably to Sir
Walter Scott, and is attacked for his “pessimistic” philosophy. De Musset
“had genius, though not genius of that strongest kind which its possessor
can always keep in check”—after the elegant and repressed manner of
English writers, no doubt. De Musset’s own character worked “against his
success as a writer,” and his break with George Sand “brought out the
weakest side of his moral character.” (Again the church-bell _motif_.)
Gautier, that sensuous and un-English Frenchman, wrote a book called
_Mademoiselle de Maupin_ which was “unfitted by its subject, and in parts
by its treatment, for general perusal.”
Dumas _père_ is praised, largely we infer, because his work was
sanctioned by Englishmen: “The three musketeers are as famous in England
as in France. Thackeray could read about Athos from sunrise to sunset
with the utmost contentment of mind, and Robert Louis Stevenson and
Andrew Lang have paid tribute to the band.” Pierre Loti, however, in a
short biography, hardly meets with British approval. “Many of his best
books are long sobs of remorseful memory, so personal, so intimate, that
an English reader is amazed to find such depth of feeling compatible
with the power of minutely and publicly recording what is felt.” Loti,
like de Musset, lacked that prudish restraint which is so admirable
a virtue in English writers. Daudet, in a short and very inadequate
biography, is written down as an imitator of Dickens; and in Anatole
France’s biography, which is shorter than Marryat’s or Mrs. Oliphant’s,
no adequate indication of his genius is given.
Zola is treated with greater unfairness than perhaps any other French
author. Zola has always been disliked in England, and his English
publisher was jailed by the guardians of British morals. But it is
somewhat astonishing to find to what lengths this insular prejudice has
gone in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. Zola’s biography, which is shorter
than Mrs. Humphry Ward’s, is written by a former Accountant General
of the English army, and contains adverse comment because he did not
idealize “the nobler elements in human nature,” although, it is said,
“his later books show improvement.” Such scant treatment of Zola reveals
the unfairness of extreme prejudice, for no matter what the nationality,
religion, or taste of the critic, he must, in all fairness, admit that
Zola is a more important and influential figure in modern letters than
Mrs. Humphry Ward.
In the biography of George Sand we learn that “as a thinker, George
Eliot is vastly [_sic_] superior; her knowledge is more profound, and
her psychological analysis subtler and more scientific.” Almost nothing
is said of Constant’s writings; and in the mere half-column sketch
of Huysmans there are only a few biographical facts with a list of
his books. Of Stendhal there is practically no criticism; and Coppée
“exhibits all the defects of his qualities.” René Bazin draws only
seventeen lines—a bare record of facts; and Édouard Rod is given a third
of a column with no criticism.
Despite the praise given Victor Hugo, his biography, from a critical
standpoint, is practically worthless. In it there is no sense of critical
proportion: it is a mere panegyric which definitely states that Hugo
was greater than Balzac. This astonishing and incompetent praise is
accounted for when we discover that it was written by Swinburne who, as
is generally admitted, was a better poet than critic. In fact, turning
to Swinburne’s biography, we find the following valuation of Swinburne
as critic: “The very qualities which gave his poetry its unique charm
and character were antipathetic to his success as a critic. He had very
little capacity for cool and reasoned judgment, and his criticism is
often a tangled thicket of prejudices and predilections.... Not one of
his studies is satisfactory as a whole; the faculty for the sustained
exercise of the judgment was denied him, and even his best appreciations
are disfigured by error in taste and proportion.”
Here we have the Encyclopædia’s own condemnation of some of its
material—a personal and frank confession of its own gross inadequacy
and bias! And Swinburne, let it be noted, contributes no less than ten
articles on some of the most important literary men in history! If the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_ was as naïf and honest about revealing the
incapacity of all of its critics as it is in the case of Swinburne,
there would be no need for me to call attention to those other tangled
thickets of prejudices and predilections which have enmeshed so many of
the gentlemen who write for it.
But the inadequacy of the _Britannica_ as a reference book on modern
French letters can best be judged by the fact that there appears no
biographical mention whatever of Romain Rolland, Pierre de Coulevain,
Tinayre, René Boylesve, Jean and Jérôme Tharaud, Henry Bordeaux, or
Pierre Mille. Rolland is the most gifted and conspicuous figure of the
new school of writers in France to-day, and the chief representative of
a new phase of French literature. Pierre de Coulevain stands at the head
of the women novelists in modern France; and her books are widely known
in both England and America. Madame Tinayre’s art, to quote an eminent
English critic, “reflects the dawn of the new French spirit.” Boylesve
stands for the classic revival in French letters, and ranks in the
forefront of contemporary European writers. The Tharauds became famous as
novelists as far back as 1902, and hold a high place among the writers of
Young France. Bordeaux’s novels have long been familiar in translation
even to American readers; and Pierre Mille holds very much the same place
in France that Kipling does in England. Yet not only does not one of
these noteworthy authors have a biography, but their names do not appear
throughout the entire Encyclopædia!
In the article on _French Literature_ the literary renaissance of Young
France is not mentioned. There apparently has been no effort at making
the account modern or up-to-date in either its critical or historical
side; and if you desire information on the recent activities in French
letters—activities of vital importance and including several of the
greatest names in contemporary literature—you need not seek it in the
_Britannica_, that “supreme” book of knowledge; for apparently only
modern English achievement is judged worthy of consideration.
Modern Russian literature suffers even more from neglect. Dostoievsky has
less than two columns, less space than Charles Reade, George Borrow, Mrs.
Gaskell, or Charles Kingsley. Gogol has a column and a quarter, far less
space than that given Felicia Hemans, James M. Barrie, of Mrs. Humphry
Ward. Gorky is allotted little over half a column, one-third of the space
given Kipling, and equal space with Ouida and Gilbert Parker. Tolstoi,
however, seems to have inflamed the British imagination. His sentimental
philosophy, his socialistic godliness, his capacity to “warm the heart”
and “improve the conduct” has resulted in a biography which runs to
nearly sixteen columns!
The most inept and inadequate biography in the whole Russian literature
department, however, is that of Turgueniev. Turgueniev, almost
universally conceded to be the greatest, and certainly the most artistic,
of the Russian writers, is accorded little over a column, less space than
is devoted to the biography of Thomas Love Peacock, Kipling, or Thomas
Hardy; and only a half or a third of the space given to a dozen other
inferior English writers. And in this brief biography we encounter the
following valuation: “Undoubtedly Turgueniev may be considered one of the
great novelists, worthy to be ranked with Thackeray, Dickens and George
Eliot; with the genius of the last of these he has many affinities.” It
will amuse, rather than amaze, the students of Slavonic literature to
learn that Turgueniev was the George Eliot of Russia.
But those thousands of people who have bought the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_, believing it to be an adequate literary reference work,
should perhaps be thankful that Turgueniev is mentioned at all, for
many other important modern Russians are without biographies. For
instance, there is no biographical mention of Andreiev, Garshin, Kuprin,
Tchernyshevsky, Grigorovich, Artzybasheff, Korolenko, Veressayeff,
Nekrasoff, or Tchekhoff. And yet the work of nearly all these Russian
writers had actually appeared in English translation before the Eleventh
Edition of the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ went to press!
Italian fiction also suffers from neglect at the hands of the
_Britannica’s_ critics. Giulio Barrili receives only thirteen lines;
Farina, only nine lines; and Giovanni Verga, only twelve. Fogazzaro
draws twenty-six lines; and in the biography we learn that his “deeply
religious spirit” animates his literary productions, and that he
contributed to modern Italian literature “wholesome elements of which it
would otherwise be nearly destitute.” He also was “Wordsworthian” in his
simplicity and pathos. Amicis and Serao draw twenty-nine lines and half
a column respectively; but there are no biographies of Emilio de Marchi,
the prominent historical novelist; Enrico Butti, one of the foremost
representatives of the psychological novel in modern Italy; and Grazia
Deledda.
The neglect of modern German writers in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_
is more glaring than that of any other European nation, not excluding
Russia. So little information can one get from this encyclopædia
concerning the really important German authors that it would hardly repay
one to go to the _Britannica_. Eckstein—five of whose novels were issued
in English before 1890—is denied a biography. So is Meinhold; so is Luise
Mühlbach; so is Wachenroder;—all well known in England long before the
_Britannica_ went to press. Even Gabriele Reuter, whose far-reaching
success came as long ago as 1895, is without a biography. And—what
is less excusable—Max Kretzer, the first of Germany’s naturalistic
novelists, has no biographical mention in this great English encyclopædia!
But the omission of even these important names do not represent the
_Britannica’s_ greatest injustice to Germany’s literature; for one
will seek in vain for biographies of Wilhelm von Polenz and Ompteda,
two of the foremost German novelists, whose work marked a distinct
step in the development of their nation’s letters. Furthermore, Clara
Viebig, Gustav Frenssen, and Thomas Mann, who are among the truly great
figures in modern imaginative literature, are without biographies. These
writers have carried the German novel to extraordinary heights. Mann’s
_Buddenbrooks_ (1901) represents the culmination of the naturalistic
novel in Germany; and Viebig and Frenssen are of scarcely less
importance. There are few modern English novelists as deserving as these
three Germans; and yet numerous comparatively insignificant English
writers are given long critical biographies in the _Britannica_ while
Viebig, Frenssen and Mann receive no biographies whatever! Such unjust
discrimination against non-British authors would hardly be compatible
with even the narrowest scholarship.
And there are other important and eminent German novelists who are far
more deserving of space in an international encyclopædia than many of
the Englishmen who receive biographies in the _Britannica_—for instance,
Heinz Tovote, Hermann Hesse, Ricarda Huch, Helene Böhlau, and Eduard von
Keyserling—not one of whom is given biographical consideration!
When we come to the American literary division of the _Britannica_,
however, prejudice and neglect reach their highest point. Never have
I seen a better example of the contemptuous attitude of England
toward American literature than in the Encyclopædia’s treatment
of the novelists of the United States. William Dean Howells, in a
three-quarters-of-a-column biography, gets scant praise and is criticised
with not a little condescension. F. Marion Crawford, in an even shorter
biography, receives only lukewarm and apologetic praise. Frank Norris is
accorded only twenty lines, less space than is given the English hack, G.
A. Henty! _McTeague_ is “a story of the San Francisco slums”; and _The
Octopus_ and _The Pit_ are “powerful stories.” This is the extent of
the criticism. Stephen Crane is given twelve lines; Bret Harte, half a
column with little criticism; Charles Brockden Brown and Lafcadio Hearn,
two-thirds of a column each; H. C. Bunner, twenty-one lines; and Thomas
Nelson Page less than half a column.
What there is in Mark Twain’s biography is written by Brander Matthews
and is fair as far as it goes. The one recent American novelist who is
given adequate praise is Henry James; and this may be accounted for by
the fact of James’s adoption of England as his home. The only other
adequate biography of an American author is that of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
But the few biographies of other United States writers who are included
in the Encyclopædia are very brief and insufficient.
In the omissions of American writers, British prejudice has overstepped
all bounds of common justice. In the following list of names _only one_
(Churchill’s) _is even mentioned in the entire Encyclopædia_: Edith
Wharton, David Graham Phillips, Gertrude Atherton, Winston Churchill,
Owen Wister, Ambrose Bierce, Theodore Dreiser, Margaret Deland, Jack
London, Robert Grant, Ellen Glasgow, Booth Tarkington, Alice Brown and
Robert Herrick. And yet there is abundant space in the _Britannica_,
not only for critical mention, but for _detailed biographies_, of such
English writers as Hall Caine, Rider Haggard, Maurice Hewlett, Stanley
Weyman, Flora Annie Steel, Edna Lyall, Elizabeth Charles, Annie Keary,
Eliza Linton, Mrs. Henry Wood, Pett Ridge, W. C. Russell, and still
others of less consequence than many of the American authors omitted.
If the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ was a work whose sale was confined to
England, there could be little complaint of the neglect of the writers
of other nationalities. But unjust pandering to British prejudice and
a narrow contempt for American culture scarcely become an encyclopædia
whose chief profits are derived from the United States. So inadequate is
the treatment of American fiction that almost any modern text-book on our
literature is of more value; for, as I have shown, all manner of inferior
and little-known English authors are given eulogistic biographies, while
many of the foremost American authors receive no mention whatever.
As a reference book on modern fiction, the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is
hopelessly inadequate and behind the times, filled with long eulogies of
_bourgeois_ English authors, lacking all sense of proportion, containing
many glaring omissions, and compiled and written in a spirit of insular
prejudice. And this is the kind of culture that America is exhorted, not
merely to accept, but to pay a large price for.
III
THE DRAMA
Particular importance attaches to the manner in which the modern drama
is treated in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, for to-day there exists a
deep and intimate interest in this branch of literature—an interest which
is greater and more far-reaching than during any other period of modern
times. Especially is this true in the United States. During the past
fifteen years study in the history, art and technique of the stage has
spread into almost every quarter of the country. The printed play has
come back into favor; and there is scarcely a publisher of any note on
whose lists do not appear many works of dramatic literature. Dramatic and
stage societies have been formed everywhere, and there is an increasing
demand for productions of the better-class plays. Perhaps no other one
branch of letters holds so conspicuous a place in our culture.
The drama itself during the last quarter of a century has taken enormous
strides. After a period of stagnant mediocrity, a new vitality has
been fused into this art. In Germany, France, England, and Russia many
significant dramatists have sprung into existence. The literature of the
stage has taken a new lease on life, and in its ranks are numbered many
of the finest creative minds of our day. Furthermore, a school of capable
and serious critics has developed to meet the demands of the new work;
and already there is a large and increasing library of books dealing with
the subject from almost every angle.
Therefore, because of this renaissance and the widespread interest
attaching to it, we should expect to find in the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_—that “supreme book of knowledge,” that “complete library”
of information—a full and comprehensive treatment of the modern drama.
The claims made in the advertising of the _Britannica_ would lead one
immediately to assume that so important and universally absorbing a
subject would be set forth adequately. The drama has played, and will
continue to play, a large part in our modern intellectual life; and,
in an educational work of the alleged scope and completeness of this
encyclopædia, it should be accorded careful and liberal consideration.
But in this department, as in others equally important, the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_ fails inexcusably. I have carefully inspected its dramatic
information, and its inadequacy left me with a feeling which fell
little short of amazement. Not only is the modern drama given scant
consideration, but those comparatively few articles which deal with it
are so inept and desultory that no correct idea of the development of
modern dramatic literature can be obtained. As in the Encyclopædia’s
other departments of modern æsthetic culture, the work of Great Britain
is accorded an abnormally large amount of space, while the work of
other nations is—if mentioned at all—dismissed with comparatively few
words. The British drama, like the British novel, is exaggerated, both
through implication and direct statement, out of all proportion to its
inherent significance. Many of the truly great and important dramatists
of foreign countries are omitted entirely in order to make way for minor
and inconsequent Englishmen; and the few towering figures from abroad who
are given space draw only a few lines of biographical mention, whereas
second-rate British writers are accorded long and minutely specific
articles.
Furthermore, the Encyclopædia reveals the fact that in a great many
instances it has not been brought up to date. As a result, even when
an alien dramatist has found his way into the exclusive British circle
whose activities dominate the æsthetic departments of the _Britannica_,
one does not have a complete record of his work. This failure to revise
adequately old material and to make the information as recent as the
physical exigencies of book-making would permit, results no doubt in the
fact that even the more recent and important English dramatists have
suffered the fate of omission along with their less favored confrères
from other countries. Consequently, the dramatic material is not only
biased but is inadequate from the British standpoint as well.
As a reference book on the modern drama, either for students or the
casual reader, the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ is practically worthless.
Its information is old and prejudiced, besides being flagrantly
incomplete. I could name a dozen books on the modern drama which do not
pretend to possess the comprehensiveness and authenticity claimed by the
_Britannica_, and yet are far more adequate, both in extent and modernity
of subject-matter, and of vastly superior educational value. The limited
information which has actually found its way into this encyclopædia is
marked by incompetency, prejudice, and carelessness; and its large number
of indefensible omissions renders it almost useless as a reference work
on modern dramatic literature.