On Contemporary Literature Author:Stuart P. Sherman ON CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE BY STUART P. SHERMAN Man must begin, know this, where nature ends MATTHEW ARVOLD. LONDON GRANT RICHARDS LTD. ST. MARTINS STREET 1923 Copyright, 1917, in the United States of America By Ucnry Holt Company Printed in the United States of America By the Quinn d Boden Co. Press, Railway, N. J. TO PAUL ELMER MORE FOB permis... more »sion to reprint the essays in this volume, I am indebted to the Editor of The Nation. Since their original appearance they have been revised and in several instances greatly enlarged. I have been accused of being a besotted Victorian a kind of creature which ought to be extinct, very obnoxious to the younger critics, yet still so numerous as to constitute a not negligible element in the proces sion of our days. To give a certain color to the charge I have included an essay on Alfred Austin, whom I regard as the most amusing of the A ictorian poets. Mr. Henry Holt asks me to allay, if possible, the resentment of those who may inquire why Shakespeare has been smuggled, like a Josephs cup, into the corn of a volume on contemporary literature. Shakespeare is here because I find him the most interesting and sug gestive of living writers. His presence helps one to distinguish the values of his competitors. His humanism serves as a measure of the degrees of their naturalism. Reflective readers will perceive, I hope, that the object, if not the ostensible subject, of the essay on Shakespeare is also the object of the essays on Mr. Wells, for example, and Mr. Dreiser and Mr. George Moore. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION , 3 I THE DEMOCRACY OF MARK TWAIN .... 18 II THE UTOPIAN NATURALISM OF H. G. WELLS . . 50 III THE BARBARIC NATURALISM OF THEODORE DREISER . 85 IV THE REALISM OF ARNOLD BENNETT . 102 V THE AESTHETIC NATURALISM OF GEORGE MOORE . .120 VI THE SKEPTICISM OF ANATOLE FRANCE . . . .169 VII THE EXOTICISM OF JOHN SYNOE 190 VIII THE COMPLACENT TORYISM OF ALFRED AUSTIN . . 211 IX THE AESTHETIC IDEALISM OF HENRY JAMES . . . 226 X THE HUMANISM OF GEORGE MEREDITH .... 256 XI SHAKESPEARE, OUR CONTEMPORARY 285 INDEX 307 ON CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE« less