Mr. Krutch Regains Consciousness

Ludwig Lewisohn once declared that the two most “significant” critical documents in a quarter-century of American literature were Paul Elmer More’s Shelburne Essays and Joseph Wood Krutch’s The Modern Temper (first published in 1929, now reissued, also in paper-back, 95 cents, by Grosset’s Universal Library).

The Modern Temper was a prose Wasteland, a tale which out-Poed Poe for sheer inhuman horror and intellectual terror: between intellectual assent and desire fell the shadow of man’s dark knowledge of himself and the universe. In such a situation, his position could have been tragically Promethean, could he have maintained “the tragic fallacy,” the illusion that tragedy could exist. But his loss of faith in himself deprived him even of this consolatory dignity. Mr. Zero, who remembered, despite himself, that he had once had the illusion of being human, was now prepared to die:

WF

About the Author

Warren L. Fleischauer

Featured Tags

Ludwig Lewisohn once declared that the two most “significant” critical documents in a quarter-century of American literature were Paul Elmer More’s Shelburne Essays and Joseph Wood Krutch’s The Modern Temper (first published in 1929, now reissued, also in paper-back, 95 cents, by Grosset’s Universal Library).

The Modern Temper was a prose Wasteland, a tale which out-Poed Poe for sheer inhuman horror and intellectual terror: between intellectual assent and desire fell the shadow of man’s dark knowledge of himself and the universe. In such a situation, his position could have been tragically Promethean, could he have maintained “the tragic fallacy,” the illusion that tragedy could exist. But his loss of faith in himself deprived him even of this consolatory dignity. Mr. Zero, who remembered, despite himself, that he had once had the illusion of being human, was now prepared to die: