A Note on Literary Criticism: 1936

Abstract

The novel is interesting not only because The New Masses and Daily Worker praised Newhouse as the "proletarian Hemingway" but also because it revealed a new hostility between the Communists and "uncommitted" workers. The Party was becoming closed to outsiders, hostile to criticism and open debate, and certainly less tolerant of independent thinkers like James T. Farrell. The New Masses editors grew less confident about their role both in the Party and in the radical literary community. They saw themselves as independent of the ninth-floor leadership and thought that they responded fairly to criticism within the ranks of radical writers. Farrell establishes the role of literature and literary criticism on fundamental Marxist grounds. He feels that a book should be judged by its relationship to life, by how close it comes to an actual representation of the human condition.

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