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CHAPTER 13 JAMES T. FARRELL The End of a Literary Decade This essay, "The End of a Literary Decade," was written toward the end of 1939, and published in the American Mercury, in December, 1939. It gives a clear sense of the Thirties, and constitutes an immediate reaction to the literary atmosphere and writings of that decade. James T. Farrell New York 12 July 1979 The decade of the 1930s, which comes to a close this month, witnessed many controversies among writers, some so bitter that they led to enduring hatreds. The issues that evoked these controversies were posed by the left, and in the last years of the decade they became outright political in character. The accent of politics in literature and criticism has been increasingly more pronounced in these last ten years. In these notes I shall deal mainly with these features of the decade, but the reader should be reminded that a discussion of the controversies and the role of the left in American literary and intellectual life does not exhaust the subject of the "literary thirties." Many writers continued to function without being involved in the political and politicoliterary debates of the time. Among these one can number some whose position in contemporary writing is unquestioned ; there is William Faulkner, for instance. This essay was originally published in American Mercury 48 (1939):408-15, and contains the essence of the remarks Farrell made at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, during the 1978 Alabama Symposium on English and American Literature. We gratefully acknowledge permission given by American Mercury and James T. Farrell to republish it. Except for minor corrections in the text and the addition of two notes, the article is reprinted as it originally appeared.-EDs. The End of a Literary Decade 205 Likewise, although much has been written concerning "social content" in literature and the portrayal of social struggles in fiction, those in no way associated with political movements have frequently been most successful in utilizing material of social struggles in works of fiction. One of the finest American first novels of many years is Robert Penn Warren's Night Rider, which portrays a social struggle with insight and without sacrificing individual characterization to didacticism. Yet Mr. Warren has not been associated with the political tendencies that have clashed inside the ranks of American criticism and literature .... In short, this article does not aim at a complete survey in any sense of the word. When the 1930s opened, there was a growing number of writers and intellectuals who thought that a radical-yes, a revolutionary-ehange was necessary and on its way in our society. In the first years of the decade, criticism of the status quo sharpened. It began to be reflected in new fiction. John Chamberlain's excellent Farewell to Reform appeared; the very title as well as the reception the book received were symptomatic of a mood of the time. Now, as the decade draws to an end, many of the same writers and intellectuals feel that bitter reaction, fascism, is imminent. In the early 1930s there was some hope and confidence. At the end, there is anxiety, apprehension, even signs of panic. The thirties have produced a new generation of tired radicals, radicals who are perhaps even more tired than their predecessors of 1917 and 1918. Important in the experience of these many writers and intellectuals during the ten years is the Soviet Union. In 1930 the Soviets still seemed to point the way to a new and more just social order; but in 1939 the Russian Revolution has been betrayed, and the ruling regime of the Soviet Union is obviously counterrevolutionary . This is the tragedy intimately bound up with the cycle from hope to despair through which so many have passed in this decade. Many of the younger American writers who went left in the early 1930s turned their eyes toward politics with little if any background. Some of them were then political illiterates, and some have remained precisely that. As a whole, they were practically unread in politics, political theory, economics, and history. The first stage of their politicoliterary experience was generally one of novelty. They accepted and expressed all sorts of extravagant and irrational opinions. With the arrogance of ignorance they often ventured into print on subjects of which they knew nothing. They accepted ready-made political slogans and programs from the Stalinist movement. Time was when radicalism opened men's eyes: it attracted their attention to a...

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