My recent posts have focused on Andrew Lang’s scathing review of Emily Dickinson’s literary debut in 1891 in the London Daily News.
It is interesting to note, though, that the first British edition of Dickinson’s poems wasn’t published until the summer of 1891, but the harsh words from Lang, the leading British critic of the time, appeared six months earlier, in January 1891.
Scholars these days tend to think that Lang’s screed – or should I say “screeds” as Lang published seven harsh reviews of Dickinson’s work prior to its release – was actually targeted at American novelist and literary critic William Dean Howells.
Lang’s literary tastes were marked by a preference for traditional British writers (particularly Dickens) and the romance tradition, and he had a strong distaste for the emerging realism in fiction.
In 1882, William Dean Howells published a controversial essay that, in the words of his biographers, “would make him the prime target in a bitter international quarrel and plunge him for thirty years to come into the Realism War.”
In this essay, Howells argued against the romance tradition, and said, “the art of fiction has, in fact, become a finer art in our day than it was with Dickens and Thackeray.”
It is interesting to note, though, that the first British edition of Dickinson’s poems wasn’t published until the summer of 1891, but the harsh words from Lang, the leading British critic of the time, appeared six months earlier, in January 1891.
Scholars these days tend to think that Lang’s screed – or should I say “screeds” as Lang published seven harsh reviews of Dickinson’s work prior to its release – was actually targeted at American novelist and literary critic William Dean Howells.
Lang’s literary tastes were marked by a preference for traditional British writers (particularly Dickens) and the romance tradition, and he had a strong distaste for the emerging realism in fiction.
In 1882, William Dean Howells published a controversial essay that, in the words of his biographers, “would make him the prime target in a bitter international quarrel and plunge him for thirty years to come into the Realism War.”
In this essay, Howells argued against the romance tradition, and said, “the art of fiction has, in fact, become a finer art in our day than it was with Dickens and Thackeray.”
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