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at new sentence rhythms, word‘coinage, and telling
inversions give more hilarity than pain. But this soft
place next to Marianne Moore!
The final seal has been stamped by the announcement
that the 1921 Dial Award has been bestowed upon Sher
wood Anderson. It was stated that „the award will go to a
young American writer, one of our contributors, in
recognition of his service to American letters ... to
be given annually to one who has already accomplished
a service, yet has not completed his work . . . intended
for encouragement and opportunity 4 * for leisure, I infer.
It went to a man forty-five years old and by no means
in a seriously impecunious position. Inasmuch as the
royalties from six books and frequent payments from
several magazines eager for his work have, of late
years, enabled him to support a family, devote all his
time to writing, and take a summer’s trip to Europe.
An established writer, in short. The approach to arti
culateness of this author I have traced in detail in an
essay now floating around somewhere in America. Let
me extract a few points without supporting them again.
1. The impulse which produced Windy Mac Phersons
Son and Marching Men was thin. Anderson, inBrentano’s
trade paper, spring of 1921, declares they were written
from an emulative desire worked up by reading other
novels. 2. I agree with his preface statement to Mid
American Chants that he can do nothing as yet „but
mutter and feel our way toward the promise of song“.
3. The key-sentence to Winesburg, Ohio is „One
shudders at the meaninglessness of life while at the
same instant and if the people of the town are his
people, one loves life so intensely that tears come into
the eyes". This translates into „I have nothing to
oppose to the meaninglessness of life but a sentimental
attachment for my fellow townsmen". 4. Anderson has
no control of diction, not even the elementary man
agement of sentence mechanics that syntax can give.
There are many examples. Witness one from Poor White.
„Standing on a high cliff and with a grove of trees
at his back, the stars seemed to have all gathered in
the eastern sky". 5. Anderson’s formula for writing is
a psychological, not an esthetic one. Vide Brentano’s
trade paper, spring of 1921. 6. He correctly regrets