Free Download
Ephemera Critica
Ephemera Critica
or plain truths about current literature
It is time for some one to speak out. When we compare the condition and prospects of Science in all its branches, its organization, its standards, its aims, its representatives with those of Literature, how deplorable and how humiliating is the contrast! In the one we see an ordered realm, in the other mere chaos. The one, serious, strenuous, progressive, is displaying an energy as wonderful in what it has accomplished as in what it promises to accomplish; the other, without soul, without conscience, without nerve, aimless, listless and decadent, appears to be stagnating, almost entirely, into the monopoly of those who are bent on futilizing and degrading it.
Book Excerpt
le province which it once held, but is extending its dominion in all directions. It has its representatives in every department of Art and Letters. It has its poets, its critics, its philosophers, its historians. It crowds not our club-tables and news-stalls only, but our libraries. Thus what was originally a mere excrescence on literature, in the proper sense of the term, has now assumed proportions so gigantic, that it has not merely overshadowed that literature, but threatens to supersede it.
No thoughtful man can contemplate the present condition of current literature without disgust and alarm. We have still, indeed, lingering among us a few masters whose works would have been an honour to any age; and here and there among writers may be discerned men who are honourably distinguished by a conscientious desire to excel, men who respect themselves, and respect their calling. But to say that these are in the minority, would be to give a very imperfect idea of the proportion which their numbers bear to
Editor's choice
(view all)
Popular books in Fiction and Literature, Criticism
Readers reviews
0.0
LoginSign up
Be the first to review this book
Popular questions
(view all)Books added this week
(view all)-itok=vcKIB5v1.jpg)
FEATURED AUTHOR - 'The Plotting Shed' (see her blog http://www.intheplottingshed.com/) was Alex Martin's first writing space at the bottom of her Welsh garden. Now she splits her time between Wales and France and plot wherever she is. She still wanders aimlessly in the countryside with her dog and her dreams and she can still be found typing away with imaginary friends whispering in her ear, but these days she has the joy of seeing her stories published and the treasured feedback from readers who've enjoyed them.