Current Literature
THE ENJOYMENT OF LITERATURE By Elizabeth • Drew Miss Drew's new book (Cambridge University Press, 8s. 6d.) may not be a very important or a very original critical work, but it is an extremely pleasant one. She has clearly wide reading behind .her, she has excellent taste, she writes well, and she can communicate her appreciation of literature to the reader. Her book is written not for the specialist, nor for those " whose taste is already assured and sophisticated," but for the common reader whose enjoyment of literature can be enhanced by a fairly straight- forward analysis and commentary. Miss Drew considers the various categories of literature one by one and discusses the particular qualities and kinds of pleasure to be found in each kind : thus she has one chapter on The Novel, one on Biography, one on Lyric Poetry, one on Epic Poetry, one on The Essay, one on The Drama, and two more Vagliely headed " The Literature of 'Gossip " and "The Critic and the World Today." This last is -the least helpful, ninny of the problems raised being left unsolved and still more .beinileft unstated, and in any case.the,subject.canabt be one near, to the heart of the reader .to whom . the rest of the book will most appeal; moreover, lf_Liferary. Criticism was thought. a suitable subject' for .it. book of 'this kind. it- was • surely worth dealing..with'.in 'a- leas narrow and less fraginentary way: But esicli'of the reMaining,...clurpterS is conspicuously successful. '14'erhaps! the hest two are " The Litc'irature of Gossip,". a quite delightful „essay on English better-Writers which should fulfil most satisfactorily•• the first,ftinction.. which Miss Drew demands of criticisny-that of, sending. the reader to the material: diseussea,' and. her adutirable survey of the novel, hilt-each of the other Ave chapters is-attractive and useful. and-the4 is hardly a page on which-some valuable point is ,not inade Mg suggestion adVailded. Thia is" the- lend of bOok Which, ixaplace-:'of the dispiriting.. little- treatises Jgesierally... in- use, should be found yin every school -where English literature is .supposed to be a subject for. atudyei- It ,is worth-a dozen swell-meaning commentaries of . Om ordinary. kind, and its use. could not fail to realize a much more intelligent ,a.nd valuable afProach. to literature -tbari is at present'ffenerally Viand.-- But its sphere of interest emphatically, cannot be restricted to academic "uses, •-andf. there .eau be few general readers who will not find both • eujOyment . and profit in Miss Drew's attractive essays.
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