Contemporary American Literature | Page 5

Fifty Contemporary One-act Plays, 1920.
Stratton, Clarence, Producing in Little Theatres, 1921. (Appendix lists
200 plays for amateurs.)
OF SHORT STORIES
Hannigan, F.J. Standard Index to Short Stories, 1900-1914. 1918.
O'Brien, E.J.H. Best Short Stories for 1915, 1916, etc. (Published
annually.)

CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LITERATURE
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF AUTHORS
+Franklin Pierce Adams+--(Illinois, 1881)--humorous poet,
"columnist."
Editor of "The Conning Tower" in the New York World.

For bibliography, cf. Who's Who in America.

+Henry (Brooks) Adams+--man of letters.
Born in Boston, 1838. Great-grandson of John Adams and grandson of
John Quincy Adams, presidents of the United States. Brother of
Charles Francis and Brooks Adams. A.B., Harvard, 1858, LL.D.,
Western Reserve, 1892.
Secretary to his father, Charles Francis Adams, American Minister to
England, 1861-8. Assistant professor at Harvard, 1870-7, and editor of
North American Review, 1870-6.
Lived in Washington from 1877 until his death in 1918, but traveled
extensively and knew many famous people.
In memory of his wife, he commissioned Saint Gaudens to make for
her tomb in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, the statue sometimes
called Silence, which is one of the sculptor's most beautiful works.
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING
1. The Education of Henry Adams is autobiographic.
The persistent irony of the presentation should be corrected by reading
Brooks Adams's account of his brother.
2. Mont Saint Michel and Chartres is an attempt to interpret the spirit
of mediæval architecture, both secular and ecclesiastical. To appreciate
it fully, familiarity with the subject is necessary.
The novels are worth study as satires.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Democracy. 1880. (Novel.) Esther. 1884. (Novel; under pseudonym,
"Frances Snow Compton.") Historical Essays. 1891. Mont Saint Michel

and Chartres. 1904. The Education of Henry Adams. 1918. The
Degradation of the Democratic Dogma. 1919. Letters to a Niece and
Prayer to the Virgin of Chartres. 1920. Also in: A Cycle of Adams
Letters, 1861-1865. Edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford. 1920.
STUDIES AND REVIEWS
Cambridge.
Ath. 1919, 1: 361; 1919, 2: 633; 1920, 1: 243, 665. Atlan. 125 ('20):
623; 127 ('21): 140. Bookm. (Lond.) 57 ('19): 30. Cur. Op. 66 ('19):
108. Dial, 65 ('18): 468. Dublin Rev. 164 ('19): 218. Harv. Grad. M. 26
('18): 540. Lond. Times, May 30, 1919: 290. Nation, 106 ('18): 674.
New Repub. 15 ('18): 106. New Statesman, 16 ('21): 711. 19th Cent. 85
('19): 981. Pol. Sci. Q. 34 ('19): 305. Scrib. M. 69 ('21): 576 (portrait).
Spec. 122 ('19): 231. World's Work, 4 ('02): 2324. Yale Rev. n.s. 8
('19): 580; n.s. 9 ('20): 271, 890.

+George Ade+--humorist, dramatist.
Born at Kentland, Indiana, 1866. B.S., Purdue University, 1887.
Newspaper work at Lafayette, Indiana, 1887-90. On the Chicago
Record, 1890-1900.
Although some of his earlier plays were successful and promised a
career as dramatist, his reputation now rests chiefly upon his humorous
modern fables.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fables in Slang. 1900. More Fables. 1900. Forty Modern Fables. 1901.
The County Chairman. 1903. (Play.) The College Widow. 1904. (Play.)
Ade's Fables. 1914. Hand-Made Fables. 1920.
For complete bibliography, see Cambridge, III (IV), 640, 763.
STUDIES AND REVIEWS

Moses.
Am. M. 73 ('11): 71 (portrait), 73. Bookm. 51 ('20): 568; 54 ('21): 116.
Harp. W. 47 ('03): 411 (portrait), 426. No. Am. 176 ('03): 739.
(Howells.) Rev. 2 ('20): 461.

+Conrad Potter Aiken+--poet, critic.
Born at Savannah, Georgia, 1889. A.B., Harvard, 1912. Has lived
abroad, in London, Rome, and Windermere.
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING
1. A good introduction to Mr. Aiken's verse is his own explanation of
his theory in Poetry, 14 ('19); 152ff. To readers to whom this is not
accessible, the following extracts may furnish some clue as to his aim
and method:
What I had from the outset been somewhat doubtfully hankering for
was some way of getting contrapuntal effects in poetry--the effects of
contrasting and conflicting tones and themes, a kind of underlying
simultaneity in dissimilarity. It seemed to me that by using a large
medium, dividing it into several main parts, and subdividing these parts
into short movements in various veins and forms, this was rendered
possible. I do not wish to press the musical analogies too closely. I am
aware that the word symphony, as a musical term, has a very definite
meaning, and I am aware that it is only with considerable license that I
use the term for such poems as Senlin or Forslin, which have three and
five parts respectively, and do not in any orthodox way develop their
themes. But the effect obtained is, very roughly speaking, that of the
symphony, or symphonic poem. Granted that one has chosen a
theme--or been chosen by a theme!--which will permit rapid changes of
tone, which will not insist on a tone too static, it will be seen that there
is no limit to the variety of effects obtainable: for not only can one use
all the simpler poetic tones...; but,