ABSTRACT
There are perhaps two reasons why the younger generation of French writers is given to collective introspection and absorbed in speculation upon tendencies. The first is the economic fact that one of the easiest and least costly methods of procuring copy for a revue jeune is to conduct an enquête ; the second is that for better or worse the French logical mind is prone to develop a mania for literary classification and a disregard for the essential characteristics of the subject matter of the classification—literature. Consequently, it is very difficult to derive any real information from so extensive an inquiry as that of MM. Picard and Muller (“ Les Tendances Présentes de la Litterature Française.” Basset. 3 fr. 50). Even if the classification into grandiose schools, Unanimistes, Paroxystes and the like, is admitted by the writers themselves, the labels tell us nothing, for they are concerned with the accidents rather than the essentials of literature ; much as though we decided to base our own literary criticism upon a division of modern Poets into those who eat bacon and eggs for breakfast and those who do not. Chaotic classification is a delusion and a snare. More satisfactory, because more restricted and definite, is the inquiry conducted by M. Emile Henriot in Le Temps (“ A Quoi rêvent les Jeunes Gens ? ” Champion. 2 fr.) ; yet even here, if we consider the replies as a whole, the result is negative. The young French writers of to-day have completely broken with Symbolism ; and if the contributors to M. Henriot’s symposium are unanimous in affirming that there is no “ new school,” they are unanimous no less in denying the gods of the nineties.
