ABSTRACT
"Reality in America," written in 1940, Lionel Trilling attributed to Panington "an influence on the conception of American culture which is not equaled by that of any writer." Richard Hofstadter continues: Even as late as 1950, when Partington's reputation had gone far on its course of decline, Henry Steele Commager in The American Mind professed that his deepest intellectual debt was to Parrington. Regardless of the validity of Parrington's judgment of Dreiser vis-a-vis Progressive politics, Parrington's insistence on realist portrayal should be the focus in considering contemporary films. Parrington's sensibility corresponded to the historical notions of progressivism, focusing on democracy as a "fighting faith." Trilling argued that Parrington took a single-minded approach to the literature and exhibited an always too predictable, rough hewn, social and economic determinism. Verisimilitude matters—perhaps Parrington deserves a new reading both in Hollywood and literary criticism.
