Among the most potent factors affecting the trend of literary thought and expression of to-day, and of yesterday, democracy and science are well to the fore, and increasingly appear to be playing a leading part in the spiritual and social revolution that has been, unobtrusively up to the time of the Great War, at work in every centre of thought throughout the civilised world. Democracy is blindly seeking after an ideal, but vaguely conceived, along many byways and dangerous paths, relying in pathetic helplessness on the guidance of whatever force at the time is prominent. Philosophy, belles-lettres, science have each had their time of rule, and the influence of science on the evolution of democracy is still the main factor to-day, although one that unmistakably is on the wane. Belles-lettres played an important part in establishing the rule of democracy throughout the world, a rule introduced in violence and bloodshed by the great French Revolution towards the end of the eighteenth century. This revolution was the last stage of a movement, European rather than national, that had its beginning in the Renaissance of the fifteenth century, and although, as an actually destructive force, confined within the French borders, it exerted a revolutionary influence, and a marked one, that gradually took effect throughout the civilised world. As an act of violence the French Revolution overthrew finally those autocratic powers the undermining of which had been inaugurated some five centuries before by the intelligentsia of Italy. Right through the eighteenth century, and especially in England, France, and Germany, the literary effort of outstanding merit is forging a new philosophy, or, at least, reviving an old one long forgotten, and preparing the minds of men for the great social change so rapidly approaching. From the countries of the North the impulse comes, from Germany, from England especially, through almost five centuries of effort, of literary effort, to be returned to them by France and the South in general with untold interest. Hobbes, Locke, Pope in England, Kant, Goethe, and Schiller in Germany, Spinoza in Italy, Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau in France, all men of letters, all have played a part, and a leading part, in the rise of democracy.
What has been the effect of our modern democracy, a democracy born partly of the efforts of literary men, on the trend of literature in general ? Just as the social revolution was brewing right through the eighteenth century, so a literary revolution was under way and swept over Europe with the new democracy. The eighteenth century, in its literary expression, is classical in so far as it has set up as gods of good taste well-known and definite models which it tries to emulate by the means of well-known and definite rules. With the beginning of the nineteenth century comes the literary revolution, known as the Romantic Revolt. The individual is exalted, placed on a pedestal, literary rules are set aside and ideals sought for, no longer in the past, but in dreamland. Imagination replaces reason and brings in its wake, as an inevitable consequence, exaggeration. Such at first is the result of the influence of democracy on literature. But a change rapidly takes place, the first flush of enthusiasm past, the first cup of liberty drained, gradually the conviction grew that although democracy means, or should mean, the freedom of the individual, it inevitably limits the scope of individual effort. The shackles of democracy, when they were first realised, loomed large in the minds of literary men, exerted a depressing influence, and, in a democracy more and more under the guidance of scientific thought, left a deep impression, one to be deplored, on the representative literature produced during the century. Early the danger was realised, magnified, and the French critic, Tocqueville, moved to exclaim : "In America the majority draws a formidable circle around thought. Within the determined limits a writer is free; but woe to him if he should pass beyond them." Later Scherer, a pessimist, a cold analyst of intellects, maintained that democracy doomed mankind to mediocrity for : "The general level rises with democracy; the average of comfort, of knowledge, perhaps even of morality, is higher; on the other hand, and by a parallel movement, all that is superior is lowered, and the average of which I speak is the result of the lowering of the minority, as well as of the elevation of the masses." The reign of democracy is a reign of mediocrity ! the extinction of great initiative ! the establishment of an intellectual conservatism ! All this, doubtless, is true, or in the main true, yet not the whole truth, for democracy has many gifts to lavish on literature.
"Modern conditions are not seemingly such as to allow of the rise of another Shakespeare, of another Milton or even of a Wordsworth; modern conditions emphasise unduly the utilitarian and commercial aspects of literary production, but yet modern conditions throw open wide the door of opportunity to all talents. The individual genius perhaps may not find surroundings and conditions suitable to the utmost development of his gift ; but on the other hand the scope and diversity of literary effort is increased manifold. In a democracy that is alive, healthy, vigorous, thousands of minds are busily engaged contributing to the stock of human knowledge where, formerly, the task of intellectuality fell on the shoulders of but a very few men of outstanding genius. The general standard at first is low, must be low, but as time goes on it will improve, slowly it is true, but surely, as increased opportunity must bring multiplicity of interests, multiplicity of influences, and a greater diversity of mental types. When Europe was young court life was the centre around which literature revolved, and literature was then prone to sameness, and often guilty of monotony. When Europe was in its adolescence, under the ferrule of Italian ushers, at school with the learning of Greece and Rome, literature became the handmaid of the town, produced by and for a small circle of wits, who determined its tone and scope, and left it shorn of much that makes it great. Democracy has widened the range of literature, and complex in itself, it has provided a circle of admirers and hearers for the encouragement of almost every thinker. In a few essentials the majority imposed its will, but within the circle there remains ample space for the expression of an infinity of minorities, and the literature of a great democracy, if lacking the outstanding masterpiece, will be as various as the diversity of interests amongst its component parts. An intellectual tendency of democracy is a leaning towards abstractions, a tendency to seize on general principles, and to apply them, regardless of their limitations or surroundings, to all the problems of life. This tendency in literature, and especially in the literature of imagination, finds expression in the love of the grandiose, of imagery, and of vague sentimentality, and this is typical of the mystic poetry of the Romantic school. But the influence of science has been at work since then, and our literature has swung almost to the other extreme. We are losing sight of the great truths of life in a too minute study of detail—the photographer is taking the place of the painter ! We are in danger of losing ourselves, and of forgetting that although much knowledge is good, in the words of Burke, "the power of diversifying the matter infinitely in your own mind, and of applying it on every occasion that arises, is far better."
Brisbane Courier (Qld. : 1864 - 1933), Saturday 6 November 1920, page 4
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