Writings of Paul Elmer More
Paul Elmer More (1864-1937), with Irving Babbitt a proponent of the New Humanism, was an outstanding American critic and scholar. His writings display erudition, good sense, forceful argument and far-reaching concerns. None are now in print. For an account of his long-continued failure to attract a following, see Byron C. Lambert's The Regrettable Silence of Paul Elmer More in the Winter 1999 Modern Age More was educated at Washington University in St. Louis and Harvard. After a short spell teaching Sanskrit and classics at Harvard and Bryn Mawr he become a literary journalist, serving as literary editor of The Independent (1901-03) and the New York Evening Post (1903-09) and as editor of The Nation (1909-14). His views, like those of many others at the time, started with the experience of the living; they ended however in classical restraint, traditional standards, and a somewhat idiosyncratic Anglo-catholicism. In an era of naturalism and socialism he therefore drew considerable critical fire, notably from H.L. Mencken, who nonetheless considered him the "nearest approach to a genuine scholar" America had. His best known work is his Shelburne Essays , 11 vol. (1904-21), a collection of articles and reviews. Also notable are the books he wrote afer his retirement from journalism: | |
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