Criticism
Michael Swanwick published a critical monograph on Cabell's work, which argues for the continued value of a few of Cabell's works—notably Jurgen, The Cream of the Jest and The Silver Stallion—while acknowledging that some of his writing has dated badly. Swanwick places much of the blame for Cabell's obscurity on Cabell himself, for authorising the 18-volume Storisende uniform edition of the Biography of the Life of Manuel, including much that was of poor quality and ephemeral. This alienated admirers and scared off potential new readers. "There are, alas, an infinite number of ways for a writer to destroy himself," Swanwick wrote. "James Branch Cabell chose one of the more interesting. Standing at the helm of the single most successful literary career of any fantasist of the twentieth century, he drove the great ship of his career straight and unerringly onto the rocks."
Other book-length studies on Cabell were written during the period of his fame by Hugh Walpole, W. A. McNeill, and Carl van Doren. Edmund Wilson tried to rehabilitate his reputation with a long essay in The New Yorker.
Read more about this topic: James Branch Cabell
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“A friend of mine spoke of books that are dedicated like this: “To my wife, by whose helpful criticism ...” and so on. He said the dedication should really read: “To my wife. If it had not been for her continual criticism and persistent nagging doubt as to my ability, this book would have appeared in Harper’s instead of The Hardware Age.””
—Brenda Ueland (1891–1985)