SOURCE: "Pseudo Classic," in The Nation, New York, Vol. 117, No. 3032, August 15, 1923, pp. 168-69.

In the following essay, a review of The Literary Discipline, Krutch faults Erskine for his conservative approach to the study of literature.

Disturbed by the vagaries of modern literature, Mr. Erskine [in The Literary Discipline] bases his criticism on a theory of limits—the limits of decency, the limits of naturalism, and the limits of originality. His doctrine, he says, is based upon the belief "that language as a medium of expression has certain limits which the writer must respect, and that the psychology of his audience limits him also in what he may say, if he would gain a wide hearing and keep it."

Now something of the sort may possibly be true. The absolute and unchangeable may exist in manners, morals, science, and art. It may be said, however, not at all in...