SOURCE: Tanner, Stephen L. “Sinclair Lewis and the New Humanism.” Modern Age 33, no. 1 (spring 1990): 33-41.

In the following essay, Tanner comments on the relationship between Sinclair Lewis and H. L. Mencken on the one hand, and the New Humanists on the other, noting their lack of understanding of one another.

On December 12, 1930, accepting the Nobel Prize for Literature, Sinclair Lewis delivered what has been called “the most widely publicized address ever given by an American novelist.”¹ Those familiar with the contours of Lewis's career agree that this speech must be taken as the high point, the zenith of achievement and recognition beyond which he did not go. Charles Fenton says the address was Lewis at his very best: “calm, orderly, frequently humble, occasionally boyish, then momentarily savage with cruel sarcasm and icy authority.” Playing his tune in a variety of pitches, Lewis's range included “satire, irony, the belly...