Malcolm Cowley's Literary Hatchet Turns into a Boomerang

There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against the impact of a new idea.

In the September issue of Harper's Magazine, Malcolm Cowley, a writer with a minor reputation as a critic, swings the literary hatchet against analysts who commit two unpardonable crimes. The first of these crimes is contributing to the AMERICAN IMAGO; the second is attempting to explain the process of artistic creativity. Which of these two crimes is the felony and which the misdemeanor is not made clear; the impression is created, however, that both acts are abominable. Mercifully, Cowley concedes a few mitigating circumstances: these analysts “can't write very good English,” and they are “emotionally speaking, still eleven years old.” Nor is the level of their productions different from their emotional level, Cowley informs his readers; “many of the reports … are essentially as simple-minded as the scribbles on the wall of a schoolhouse toilet.” But these analysts “have heard about the puzzling world of books,” and so the trouble starts.

Cowley does not directly suggest that books be forbidden to these adolescents “with Phi Beta Kappa keys” and reserved exclusively for potential writers (over-intensive reading