Dunster Forum Weighs Role of Author Today

Stressing the novelist's responsibility to himself and to the expression of his own views, eight members of the University debated the role of the writer of fiction at the Dunster House Forum last night.

Moderator C. Crane Brinton, associate professor of History, led the group in a discussion of the Novelist's social responsibility, a discussion whose interest was enhanced by the universal recognition of the contemporary threat to the artist's freedom.

Lee Talks

Clarence Lee, teaching fellow in English, and himself a novelist, voiced the dominant note of the evening's proceedings when he stated that the freedom of the author to write, independently, of life as he sees it should be paramount to social commentary or patriotic propaganda. This point of view was strengthened by Robert Davis's autobiographical criticisms of the limiting effect of the twentieth century Marxian criticism, which held all literature up to a specialized social theory.

Contemporary significance was added by the remarks by Adam Yarmolinsky '43, who pointed out the difficulties facing the novelist in a time of total war. Not only is he faced by the threat of censorship and the shortage of printing material, but he must also find it impossible to view his topic with the impartiality necessary for valid literary effort.

Kenneth Murdock, Higginson Professor of English Literature, and Harry Levin, Instructor in English, of the English Department, agreed upon the importance of artistic honesty and craftsmanship.