Volume 21, Number 18 · November 14, 1974
An International Episode
By Irvin Ehrenpreis
Love-Hate Relations: English and American Sensibilities
by Stephen Spender
Random House, 318 pp., $8.95
No country can tell us more about ourselves than England can. Americans who refresh their sight with visits to that mirror image learn to see their national character with the lucidity that an adult gains from comparing himself to his siblings. Our common language opens mysterious depths; and in surveying the two literatures one hardly starts a contrast without receiving an insight. The simple challenge of a literary career means something different to each people. For a young American it brings into view the direction of the national conscience, a leadership more important than lawmaking, more lasting than empire. But for three hundred years the men of England have been loosening their hold on a hereditary estate of drama, narrative, and the high forms of prose.
Review, 2878 words
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