Note 50 — Chapter IX · James Branch Cabell and the Escape to Poictesme

Hamlin Garland, in his “Crumbling Idols” (1894) frankly put the case of realism versus sentimentalism before the public. He quoted Mistral and the French Felibres, as well as Taine and the critic Veron in support of his plea for what he called provincialism. Realism triumphed in American fiction until Mrs. Wharton published her article on “The Great American Novel” in the Yale Review for July, 1927. She protested against what she called the “twelve-mile limit” and the narrow horizons of “the village pump.” That the “revolt against the village” will lead to an entire change of orientation in present-day American fiction and possibly to a new flight “beyond the horizon” in the next few years may soon become an easy and necessary prophecy.