Word: authorities
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Beside being an able ambassador, M. Jusserand is a scholar of great attainments. He is the author of many valuable studies in English literature and civilization. For the past 21 years, or since he first went to Washington, he has been engaged in writing A Literary History of the English People. He has also acted as general editor of Les Grand Écrivains Français ? a series of studies in the life, works and influence of principal French writers...
...tell an actor how to say his lines. Most of them leave that part to the actors, themselves, and so the plays are broken up. Instead of a play being the expression of a single man it is the expression of the entire cast, and does not convey the author's meaning...
...French producers, on the other hand, are artists. Before producing a play they study it carefully, and try to determine what the author is attempting to convey. After they have studied the play until they know it thoroughly they call in the cast, and as the production proceeds they tell each actor and actress just how they want each line spoken and accented...
...French producer is like a painter with the actors as his paints, and in this way the author's meaning is more nearly interpreted...
This, unfortunately, does not still the ancient fond between authors and critics. The author feels that his whole literary life may be destroyed by a spiteful commentator, and if his work has no real merit, that is what is likely to happen. It is the resentment which any craftsman feels on having his work weighed and condemned, or perhaps accorded some slight mead of praise, by a mere layman. The obvious solution is to admit that critics are also authors and that the creation of an intelligent reading public, which is the critic's function, is no less essential than...