Current English Usage and the Dramas of Galsworthy

Abstract

OHN GALSWORTHY once said, If Americans, with some exceptions, speak American, they still write English, and generally very good English. Americans have long recognized that Mr. Galsworthy writes very good English. Probably he has more readers on this side of the Atlantic than at home, and presumably his stylistic usages are as interesting to Americans as to Britons. His writings are so widely read and discussed in this country that a study of his stylistic theory and practice may well take a legitimate place in the work of American Speech. At all events, I propose in this paper to examine Mr. Galsworthy's views on literary expression in general, and, in particular, his opinions regarding current as opposed to traditional English usage. Though many a great writer of English has expressed confidence in his war with Time, every one of them must have looked with some misgiving to his literary hereafter. Every writer of established reputation must have done all he could to achieve immortality. Occasionally a successful author, while openly acknowledging his hope of lasting fame, has disclosed his own attempts to insure it. Jonathan Swift, for one, and John Galsworthy, for another, have given us such an insight. Swift, though he boldly dedicated his Tale of a Tub to Prince Posterity, feared the changes that threatened to eclipse his hardearned fame. A few years before his death he wrote: