340 Making It New: 1900–1945(1882–1958), for writing a study of the English language in the United States titled
The American Language (1919), and for producing numerous caustic essays collected
in six volumes called Prejudices (1919–1927). He delighted in attacking middle-class
America, or what he termed the “booboisie”; and the defense of Dreiser gave him the
opportunity to do so. So, for that matter, did his support and encouragement of other
writers of the day who sometimes aroused antagonism, notably James Branch Cabell
(1879–1958), Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951), and Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941).
Cabell, Lewis, and Anderson are all sometimes associated with what has been called
“the revolt from the village” – that reaction against small-town values which charac-
terized many American writers early in the twentieth century. That, however, masks
many differences. Cabell, for instance, from Richmond, Virginia, was a friend
of Ellen Glasgow whom he claimed to know “more thoroughly and more
comprehendingly” than “any human being during the last twenty years of her^ living.”
Like her, he wrote romances of contemporary Virginia like The Cords of Vanity
(1920) and satires on the romantic idealism of the South such as The Rivet in
Grandfather’s Neck (1915). His most notable work, however, involved the creation of
a mythical French province, Poictesme, whose history from 1234 to 1750 he chroni-
cled in a series of allegorical novels that comment obliquely on American life. Cabell
went into some detail about the life and liberal morality of the people of Poictesme;
and one novel in the series, Jurgen (1919), was suppressed for supposed immorality.
But the case against the book, not for the first or only time in literary history, aroused
public interest and curiosity; and for most of the 1920s he enjoyed considerable
fame and popularity.
The fame of Sinclair Lewis spread even wider: in 1930 he became the first
American author to win the Nobel Prize for literature. Lewis, however, chose the
path of satire, a critique of provincial American life, and the middle class in
particular, that became the more tempered the older he grew. His first successful
novel, Main Street (1920), tells the story of Carol Kennicott, the young wife of the
local doctor in the small town of Gopher Prairie. For her, Gopher and its main street
are the epitome of the dullness, the mediocrity of American provincialism. What
characterizes the town she lives in, she reflects, is “an unimaginatively standardized
background, a sluggishness of speech and manners, a rigid ruling of the spirit by the
desire to appear respectable.” Rebelling against what she sees, she tries to raise the
cultural level of the town. Lewis carefully places Carol between a series of other
characters who help the reader measure her position and opinions. On the one hand
is a conformist of the best sort like her husband Will Kennicott. His work as a coun-
try doctor requires courage and skill, as Carol discovers when she accompanies him
on one of his calls. However, he is successful in Gopher Prairie, his wife realizes, not
just because of his virtues and skill but because of his orthodoxy. He accepts the
prevailing views of the town as normal and natural. His knowledge of the value of
his work may make him successful in his own eyes, but it is thanks to his unques-
tioning acceptance of Gopher Prairie views that he is acceptable there. On the other
hand, there are malcontents like Guy Pollock, the local lawyer, who explains what he
hates about Gopher Prairie to Carol, what he calls “the Village Virus.” “The VillageGGray_c04.indd 340ray_c 04 .indd 340 8 8/1/2011 7:53:48 AM/ 1 / 2011 7 : 53 : 48 AM