Waldo Frank by Paul J. Carter (review)

Abstract

Paul J. Carter. Waldo Frank. Twayne Publishers (U.S. Authors Series No. 125), 191 pp. $3.95. Students of social forces in American literature will find Professor Carter's little book especially relevant in view of our present social turmoil and the national predilection for soul-searching. Waldo Frank, one of America's most ardent soul-searchers of the 1920's and 30's, is an almost forgotten figure today, except by those who still remember The Seven Arts, The Dial, The New Masses, The Menorah Journal. These defunct periodicals were noted for their trenchant aesthetic and social criticism, and Frank wrote for all of them. Waldo Frank's search for identity and spiritual purpose in an age of raucous boosterism had its roots in his Hebraic origin, in his Whitmanesque faith in democracy, and an odd combination of mysticism, idealism, and political activism. When Frank died last year at the age of seventy-seven he had written fourteen novels, eighteen social histories, and over a hundred stories and articles on a variety of subjects. His great pas-