Changes in modern American fiction have paralleled recent social upheavals, Howard Jones, professor of English, pointed out to the Freshman American Civilization Group in the Union last night.
"Foreign immigrants have enormously enriched American literature in the past century." Professor Jones stated, "especially with the flood of refugee European writers, such as Thomas and Erika Mann."
Before 1850, fiction was in the hands of what he jokingly called "the fine old stock that made America what she is today." Novels of that period centered around noblemen, he said, and foreigners or common people were treated condescendingly.
The tradition of neroes in the well-bred English style disappeared about 1910, and foreign-born authors came into their own by introducing the realistic and socially-minded type of novel, he stated, until at present Saroyans, Sand-burgs, and Dos Passos equal in number and reputation the Longfellows, Hawthornes, and Emersons.
