Upon completing his
U.S.A.trilogy, among the most successful efforts to combine artistic innovation with social commentary in American literature, John Dos Passos began a second series, which he would later name
District of Columbia. But the second trilogy has had far less influence than
U.S.A.; in fact some critics reconsidered their enthusiasm for the early trilogy in light of perceived diminished artistic vitality in the second series. For many readers, the political conservatism of the second series was linked with artistic regression. Although any correlation between political position and artistic expression is inherently naïve and deplorable, Dos Passos’s determination to avoid ambiguity as he developed his notion of the novelist as “contemporary chronicler” led to a…
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Citation: Dougherty, David C.. "Adventures of A Young Man". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 July 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6839, accessed 23 November 2024.]
