"Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead"

Sinclair Lewis's assertion, "Our American professors like their literature clear and cold and pure and very dead", provides a pointed critique of the scholastic technique to literature in the early 20th century. At the heart of this remark lies a stress in between the vibrancy of literature as a living art type and the way it is frequently dissected within the confines of academia.

The expression "clear and cold and pure" indicates a clinical, nearly antiseptic method to literature, implying that scholarly analysis frequently values accuracy and detachment over emotional engagement or relevance to contemporary issues. By favoring clearness and pureness, professors may prefer texts that fit nicely into established analytical frameworks or literary canons, ones that require extensive analysis however maybe do not have the messiness and complexity of lived experience.

Additionally, Lewis's usage of "extremely dead" suggests that the literature favored by academics is typically historic or far eliminated from the present social context. This choice for "dead" literature could indicate that professors focus on texts that have long been settled in their interpretation, instead of those that provoke new, dynamic conversations. In privileging such works, academic community might run the risk of sidelining dynamic and controversial modern voices, losing the chance for literature to serve as a tool for understanding and critiquing contemporary realities.

Lewis may be recommending that this propensity to deal with literature as an artifact-- to be observed and catalogued rather than engaged with passionately-- suppresses the dynamism that literature can provide. Therefore, his review could be viewed as a call to academia to breathe life into the study of literature, accepting works that challenge and provoke, instead of merely conforming to pre-existing notions of what constitutes "worthwhile" literature.

In essence, Lewis's quote supporters for a more vibrant and appealing method to literary research studies. By favoring works that speak with existing social values and battles, professors can fire up a more extensive gratitude and understanding of literature as a living, progressing discussion, rather than a fixed body of work to be taken a look at and archived.