Old and New Masters

"Old and New Masters" by Robert Lynd is a set of essays that looks at important writers and what they added to literature. Lynd checks out the lives and work of authors like Dostoevsky and Jane Austen. He compares older and newer writers, pointing out how their themes are alike and different. For example, Lynd starts by looking at how Dostoevsky wrote about extreme feelings, even madness, and how his characters show radical emotions, violent behavior, and moral problems. Then, he compares this to Jane Austen's calmer stories, showing how different writers create unique worlds through their writing, leading to a conversation about how writing styles change and how writers handle the tricky parts of being human.