 We want a national literature commensurate with our mountains and rivers ... We want a national epic that shall correspond to the size of the country ... We want a national drama in which scope shall be given to our gigantic ideas and to the unparalleled activity of our people ... In a word , we want a national literature altogether shaggy and unshorn , that shall shake the earth , like a herd of buffaloes thundering over the prairies . 
