SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 1930 THE MICHIGAN DAILY L L ;a41W L E TYER EXAYISCMPRY CRITICISM N N A K1I EDt] ROBINSON, THE GLORY O THE NlGl N GALES: by Edwi Arlton bla inson: Mac illan Co. JOHN 1J T and other poems: by Conrad Aiken Cl1arles Scribners ons. Reviewed by William S. Gr-man. Edwin Arlingten Robinson an Conrad Aiken, writing very differ ent poetry, are alike in the matur ity of their craftsmanship. Bot have, after years of experifont realized and in a sense codified th poetic forms appropriate to thel peculiar perceptivities. Such a achievement is certainly necessar: to the consistent productin o: major poetry. Robinson has been consistently producing major poetry for year now. And the forms he has foun to do it in have had no little t do with his success. Robinson hw always been "in our time." He ha: always had a sense of the strain i7 contemporary life. Indeed the dis- crepancy between "life and life de sired" (in other words the probleir of "failures") has been the funda- mental problem vitalizing his poet utterance. He has maintained hi own presence of mind (and giver us the sense of serenely, thougk~ sardonically, confronting contem- porary life) by the discovery of a technique with which to explore this problem. The result has been the perfection of a method, of poetic narrative. With the excep- tion of his sonnets and his excur sions into Arthurian legend, Rob- inson has been fundamentally the biographer of souls-souls caught in situations that mean "faiure" for them He has been sanely and steadily creating and exploring a world of "failures." The list of characters in that world are fanm- iliar. This year has seen the addition of two: Malory and Nightingale. These boyhood friends had beer parted by the catastrophe of the unsuccessful Malory's winning the love of the girl, who was the one thing necessary to complete Night- ingale's brilliant. success. Night- ingale had ruined Malory in f nan- cial speculation, which had in turn meant the death of Maloriy's *ife The poem opens with Malory, an old man, trudging the road to Nightingale's palatial home, deter- mined to murder him.. Typically. Robinson resolves these intense moments of rather silly passion into an intricate, analytical discus- sion of motives and lives, Malory finds Nightingale a pitiful invalid knowing death every day. The melodrama is over. Two civilized men discuss their lives at great length. Then Nightingale commits sucide, wiling Malory his money. There is a peculiar astringent irony in the conception of this nar- rative, which indicates Robinson's fundamental attitude. Otherwise, there is a balance in Robinson's mind-humour preventing senti- mentality, a pity that prevents .railing, an intellect that makes character understandable - which, makes the poem completely objec- tive. Aside from the typical pass- ages where the Robinsonian twisted language is not intricate analysis but merely twisted language, the poem is a brilliant one-and no1 different in form from ten other brilliant poems by Robinson. Robinson 2 continued As early as 1910, Conrad Aiken was aware of difficulties in his poetic intentions: "I am in quest of a sort of absolute poetry, a poe- try in which the intention is not so much to arouse an emotion, .I V 1 )i . , r rti a -. ,:: ] ' . Towards Standards: by Norman Foerster: Farrar and Rinehart: Price $2.50. Review Copy Courtesy of Wahr's Book Store. hcivieze.d by I',ro fcssor I Iurier G. Rice Professor Foerster has made up his latest book by putting between two covers papers that have appeared elsewhere: papers on "Humas in the Renaissance," "Humanism in the Twentieth Century," "Human- ism and Religion," and three articles on contemporary crit-cism. The author's main intention is suggested by these titles. He has undertaken to restate and to apply the doctrines of humanism, has tried to put the hu- :nanists' program in a more simple and more coherent form than it took in Humanism and Ameri-a. Accordingly he begins with definition and illustration, in his first chapter pointing the contrast between the incomplete' Humanists of Renaissance Italy, who in his opinion - it is an opinion based, apparently, chiefly on the reading of secondary authorities, Burckhardt, Symonds, Sandys, and so forth-were exponents of 'naturism' rather than a true humanism, and Erasmus, whom he chooses as the complete, representative Humanist. Having thus set up an example for admiration, Professor Foerster goes on to discuss various critics and theorites of criticism, arranging them in the Arnoldian categories of personal, historical, and real. In[ treating these subjects he makes appropriate use of ideas derived from his masters in philosophy, Professor Babbitt and Paul Elmer More, add- ing nothing essential, but attempting new applications, especially in the field of recent American literature. After disposing of Impressionism, he enters upon an extended dec- onstration designed to prove that both our 'journalistic' historians of literature - as represented by Stuart Sherman and Henry S. Canby - and our 'long distance prophets'- e. g., Randolph Bourne, Van Wyck Brooks, and Lewis Mumford-have been disappointed guides because of their immersion in the flux, their failure to find firm standing ground in the wisdom of the past, in tradition. In conclusion, of course, Pro- fessor Foerster asserts that only humanistic criticism can prepare the way for truly sound creative effort and supply the "need of the age," that is, "integration, the establishment of a significant :relation between the present and the past." The case is argued on the whole with temperance, and the system' which is erected makes a very decent, though now somewhat familiar,' show. But like others of his school, Professor Foerster reduces complex problems to a dieceptive simpliacity, and passes over in silence oppor- tunities which might issue in profitable speculations. It would be inter- esting, for example, to have his analysis of the forces which moved, Stuart Sherman to desert the stronghold of humanism, where his services nad been distinguished and where his leadership seemed assured, and to plunge into the journalistic welter of New York. Men of Sherman's caliber do not make such changes without reason, nor do they act for exactly the reasons which hasty and hostile critics attribute to them. An understanding of what Sherman tried to do casts some light on the li'mitations of the humanism which is at present being preached in America. Perhaps unwittingly, Professor Foerster himself supplies a touchstone with which to try the gospel when he quotes with approval Enasmus' cry, "I am a lover of liberty, I cannot and will not serve a party." iN OUR TIME WRa1,N1PITES FINE BOOK LOWERINGx JUDAS: by Katherine C y:P arcourt, Brace and iten to 600 copi.. .. .. .. .. . .. .. t This new book unquestionably re- veals the most significant talent for fiction that has appeared in some Yy-ars; reveals it functioning suc- ^essfully in a sufficient variety ;f situations to leave no doubt about its possible future. As Tate has indicated, the signi- rcant thing about Miss Porter's technique is its refusal to take any recognisable form and then con- tinue to exploit itself. This has been the story of too many Ameri- cans writing fiction: Cabell, Hem- ingway, and Elizabeth Madox Rob- erts to mention a few. The distinc- tion of her prose style lies in its EnsHeingw>ay. adequacy to a variety of material: - --__to two stories in a Mexican locale, H imngwayReprin ts to appearance and disappearance of a querulous mood in wife and First Short Stories husband, to the devotion of a afam- ily to an idiot son, to the stream of consciousness of the dying This reprint of Hemingway's Granny Weatherall. The method in first miscellany of short stories and each of these stories is different; sketches is timely. The book is es- each method grows from a thor- sential to the understanding of a ough grasp of the situation at man who still remains one of the hand. In no story, with the possible most original and significant of exception of Magic, is there either contemporary writers. spurious intensity or under-state- The bock is composed of a series ment. of stories about Nicky, a healthy The uniqueness of Miss Porter's American boy growing up in the approach to character lies in her Anerian Northwest, alternated by feeling for the uniqueness of char- short brutal sketches of war scenes acter. A tenet of hers must be that The alternation seems haphazard the individuality of a character can Actually the contrast reveals very only be realized by treatment of it strikinrlythe central emotion in as isolated. There are no discursive lermingway's work: curiously intri- plunges into social background for cafe with felings about the central purposes of locating and rational- brutamity in the human frame. This izing characteristics. Character is interes in pain is, if there one, the projected without location. This poin of view characteristic of all Miss Porter may have learned from 1-iemhigw s-work. In this early Virginia Woolf. The distinction of book, the point of view appears this first book makes such a com- most clearly, most understandably. parison plausible.. W. J. G. W. J. G. 5chnitzer Issues Novel of Casanova Porray ig Conquests of His Old AgeI CASANOVA'S 1IO M ECOMhIING: by Arthur Schnitzler: Simon and Sclus- er 1930: P ic; $l.0( , In Casanova's Homecoming, Schnitzler set himself a task which many before him have tried with disastrous results. He must reconstruct in historical figure for the uses of fiction. But there is an intrinsIc oroblem. Is the narrative to su'rmount the biographical appendages? Or will the story primarily serve the purpose of exposition of the histori- ral personage? This is the more difficult procedure. Schnitzler's Casanova, Ot; an aging gallant, falls in love with a cul- 'ared, clever, beautiful young girl. I-e finally seduces her by means of Gric-kery, by taking We place of her young lover at a tryst. Since he knows that he, an old man, disgusts her in the only role he wishes to play, he overcomes his scruples, his sense of honor, his hatred of her attitude towards him, his hatred of his own seediness. All that is present is his desire. And this portrayal of merely, or to persuade of a reality, Casanova is fundamentally true. a e y'os One pauses to use the word lust in as to employ such emotion or sense connection with this name - one is of reality (tangentially struck) required to use a term synonomous with the same cool detachment with philosophy -- a strong and dig- with which a composr employs nified term: not hedonism or epi- notes or chords." Since that time cureani'sm. "music has been Aiken's greatest That Schnitzler could remain true to this authentic conception is com- gift and heavist han: ap" i mendable. The Casanova before the has always written musical varia- iiuai. adventure is at war with him- tions, suggestng thm i mter- self and the world. But, as soon as al. ithas ( trecd, he is quiescent. The probem f rieA n the grl's recognition of him is was the problem of (1I ng ne intt e. En' the killing of music and mea:ning. . o:cten a her lover re not enough to discom- .vas completely ha y about the marie him. thi: ortmayal from the meaning. Tihc aupearance of psy- time of the tryst on is totally objec- ;hoanalysis, with its concepLion of five. There is no remorse no soul the unconscious ad its lund of im- struggle. And beca-ae ofthis in- zgery, swas he stiilating thin';i sight into Casanova's character, I for Aikin's pc-y. It neant for 1 culd cavil with the author for the him a new integration of Music first half of the story. While his and meaning In depicting the portrait is generally true, he allows low of the cruao.us, he had it to remain too fluid for the pur- adequate opportunity to indulg;e pose of this filion. The contrast his sense for i nd stiil make between the old and the young at some rten ' at e ie:lgorical- the beginning is a universal situa- ly, o l0 d mia g. The a- tion - ard so Schnitzler deals with warding c Puer Prize to 'it. Casanova is merely an old man him last year vv srecognition of with regrets for his past youth: he major (pn is rot the Casanova of the Memoirs In his atest volume, there is a or the final pages of this novel-the long =oc. yet impenetrable, true Casanova. several stri: love-lyri s, and a Schnitzler's style, as usual, is long poem, C;u? ngi Mb-d, bril- quite lucid; nor does he overstress liantly recording a psychanalytic the situation for purpose of analy- adventure: t'_ et plunging into sis. We are thankful for this. But the river of hi''i, there to find the thought enters our minds, how despite : c of imagey and an much is he dependent on our ante- ast'nl:LU± telct for becoming cedent knowledge of the Chevalier many persons, "the rind of peace." de Seingalt; for the rest of the In this poem, Aiken has reconciled characters, while adequate, are nei- music and a degree of affirmation ther very true nor real. with somewhat unusual success. L. K. w Cif - - - - -- The Special 1-2 off of Will last only a FEW DAYS longer It has accomplished what it was meant to do. 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P o n e 7 48 I. __ a - - ~nt u~~-Srsntnr III OLDMAN ) 11r V . . The Ann Arbor Savings Bank Extends a cordial invitation to the openmng of the Remodeled University Avenue Branch Wednesday, November 5th' 11 iracleanD r'den a breath of c riW 4 19 Fill r%1 7 - I -, II--141 III III