U
PAGE EIGHT THE MICHIGAN DAILY
SUNDAY, JAN. 24, 1931
IN
THE
WORLD
OF
BOOKS
SCHOLL
Elizabethan Quali
Give Poignancy
T~ \W,+.,,
ties
HO VwriIin9
THE ROSE JAR, a collection of
poems by John William Schol, as-
sociate professor of German in the
University. Ann Arior, i936.
By MARY A. GIES
"I do not seek for something new,
aware
How earth and sky and ocean too
despair
Of novelty."
Here are the ancient, tranquil
streams of constant love, regret at the
decay of beauty, and platonic worship
of an ethereal ideal. No "mystic
griefs, no monstrous unsung woes"
pour their passionate torren t
through this verse; here is peace ani
serenity, a country wedding, and a
father laying his Bible deep under the
pillow of his new-born child to "keep
hell's bow unstrung." These are the
scenes the poet knows, the scenes for
him imbued with the peace of the
old front parlor which was reserved
for the minister of a Sunday, or the
calls of daughter's "young man;" and
there's the mischief of
..another game remembered
still,
That filled the recesses - some-
times shocked the town."
The collection takes its name from
the group of occasional lyrics - the
songs of the lute player admonished
by the poet to,-
"Sing me of love! Let devil and
beast repose,
You with the lute there."
He sings of meadow flowers, of
eglantine, the lover's vine, sometimes
he is startled in the noonday stillness
by the great god Pan, or he medi-
tates on Ronsard's epigram, "Time
stays. We pass." In his ronantic
tributes to "Giulia," the poet pauses
once to recollect with a twinkle, how
his first amour dissolved in the acid
vision of the prospective mother-in-
law.
He has seen the plump berry
pricked by the wasp, and the squirrel
"nibbling maple seeds or cutting
branches." But even more than the
occasional songs, "The Old House" is
etched with the clarity of things seen,
and colored with the light and shade
of things really felt. The poet knew
such old crumbling farmhouses, or he
could not describe uncurtained win-
dows that blink and stare; he knew
some such family with a son off to
war, and a daughter God knows
where,- and saw the last act with
the ribald auctioneer jollying the
crowd into putting up thirty cents
for, the swinging chair in old-gold
plush.
We never lose the sense that we
have somehow stepped back out of
the experiments of the twentieth
century in meter and form, and have
come upon a belated Elizabethan.
Here are sonnets in a Platonic mood
of distant adoration, and not so dif-
ferent in conceit or sentiment from
those of the Renaissance sonnet
cycles.
"And then I'll seek some goldsmith
in their streets-
Some flenvenuto, or some Ren
skilled-
And have a casket made. When
it is filled
With all these sonnets writ on
vellum sheets,
And all these pictures with their,
fine conceits,
I'll write in bold black-letter,
eagle-quilled:
"Ignotus ad Ignotan." ** Love
has willed,
And Love's executor his wil im-
pletes:
Professor Scholl's verse has a qual-
ity of ease and facility that delights
the ear, and a direct and happy imag-
ery that spreads out visionary rain-
bows. It is primarily this lack of self-
consciousness that sets it apart from
the verse of our day,- that reminds
us of an Elizabethan whose descrip-
tion of his own verse is more fitting
for. Mr. Scholl's than anything we
could say,-
"The chaste and pure devotion of
my youth, .
Or glorie of my Aprill-singing
yeeres,
Unfaned love, in naked simple
truth."
BARRETT PORTRAIT HERE
The oil-portrait of the late Dr. A.
M. Barrett, former director of theI
State Psycopathic Hospital here, pre-
sented to the University this fall, isI
now on exhibition in Alumni Mem-
orial Hall. The picture was executed
Parker Piquant As Always In
PoemsOf Humorous Frustration
NOT S DEEP AS A WELL, a collec- and less stereotyped, until in the lat-
tion of poems by Dorothy Parker, ter part of the book, her "character-
The Viking Press, New York. $2.50. istic epigrammic colloquialism, witty
summary or vehemently brilliant
An insight into human nature, a ending" to quote Mr. Benet again,
tender heart and a pungent and sa--'come forth and assert themselves.
t ea Judging from the early selections in
tirical wit-all these combine to Enough Rope, it seems evident thatj
make Miss Parker's style one of the I the work of A. E. Houseman, along1
most mimicked and popular in mod- with some of the earlier poems ofI
ern verse. This volume, containing Edna St. Vincent Milldy, had a large
all of her poems except a few which degree of influence on Miss Parker.
she did not wish to retain among her With a combination of all her
collected verse shows all of these poems in one offering,- one cannot
characteristics, help noticing Miss Parker's fondness
Beginning with selections from for the lovelorn, jilted lady and the
Enough Rope, her first bock of poems, naughtyende lilting samnathyoqu
published in 1927, Miss Parker con- these two are among the charac-
tinueswconclud ethGus lection teristic touches which make this vol-
Death and Taxes and several poems ume thoroughly delightful for any
never before printed in book form. Dorothy Parker addict.
Miss Parker's style is difficult to an- Readers will be glad to learn that
alyze.ssn maysot callsid cynical such much-q u o t e d favorites as
for"Words of Comfort to be Scratched
fon aseetandtenders ndifon a Mirror," "Ninon De Lenclos on1
one uses the term "humorous," some- Her Last Birthday," "Chant For Dark
one is liable to cite an example of Hours," "The Flaw In Paganism,"
a poem with an underlying strain of "Sweet Violets" and the like have
sadness. With many such opposites been included. And of course the
appearing throughout the entire vol- much-quoted "News Item," namely
ume, the only way to sum up the 202 "Men seldom make passes
pages is to say that it is a typical At girls who wear glasses"
Dorothy Parker mixture and in typ- as well as "Fighting Words" with'its
Dorothy Parker ixtyre.andn famed couplet against literary crit-
ical Dorothy Parker style. icism,
As William Rose Benet so adroit- "But say my verses do not scan
ly puts it in The Saturday Review And I get me another man."
of Literature, "Tenderness, bravado are among the more prominent poems
and the arrogantly colloquial are in- in the volume.
imitably made use of as well as Dor- Anyone with any degree of fond-
othy Parker's own version of the ness for Parker verse will welcome
Voice of Experience." this volume as a combination of typ-
As one peruses the book, Miss Par- ical unpredictable poems in Miss
ker's presentation becomes clearer Parker's own inimitable manner.
Can Art Be AWeapon And Still
Live Up To Aesthetic Pedigree
WILDE
New Biography Fails
Clear Up Muddle
Of His Life
To
I ASPECTS OF WILDE, by Vincent
O'Sullivan; (Holt).
If ever we should approach the
unbearable majesty of George Ber-
nard Shaw, we shall chide him for
what he has said of Vincent O'Sul-
livan's latest book, called "Aspects of
Wilde." He called it the first "sane
and credible description" of Wilde,
and said it was necessary to clean up
the "superfluous mud" that has been
poured over that exquisite poet.
This seems to us pish-tush of the
first grade. In the first place, we
have read a dozen better descrip-
tions of Oscar Wilde, some of them
written years ago. This goes for the
material included in Mr. O'Sullivan's
book as well as for the bad articula-
tion of the book itself.
In the second place, it does not
MEERSCH
French-Fleming Relates
Story Of Life In
War Zone
INVASION, by Maxence van der
Meersch. Viking Press, New York.
706 pages. By Harriet Madison.
By HARRIET MADISON
Van de ,Meersch is French, but ob-
viously he has Flemish blood in him.
He was born in the north of France,
hard by the Belgian border, and "In-
vasion" is set there, in the midst of
clear up the mud. As a matter of about the premises in order to catch
fact it only muddles up a few clear a glimpse of Longfellow. Which is a
places. Mr. O'Sullivan seems an- bay and not a black horse.
xious to impress his readers with his Out of all this welter of remarkably
broad acquaintance among literary arranged anecdote no clear picture of
men of the Wilde and post-Wilde anyone emerges. Wilde remains
period. This is his right but it need Wilde-a brittle and brilliant talent
not involve retelling familiar inci- shattering under the pressure of pub-
dents badly. And there are indica- lie opinion. It does no good to insist
tions that Mr. O'Sullivan's memory is that public opinion was wrong; ob-
either faulty or his research spotty.
As one example, he has Queen Vic- viously Wilde could not help his sex-'
toria insulting Longfellow by declar- ual proclivities. It was a matter for
ing somewhat superciliously to the sympathy. But when has the public
poet that the servants in the palace been sympathetic to a victim of its
all read him. prejudices?
Perhaps we are letting our memory
do an O'Sullivan with us-but some- STATIONERY
where we read, quite a while ago,yd s 0S E
that what Victoria actually did was, 100 SHEETS
THIRD HOPWOOD WINNER
TO BE PUBLISHED
"Straw In The Wind," Ruth Dob-
son's $1,500 prize-winning novel in
last year's major Hopwood contest,
will be published Tuesday.
This is the third Hopwood novel
to be published, previous ones being
Mildred Walker's "Fireweed" and Hu-
bert Skidmores "I Will Lift Up Mine
Eyes," which appeared last spring.
"Straw In The Wind," which deals
with the story of a family in rural
Indiana of the picturesque Amish
sect, will be reveiwed in next Sunday's
Daily by Prcf. Karl Litzenberg
TYPEWRITING
MIMEOGRAPHING
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0. D. MORRI LL
314 South State Street
to express surprise and pleasure, af-I
ter the poet had left, to find that the 1
palace attaches and such like had!
hidden themselves in various nooks
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Printed with your name and address
THE CRAFT PRESS
305 Maynard Street Phone 8805
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JUST RECEIVED -
The AVERY HOPWOO PRIZE BOOK 1936
"STRAW IN TIHE WIND"
By RUTH LININGER DOBSON
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I t ' s a T o u g -h t' hNut: :..:":"
To Crack..
The problem of deciding where to take your negatives for
the best results.
About once a year the old subject
of Is Art a Weapon and if not, why
not, comes up and several serious
literary critics get pretty much dis-
turbed about the whole thing.'
Edmund Wilson, in the current is-
sue of the New Republic is one of
the most disturbed, and taking the
viewpoint so long and valiantly de-
fended by Mr. Krutch, he says,
".When you relax the esthetic and
ethical standards you abandon the
discipline itself of your craft." And
communism, apparently, with its at-
tendant evils of ignorance and Sta-
lin censorship is the primary cause
today for the degeneration.
Communism, according to Mr. Wil-
son, is not the originator of the
marked political bias which he says
has long been manifest in Russian
literature, but is merely serving to
irritate an oldhcancer dating from
the days of the Tsars, the stifling
of freedom of thought.
Perhaps Mr. Wilson is looking at
he situation a bit too dogmatically
and attributing to American left-
wing writers a closer alliance with
Russia and Russian principles than
actually exists. The development of
what Mr. Wilson terms a "war psy-
chology" he believesrhampers the ef-
forts of the radical section of our
school of literary criticism. An art
which will spring tooth and nail into
ihe political arena ceases to be art,
he avers.
But there are two sides to every
question, especially among profes-
sional critics, and Malcolm Cowley,
in an article which follows close
upon the heels of Mr. Wilson's plaint,
picks out several points for conten-
tion. Especially does he object to
Mr. Wilson's use of the term "Stalin-
ist" in describing the literary and
critical left; pointing out that it is
ambiguous in the broad sense of any-
one willing to cooperate with the
Third International and manifestly
unfair in the narow sense of a blind
follower and worshipper of Stalin.
a country he has known since baby-
The word "Stalinist" seems to sug- hood. This is not the reason the
gest, says Mr. Cowley, that anyone setting is so sharply drawn in the
professing sympathy with the Com- reader's mind-but it must have
munist movement must support un- helped the writer.
reservedly every policy of the gcv-
ernment of Moscow and be ready to The book is a study of the French
defend it on all occasions. people under the heel of the German
Mr. Cowley also seems justified in invader. It is curiously fair; not
attacking another phase of the Wil- much French writing about the war
son essay-the fact that Wilson pro- has this quality so highly developed.
tests against the invasion of Rus- The Germans are the enemy, to most
sian politics into the American lit- of the people in the book, but they
erary scene in an article filled with are painted with the same care and
the same Russian politics, and filled the same honesty as the French, and
in a manner which seems certain to are never made into mad dogs run-
provoke more trouble than it will ainvrma.do r
settle-a quality which Mr. Cowley The action is chiefly centered up-
desci'ibes as "factionalism to end Teato scifycnee p
factionalism," and comparestrather on a group of small villages, some
adroitly with "another Wilson's war of them hardly more than farms, and
to end war." upon a few cities small enough for
So the debate goes on. The em- the author to present them entire.
battled left wing continues in its tra- There are (probably) too many char-
ditional spirit of combat, and when acters, or at any rate he probably
it tires of the old battle-fields it finds has drawn some of the minor char-
a new setting on the question of acters too carefully; the first third
choice of weapons. Trotzkyite and of the book is made slightly obscure
Stalinist, Wilsonian and Cowleyite- by this. But on the other hand it
encore plus de tonnerre! Is Art A is something to know so many people
Weapon? We still aren't sure. so well. The sly and evil Lacombe,
-J.G. the good Abbe, the put-upon Judith,
-Albrecht the German who slipped
WHO WILL PLAY SCARLETT? so easily into French farm life, these
The most sensational casting cam- and dozens more are tangible, under-
paign ever waged for a motion pic- standable humans.
ture-thus Selznick International de- The psychological and ethical im-
scribes the advance excitement over plications to be drawn from a study
the filming of Margaret Mitchell's of people suddenly forced to accom-
novel, "Gone with the Wind." modate themselves to a foreign mas-
Over 75,000 letters have been re- ter are so many as to be almost stag-
ceived by the Selznick Studio from gering. It is possible that M. Van
all parts of the country, suggesting der Meersch has made a few of them
actors for the roles of Scarlett O'- too caplicit, although that is a mat-
Hara, Rhett Butler, and other char- ter of taste. As a novel there is no
acters in the story. The following questioning "Invasion's" power and
are some of the names proposed: most of those who read all its 706
Miriam Hopkins, Margaret Sullivan, pages will come out of them with a
Tallulah Bankhead, Jean Harlow, new idea of France-perhaps of Ger-
Janet Gaynor, Bette Davis, Ginger many as well.
Rogers, Katharine Hepburn, Wendy The idea would have come more
Barrie, Norma Shearer, Ann Sothern, easily out of a more restricted can-
Constance Bennett, Claudette Col- vas, it seems to us.
'ert, Ronald Colman, Clark Gable,
William Powel, Fredric March, Alan
Marshall, Edward Arnold, Melvyn A bookseller operatxvgi both
Douglas, Leslie Howard, SpencerCg and Knoxville, Tenn.,
Tracy, Warner Baxter, Gary Cooper. !recently wired the Atlanta office of
The Macmillan Company :
Not only are fans, critics, and radio Twenty-fiveChattanooga 75 Knox-
ville must be today otherwise wire
erences; the stars themselves aewr
openly seeking the coveted roles, says The order was promptly filled for
Selznick, but no casting has yet been the Macmillan sales force long since
done. found it unnecessary to mention
Sidney Howard is preparing the Gone With The Wind by name-
screen version of the novel and 1,120,000 copies of Margaret Mitch-
George Cukor will direct it. el's novel have been printed to date.
Like all problems it has an answer.
want genuine satisfaction to-
Take those shots, if you
Francisco & Boyce
Since 1905
723 North University
108 East Liberty
HEADQUARTERS FOR "YEOMAN OF THE GUARD" PHOTOGRAPHS
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Attention Fine Home Owners! Convioisseurs!
AUCTION AEOUF
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In a drastic money-raising event, Mr. V. Dedeian of New York and Chicago offers his $100,000
collection of high-grade Oriental Rugs at public Auction to the highest bidder. This is undoubt-
edly one of the largest and finest collections ever shown in Ann Arbor, consisting of -antique,
semi-antique and modern rugs and carpets, in all sizes, colors, types. Plan to be here- in the
New Year's Eve apparently was too
much for either the Times or the
Herald-Tribune. Those of you who
were able to read the newspapers on
New Year's Day may have noticed
what we did, but since numerous peo-
ple habitually do not feel up to such
activity on January 1, perhaps we
had better tell you what we saw.
Both the Times and the Herald-Trib-
une ran identical Associated Press
photos, showing a scene from the
Spanish Civil War. Eight soldiers of
one side were closing in on one rep-
resentative of the other side. The
lone warrior was advertised, in the
caption under both pictures, as being
the last defender of a village in
northern Spain. So far so good. The
puzzle arises when the captions are
examined more closely. According to
the Herald-Tribune, the eight are
loyalist troops "closing in on last
rebel." According to the Times, the
"last defender" is a loyalist, "gradu-
ally being surrounded by the rebels."
afternoon or evening.
JAMES W. FINNELL, Auctioneer.
ON EXHIBITION MONDAY!
Customers are invited to come in to-
morrow and make personal selections
to be put up for auction to the highest
bidder.
THIRD FLOOR - PHONE .4161
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HIGHEST PRICES PAID in CASH or TRADE for
USED
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