The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century

d improvement-sword blades-her gift in narrative-polyphonic prose-Anna Hempstead Branch-her dramatic power-domestic poems-tranquil meditation-an orthodox poet-Edgar Lee Masters-his education-Greek ins

estion of beauty-three characteristics-a gust of life-Still Life-old maids-burlesques and pa

Amy Lowell and Anna Branch. And indeed I can think of no woman in the history of our poetry

randfather, Abbott Lawrence, was also Minister to England. Her eldest brother, nineteen years older than she, was the late Percival Lowell, a scientific astronomer with a poetic imagination; he was one of the most interesting and charming personalities I ever knew. His constant encou

his so little. I am a collector of Keats manuscripts, and have spent much time in studying his erasures and corrections, and they taught me most of what I know about poetry; they, and a very interesting book which is seldom read today-Leigh Hunt's Imagination and Fancy. I discovered the existence of Keats through that v

years in faithful study, effort, and practice without publishing a word. In the Atlantic Monthly for August, 1910, appeared her first printed verse; and in 1912 came her first volume of poems, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass, the title being a quotation from the forbidd

French Poets, in 1915, and Tendencies in Modern American Poetry, in 1917, of which the former is the more valuable and important. In five years, then, from 1912 to 1917, she p

r of imagism, or of polyphonic prose; she delights in trying her hand at all three of these styles of composition, for she is an experimentalist; but much of he

the clothes can no more affect the identity of the article than the attitude of Penelope's suitors toward the rags of Ulysses affected his kingship. Let the journalistic wits have their fling; it is even permissible to enjoy their wit, when it is as cleverly expressed as in the following epigram, which I believe appeared in the Chicago Tribune: "Free verse is a form of theme unworthy of pure prose embodime

rather emphatically that although he was said to be both the poet of democracy and the poet of the future, he was in fact admired mostly by literary aristocrats; and that the poets who came after him were careful to write in strict composition. In the 'nineties I looked around me and behold, Kipling, Phillips, Watson and Riley were in their work at the opposite ex

nd good sense, whether one likes imagist poetry or hates it. According to this group of poets, which is not a coterie or a mutual admiration society, but a few individuals engaged in amicable rivalry at the same game, the principles of imagism are mainly six, of which only the second is a departure fr

e, confidential; because it narrates a tragic experience that is all too common in actual life; because its tragedy is enhanced by dramatic contrasts, the splendour of the bright, breezy, sunlit garden contrasting with the road of ashen spiritual desolation the soul must take; the splendour of the gorgeous stiff brocade and the futility of the blank, soft, imprisoned flesh; the obstreperous heart, beating in joyous harmony with the rhyt

n would set him free, and make it possible for him immediately to write something better. This seems to have been the case with Amy Lowell. Her first book, A Dome of Many-Coloured Glass, does not compare for a moment with

! Boyish, sy

American literature. An admirable preface reveals three characteristics-reverence for the art of poetry, determination not to be confined to any scho

ues where I s

lively octosyllabics made famous by Christmas Eve. The sharpness of he

, April, t

h blew the

d the rive

d hid among

wharf. A w

the granite br

slightest ti

hivered in

ols of poetry-edged weapons, curiously and elegantly wrought together with se

either dream

or you can dr

the effect is one of disturbance rather than repose, and they think it cannot be poetry. Yet in this piece of symbolism, which itself is full of beauty, Amy Lowell seems to say that both reveillé and taps are wrought by music-one is as much the legitimate office of poetry as the other. Bu

first real illustration of her powers is seen in The Great Adventure of Max Brueck, in Poppy Seed, though why so stirring a poem is thus classified is to me quite mysterious; yet when we compare this "effort" with later poems like Pickthorn Manor and The Cremona Violin we see an advance both in vigour and in technique which is so remarkable that she makes her earlier narrative seem almost immature. A poet is indeed fortunate who can defeat that most form

e instrument is a symbol of the human heart. Those who, in the old days before the Germans began their career of wholesale robber

Theater spark

d people. Gebn

ano. All the f

; the wood-win

ling noises,

ass pierced ever

tympani made

lver shimmeri

unted, and a

zzicato-ed li

s of double b

, while loud ha

ht colours down

elves amid the

, in the gal

up into an

es a thousand

handeliers. A

eriwigs past h

smoke of can

cent of jewelled

fanfare. The thing itself is a combination of a moving picture and a calliope. Written with immense gusto, full of comedy and t

f Maurice Maeterlinck, written a quarter of a century ago. It is unnecessary to enquire whether those dramas are poetry or not; fo

e have poems of patriotism, outdoor lyrics, town eclogues, pictures of still life tragic pastorals in the manner of Susan Glaspell, and one delightful revenant, Nightmare, which takes us back to Dickens, for it is a verse comment on a picture by George

ntemporary literature, one feels that

. The chronic optimist for once was filled with woe. "There is not a single person among the younger writers," said he, "who show

time after he uttered these words; and although he was a true poet and wrote poems that will live for many yea

ion open to college graduates. Since then she has published three volumes of verse, The Heart of the Road, 1901, The Shoes That Danced, 1905, Rose of the Wind, 1910. I fear that her ambition to be a dramat

r is the essential element for the footlights. Shakespeare, Rostand, and Barrie have both, and are naturally therefore great dramatists. Two of the most of Miss Branch's poems are Lazarus Ora Pro Nobis. These are fruitful

u, brother, th

their curiosity satisfied. What do the dead do? Are they happy? Has my baby grown

arus answers in a posi

sire led m

ured abodes of

y I went came

e my eyes on

Cr

zarus? Let us s

brother, th

za

cr

o the last; yet some idea of it: form and colour may be obtained by citation. A little girl was put into a convent with only two ways of passing the time; stitching an

dwelt in th

no mirror

aw my fac

l Ma

eace they ke

ite robe they

te bands ab

know that

l Ma

ill fragranc

than lilie

around-he

spun of fi

her, pray

ere on my f

rn eyes that

beauty, sa

knew that

ntercede

ed up to Go

strong and c

and the gre

ary, pra

fore the sa

kiss the cr

ght his lips

a, Ora Pr

ded simplicity as an eighteenth century room. The Songs for My Mother, celebrating her clothes, her her words, her stories breathe

NCE OF T

that shadowed

oets wrote not

ness of their

o the grass wi

f the Poets w

e of moons, a

sorrow, or i

lence, maybe

ll, as Summer c

bidding unt

of winds and t

Dreamer-and 'tis

stars rise from h

nt his hours am

al-God, Nature, Man-and writes songs with the familiar notation. She has attracted attention not by the strangeness of her ideas, or by the audacity of her method, but simply by the sincerity

may be that each would be ashamed to have written the other's books; even if that were true, there is no reason why an American critic-with proper reservations-should not be proud of both. For if there is one thing certa

spite of his preoccupation with the seamy side of human nature, he is in reality a bookish poet, and most of his work-though not the best part of it-smells of the lamp. Fortunately for him he was brought up on the Bible,

grandfather vainly tried to make his son a farmer, but the boy elected to be a lawyer and carried his point; he in turn was determined to twist his son into a lawyer, whereas Edgar wanted to be a writer. As this latter profession is usually without emolument, he was forced into the law, where the virile energy of his mind rewarded his zestless eff

ss from reading his poems. The primal impulse to write was not frustrated; he has written verse all his life; and in fact has published a considerabl

mph will encourage some good and many bad writers to persevere. Emboldened by the immense success of Spoon River, he produced three more volumes in rapid succession; Songs and Satires in 1916, The Great Valley in the same year, and Toward the Gulf in 1918. It

volume, and the full debt is handsomely paid in a dedicatory preface of Toward the Gulf, which every one interested in Mr. Masters-and who is not?-should read with attention. The poet manfully lets us know that it was Mr. Reedy who, in 1909, made him read the Greek Anthology,

night a

La

witness o

re thee

] would lov

I would nev

swo

witness of our

t our vows were wri

te

hou,

im in the ar

Greek Anthology to a twentieth century village in the Middle West,

ion. The most radical innovator can no more break loose from tradition than a tree can run away from its roots. John Masefield takes us back to Chaucer; Vachel Lindsa

h naturally not so powerful, as that displayed by Browning in The Ring and the Book. It is still a debatable proposition whether or not this is high-class poetry; but it is mixed with brains. Imagine the range of knowledge and power necessary to create two hundred and forty-six distinct characters, with a revealing epitap

show the particular traits that distinguish each man and woman from the others, giving each a right to a name instead of a number. For instinctively we are all alike; it

r phases of life like religious hypocrisy and political trimming are treated with vitriolic scorn. The following sel

KES

ged m

ew toward th

he shot rang

h the splinters

right over, f

he down of him

a plummet in

out, parting

splash of blo

ying close to t

hand, but s

icked and stunne

second, I spi

wide in his

ched, sunk back in

filth, the c

leached under l

stone as he shr

o crawl benea

l limp in

itself; it needs no interpretation; and yet, if we like, the rattler may be taken as a symbol

he sins against art perpetrated by the uninspired, the most flagrant are found here; to a bad poet, for some reason or other, the temptation to write them is irresistible. In many small communities, one has to get up very early in the morning to die before the village laureate

oon River, but in every man born of woman. The result, viewed calmly, is that we have an impressive collection of vices-which, although inspired by a sincerity fundamentally noble-is as far from being a truthful picture of the village as a conventional

Spoon River is subjected to a remorseless autopsy, in which the various vicious elements existing in all men and women are laid bare. But the busine

d sympathetically by a man who was almost an intellectual snob. One of the most exact scholars of his day, one of the most fastidious of mortals, one of the shyest men that ever lived, a born mental aristocrat, his literary genius enabled him to write an immortal masterpiece, not about the Cambridge hierarchy, but about illiterate t

e not men and women, and horses are not superior to humanity. The reason why, in reading the Anthology, we experience the constant pricking of recognition is because we recognize the baser elements in these char

ollection of short poems. When he attempts a longer flight, his limitations appear. It is distinctly unfortuna

he case with Walt Whitman, who, to be sure, was no cynic at all. The short poem Anne Rutledge is one of the few that strictly conform

conversation. And it must be confessed that the monologues spoken by contemporaries or by those Americans who talk from the graveyard of Spoon River, are superior to the attempts at interpreting

d by austere beauty of style. The poem Boyhood Friends, recently published in the Yale Review, and quite properly included by Mr. Braithwaite in his interesting and valuable Anthology for 1917, shows such a command of blank verse that I look for still f

ons, a long list of prose articles in literary criticism, whilst not neglecting his professional work as a designer of jewelry. There is no doubt that this form of art has been a fascinating occupation and an inspiration to poet

n this side of the water thinks of doing." This sentence stimulated my curiosity, for I wondered what particularly distinguishing feature of his work I had failed to see. "For about the last thing that po

erican poets; but instead of legendary beauty, instead of traditional beauty, they wish us to see beauty in modern life. For example, it is interesting to observe how completely public opinion has changed concerning the New York sky-scrapers. I can remember when they were regarded as monstrosities of commercialism, an offence to the eye and a torment t

ody r

ine there is w

ken; what of

and well ordere

ease, what does

apers are beautiful; just as we know that New York harb

his preoccupation with beauty; it Would be almost as true to

an immense love of life, a romantic interpretation of mater

e needs no melancholy solitary pilgrimage in the gloaming to give him a pair of rimes; a country farm or a city slum is quite enough. I like his affectionate salutation to the willow; I like his interpretation of a side street. His greatest tour de force is his poem, Still Life. Of all painted pictures, with the one exception of dead fish, the conventional over

es of overset fruit-baskets and of dead fish with their ugly mouths open; but in "still life"

beheld such f

ice so full of

houted from a

malignant, lus

a triumphant

fierce vehemence and the lusty shout are not in the b

e heroine of his poem is meant for an individual rather than a type. If there is one object on earth that a healthy young man cannot understand, it is an old maid. Who can forget that terrible

or sorrow

r placid

g torch, Love'

r even li

lieve it, Mr

fooling and genuine criticism. He wrote these things for his own amusement, one reason why they amuse us. A roll-call of twenty-seven contemporary poets, where each one comes forward and "speaks his piece," is decidedly worth having. John Masefield "tells the true story of Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son"; William Butle

ts readers. Brightest and best of the sons of the Colyumnists, his classic Muse made the Evening Mail an evening blessing, sending the suburbanites home to their wives "always in good humour"; then, like Jupiter and Venus, he charged from evening star to morning star, and gave many thousands a new zest for the day's work. Skilful indeed was his appropriation of the metho

porary American literature; and the influence of his column toward precision and dignity in the use