11 NOVEMBER 1922, Page 44

THE LITERATURE OF ECSTASY. By Albert Mordell. (Andrew Melrose. 7s.

6d. net.)—" There is only one kind of poetry, the utterance of an ecstatic state." " There is no such thing as dramatic or epic poetry." " Note how ponderous are some of the old epics, the Iliad, the Divine Comedy and

Orlando Furioso." The Aeneid is really a novel in verse::

" Much of Aeschylus's moral and religious philosophy bores and irritates us." " Our English poets who write in blank verse would have done even better to use prose." " If there is a high form of the literature of ecstasy it is surely that in which the ecstasy of humanitarianism is described. It is that which shows a man with a highly developed sense of social justice, who is making sacrifices because he observes the misery of the many due to the privileged few." Such are the naive views of Mr. Albert Mordell, author of The Erotic Motive in Literature.