Poetry In Our Time
Descent from Parnassus. By Dilys Powell. (Cresset Press. Cs.) FIVE or six years ago it was a familiar complaint that no one any longer read contemporary poetry—and, such being the case, it was of course unlikely that the criticism of contem- porary poetry would be any more popular with the common reader. Since then circumstances have gradually altered : there has been, it is true, no definite ' poetic revival,' but two or three important poets who for some time had received the respectful attention of the few showed that they could also be appreciated by the many, and we have, in addition, witnessed the emergence of three or four young writers who first of all won an audience by consolidating the technical position gained by their immediate predecessors, and then proceeded to estab- lish their own poetry as an important living issue, not merely as an attribute of a detached culture.' Now a critical harvest that is no longer a minority-issue is being reaped from their success : the other day Mr. Cecil Day Lewis, himself probably the most important poet of the younger generation, produced his excellent essay in poetics, A hope for Poetry. Now follows Miss Dilys Powell, whose Descent from Parnassus covers roughly the same ground in rather more detail and is as valuable a discussion of the changes in form and content which have come in English poetry in the last two decades. • Indeed, in one respect it is still more valuable : excellent as was Mr. Day Lewis's essay, its appeal was somewhat restricted by its tone—the familiar one of the preacher to the converted. It is the great merit of Miss Powell's book that it can be read with equal profit by those who start by agreeing with her and by those who do not, although —so persuasively and with such charm does she state her case—it is unlikely that many readers will end the book still in disagreement. It contains five essays—on D. H. Lawrence, on Mr. T. S. Eliot, on Miss Edith Sitwell, on Mr. Siegfried Sassoon, and on the group, now almost prO- verbially identified with the names Auden, Spender, Day Lewis, which she calls the Advance Guard. Her essay on D. H. Larvrenee is an excellent piece of work, one of the best things that have been written about him, and that on Mr. Eliot is also a valuable analysis. Her chapter on Miss Sitwell is a spirited and subtle defence of a certain kind of poetry of escape, and she gives a very fair estimate of Mr. Sassoon. The final section is an admirably poised, and suggestive piece of writing, which fulfils in particular one important function of all good criticism in making the reader turn again, and with a more attentive eye, to the text in question. Each of these essays can be read separately with profit, but the effect of the collection as a whole is more than correspondingly impressive. This is a book which one hopes will enjoy a very large circula-
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