Professor Rudmose-Brown, who directs the study of Romance Languages in
Trinity College, Dublin, very naturally writes an introduction to Louis Le Cardonnel, by Phyllis Aykroyd (Dent, 8s.), which issues from his school. Miss Aykroyd earned her doctor's degree in Dublin with a thesis, here expanded, not only on a French subject but written in French. The best tribute to her success is that in reading her study of Le Car- donnel one forgets that she is adventuring in a foreign tongue. Otherwise, the book smells a little too much of the doctorate ; the treatment of her subject is too anatomically arranged and she does not convey—if she feels it—a contagious delight in Le Cardonnel's work. He is that rare thing, a French poet who began in a Bohemian coterie, and ended up as a priest.
He was at times even curate in a parish, but for the most part has lived in orders but free from clerical duty : and he still lives in Valence, his native town of Provence—a link with Verlaine, whom he knew and to some degree imitated, and with Mallarme. Miss Aykroyd quotes him rather to establish critical points than to convey the quality of his poetry. His characteristic manner seems to be Parnassian and academic : but here are a few lines about autumn leaves which suggest by their sound even more amazingly than by their images a gust of November wind :-
" Ah ! les voici, par les alleas
Roulees Lea feuilles, les feuilles, les mile feuilles,
Lea rouilles, lea rouilles, les mille rouilles Par les allees
Roulees, Puis envol63s Vera les fenetres desolees."
Previous page
