7 MARCH 1925, Page 18

* * * * Mr. Robert Graves continues his exploration

among poet, and makes more discoveries by his new trick of criticism in Poetic Unreason (Cecil Palmer) ; and as he is here fantastic and imaginative, not so much argumentative as suggestive, he has full play for the grace and lightness of his prose. Briefly, his method is this : in every poem he finds out a coherent, secondary meaning to many of the words used, a train of thought or emotion of which the poets were uncon- scious themselves. The psychological state of a poet pushes its way through, no matter what subject he is writing upon. And so Mr. Graves is able to construct additions to their biography ; and, if there is no means of establishing the truth of his discoveries, still they are lively and absorbing anecdotes in themselves.