A Poet's Notebook. By Edith Sitwell. (Macmillan. ids. 6d.)
INTO her notebook Miss Sitwell has collected aphorisms on various aspects of poetry and the poets from a selection of authorities, all themselves artists, and she doe; especially good service to Whitman and Traherne by the inclusion of admirable passages chosen from their writings. Some of the extracts are given without comment, to some Miss Sitwell adds an explanatory note or personal comment —as when she quotes Keats' criticism of Wordsworth for his moral didacticism and Wordsworth's comment on "The Hym to Pan" from Endymion as "a pretty piece of Paganism," and adds herself, "A monstrous remark. In any case., Keats' criticism has justice in it, and Wordsworth's had none.—E. S." There are sections on Chaucer, Shakespeare and Herrick which deal largely with the technical analysis of chosen passages ; an interesting section deals with Dunbar, Gower and Skelton and there are chapters on Smart, Hopkins and Wordsworth. For epilogue Miss Sitwell appends two new poems of her own.
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