Poetry and Party
Life and the Poet. By Stephen Spender. (Seeker and Warburg. 2s.)
THIS book is a sort of apologia in which Mr. Spender tries to explain to his political friends how they have misunderstood him in the past and why they should now follow his example and become less narrow and extreme in their opinions. It is not a book for the educated and that is why it may be peculiarly appropriate to the present day. The author certainly thinks so, for on his first page he writes: "Left Wing reader, if I provided you once more with the old fare rehashed . . . I do not doubt that your loyal eyes would skim my pages, finding beneath my ignorance and patent impracticality at least the evidence of a wholehearted zeal for the ends which we agree about," and, already, on page i r, he cries : " Have patience with me, Left Wing reader."
Gilbert wrote ironically in the 'eighties: Every little boy and girl Who's born into this world alive Is either a little Liberal Or else a little Conservative.
Are the young men and women of today even more standardised and less open-minded? The writer of this book seems to think so, for whereas Gilbert was satirising an audience of both Liberals and Conservatives, thus making them, perhaps, a little more aware of the superficiality of their political division, Mr. Spender addresses, not his fellow men and women, but some mere puppet of the age, whom he apostrophises as "Left Wing reader."
This must be the first time in the long history of literature that a well-meaning writer has explained Life and Poetry to a particular sort of mindless puppet. Doctors undoubtedly prescribe a special sort of food to people who are not in good bodily health, and Mr. Spender must believe the persons he addresses as "Left Wing readers " to be in a very poor intellectual state, since the mental diet he offers them is such a thin gruel of sentiment and self-revelation that it suggests they are all beyond mortal succour—or, is it only their doctor who is ill?
Nevertheless, he shows such a sign of grace in his heartrending confession of his late discovery that " Life " and " Poetry " are not to be compassed in political terms—either of the " Left " or " Right " —that one hopes to find some indication in this book of a growing awareness in him of the superficiality of his thinking. Alas, there is none. Such a jumble of well-meaning, hasty, slap-dash improvised smatterings of thought on the most difficult subjects as are here jumbled together was never before presented to the public by a man who has won a reputation as a poet and was seriously ambitious to be one. It is really appalling to think that Mr. Spender is addressing a majority of the young men and women of this country whom, somewhat inappropriately, we call the intelligentsia. If he has anything to teach them, what are we to think of them? Simply
this, that a generation of such confused, half-baked minds has never before proceeded from the schools and universities of any country. It is no consolation whatever to learn that though they are so mentally undeveloped their hearts bleed for the sufferings of them- selves and their fellow-men. If " intellectuals " have no intellect what is to become of the human race? But perhaps Mr. Spender is mistaken in thinking of himself and his friends as the intelligentsia? Perhaps the real thinking of our day is being done elsewhere—by land-girls or sailors? After reading this pathetically well-meaning book one can only hope so. As for Mr. Spender, he is certainly capable of something better, if he will take the necessary pains.
W. J. TURNER.
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