- A SURVEY OF MODERNIST POETRY. By Laura Riding and
Robert Graves. (Heinemann. 7s. 6d. net.)— It is not easy to see what Mr. Robert Graves and Miss Laura Riding hoped for in writing this book. In part, it is an. attempt to gain the sympathy of the "plain man" for some sophisticated, American-English fashions in poetry : in part it is an attempt to explain why no "plain man can expect to sympathize with them—they are addressed "to the univer- pity," rather than to him. And their exposition itself seems to deny the need of any such attempts : they tell us that the aim of such writers is not in the least degree communication ; but that they are much more engaged in commenting to them: selves mockingly on the fact that they are writing poetry. Perhaps the best chapter of the book is the one which describea the attitude of mind implicit in " modernism " ; the pretence that one belongs to a lost generation," in which all standarda and all tradition have vanished, and the poet is left as a dead soul laughing a little sourly at himself for being so dead. It. Would be simple to see in such a posture an infinitely regressive involution of fright and self-pity but the authors would like us to observe the complexity of the involution, sympathize with it, and even admire it. They will find converts among the converted ; or perhaps "not even that," for then self-. mockery would be at an end.
Previous page
