Preface to European Letters
Aspects of Modernism. By Janko Lavrin. (Nott. Bs.) THE purposive " ideas " of an artist are the most perishable part of his art. All overt intention, from straight propaganda to the construction of a metaphysical bide-out serves as a kind of scaffolding 'a hick begins to dismantle a generation later. Beneath the deliberate aim—let it be Feminism, Nationalisni•Or merely a long nose at some ObnOxious nobody— there is crystallised another'group of ideas : a specific mode of address, a metabolism of experience, behind the artist's hand and guiding it. It is for this rich deposit that a good critic takes his coat off and starts digging.
The academic critic, however, is not found rooting about in the subsoil. He twines ivy-wise around the oak, and shares
with auctioneers the distinction of being a good parasite. His method is to abstract all detachable " ideas," string them up in a precis and grade the result as " masterpiece," " excellent," or merely " good period example."
The auctioneer, to paraphrase Wilde, admires all periods. The good critic is preoccupied Only with what is specific—or
" actual "—to the contemporary occasion. Man continually revalues, continually selects that one-Tradition (from all pos- sible traditions) which will most enrich him. The rest he discards.
Aspects of Modernism suggests by its title a transvaluation, into the vocabulary of our inimediately besetting problems, of
certain interrelated facets of recent work, all having a bearing
on the " actual " present. But what Mr. Litwin produces is so many academic pastiches of this man and that, little different
from the kind of blurb that we should expect to find on the wrappers of their first collected editions. Where the subject Of an essay mentions God, Mr. Lavrin treats God as axiomatic ;
Where God' is not mentioned, nothing is added by the ,critic to suggest the bare possibility of the idea of God. There is no liaison between one essay and the next. The terms of criticism are always imposed by the author who is being discussed ; Mr. Lavrin shows us no wider perspective of ideas which he can apply critically. All he can do is to extend what is already there ; and that must result in the merest " catalogue " survey.
Even more irritating is his trick of considering an author's work as no more than the case-book of an individual psyche.
It is the height of futility to resolve Lawrence into a mother- complex plus a castration-complex, set in a Puritan environ-
ment, and hope to gain any illumination thereby. What is there in that to distinguish Lawrence from my aunt Jane ? Why bother with either of them, on those terms ? Perhaps Mr. Lavrin Scented danger, for he skirts rOund 'Lawrence and sheers. off abruptly without attempting a criticism.
As a guide-book, or route map, to European letters thebOOk has some virtues. The essays on Rilke and Essenin are service- able introductions of theiikind, and the essay on Cankar has a scarcity value. Rozanov, Rimbaud and lL'iranslello are no more than lost opportunities, unfortunatelY ; while I cannot foresee any interest at this time of day in D'Anmmzio and Knuf Ilamsun. Some of the biographical and bibliographical information is useful, though one inaccuracy should be noted ; an early transh;tibn- of Blok's The-.Twelve was :not •a' "prose translation by C. -B. Beechofer hut a verse:. translation by C. E: Bechhofer.' Although the Substance of the bOok can only be described. as disappointing; .a-word of praise is due to the publishes; fOrTroducing a full-size work so cheaply.
DESMOND HAWKINS.
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