New-York tribune., 1922-07-16


on 'Afmitiih nNanisT i'"fensri fPoEsriRr. BY Robert
Graves. Alfred A. knopf.
~ ONE day we may have new
@A criticism based on the discovery
1 Of Freud and his school. But 80
far it seems to ME that Freu dian
criticism is more Of nuisance than
anything else. 1t is extremely plau-
sible. this Interpretation Of literary
and other arts in terms Of hidden con-
f1icts and all that, and these two books
make out an especially good case. For
professor Prescott begins his book by
lamenting the fact that the poets have
not told us more about the psychology
OF their own productions, but, he says,
we must make the best use Of what
little they have told US, either through
their poems or in their remarks ahou.
their poems. And just after his book
is published comes the young English
poet, Robert Graves. and does Just
what Professor Prescott has been
desiderating-he lays bare to us the
process of poetic creation Is it has
gone on in his own mind and as he
has tried to catch it by introspection
and his argument dovetails beautifully
into that Of the more laborious and
analytic DR.. Prescott.
Nevertheless, doubt whether be-
tween them they have really laid bare
that which is essentially poetic in the
great complex of thought, emotion and
action which gives US the resultant of
a poem.
Professor Prescott's theory. reared
on an impressive foundation Of foot
notes, is that poetry is the result of
associational thinking as opposed to
logical or scientific thinking, and the
typical form of assocational thinking
he finds in dream and reverie On a
larger than the individual scale he
finds it in myth. But dreams and myth
are. according to Freud, a sort of synl-
bolical thinking that solves problems
for us-problems Of emotional import,
reconciliations between opposing de-
sires. And SO the poet, says DR.. Pres
colt, solves emotional problems for US,
gives us patterns" of possible con-
duct, and has a prophetic function
which is his chief use to society.
MIR. GRAVES arrives at similar
conclusion. He finds that certain
py;fh
not get on we'll together in the mind
There is conflict and the poet unable
to reconcile them logically" INDUCES in
self-hypnotism, and in that state an
emotional reconciliation is effected
This reconciliation, being expressed in
words, may be passed on to others:
Poetry, as the Greeks knew when
they adopted the Drama as g cleans
ing rite of religion, is a form of
psyche -therapy. A we'll chosen
anthology is a complete dispensary of
medicine for the more common mental
disorders, and may be used as much
for prevention as cure if we are to be-
lieve Mr.. Housman's argument in Ter
ence, this is stupid stuff.'-No. LXII.
of his Shropshire Lad"
+ 1t. should not be hard to test the
theories of both these writers by COM
pairing them with our own experiences.
Mr.. Prescott's theory of poetry as as
sociational thinking leads him to pre-
dict that as scientific thinking has
largely displaced associatonal think
ing, the age of great poetry is past.
That of the Bible was the best,
Shakespeare was very good, indeed, but
the outlook to-day is not promising.
And the idea that both writer's hold
that poetry is a self-made medicine
that can be handed around to ones