New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1922-09-24
The Dead Giye-Away
By Burton Rascoc

POINT 10 cataAS5xsJe %VtHs W hiU
items IA my creeks. For | think 1t es-
AentiaS 10 orient the minds OF ones
feassefs as early az possible in ones
tastes and prejndices that they may
Know INST how far they wish to 90 with
him, how much they may take for truth
md valid Judgment and how much for
nsr&onAl shortcomings. deficiencies and
sanSs ace A critic must be needed by
hfs chtele or he is nothing; and by
sexLsSi" / mean that though it is per-
fa4ttsE 10 disagree with him, his read
sss sheuid not regard what he has to
say 8 wholly unimportant. II may be
miro rtant, mind you, but the critic
a1d readers should take no knowl-
edge that fact. / shall not, at any
rate propose then to lay few Of
NY r ds on the table. This is, know,
d. :erous thing to do; and if you
will mink back over the critics and
reYiew ers of your acquaintance you
Will recall few who have anticipated my
example. One Of the first rules most
ccitics seem to make for themselves Isl:
eysr give yourself away. But ON
MS, ence and infallihility are not
ara az the attributes I claim for my
self So attend:
Nr. Rupert Hughes, during the brill
IL
ne conducted in my behalf, told his
rns audiences that | reserve my
nsehe-t praise for men who are almost
,lfiks. Vn and that Ienegiect them when
II gain large following. He meant
- charge to be deadly, for he thinks
n to do this is re2rehensibie. do
NO. rsfute the charge. agree that
y rat ne says is, ia measure, true; and
: "a rather proud Of it. 1t is the
pleasure if not the function Of critic
10 help create values, or, at all events,
TO direct attention to little known men
il he thinks the work of these men
merits praise and larger audience.
Once they are established he neglects
them only in so far as he is occupied
with making new discoveries.
find no urge to join the present
torchlght procession for Sherwood
Anderson--though / am glad to see 1t,
for think he Is one of our indubitable
geniuses because ] had one of my
own with many jeers from the same
people who are now in the processlon)
for Mr.. Anderson several years ago.
I derive certain amusement from the
fact that at least FIVE American authors
whom / praised four years ago when
they were betes noircs to reviewers are
utmost confidence that time will jus
tify my estimate OF the following
prose artists and poets from whom re
viewers and readers shy: Maxwell
Bodenheim, Ben Hecht, Frank More
Colby, Kenneth Burke, Amory Hare,
Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens,
Henry Blake Fuller and Alfred Kreym-
borg.
l am interested in every attempt to
bring variety and fiexibility into our
media of expression, but l am not (and
precisely on that account) an enemy
of the classics. | read by preference,
even to modern literature, Homer
Aristophanes and Aeschyius, the Greek
comic and epigrammatic poets; Lucian,
Herondas, Catuilus, Propertius, Petro-
MUS, Congreve, Marlowe, Shakespeare,
Thomas Decker, Sir Thomas Browne,
Robert Burton, Dryden, Swift Hazlitt,
Keats, Browning, Patmore, Beddoes
and Francis Thompson, and among the
French; Renap, Moliere, Racine, La
Kochefoucauld, La Bruyere. Vauvenar-
gues, Villon, Verlaine, Rimbaud, La
forgue, Corbiere, France and Remy de
Gourmont. Among the classics and
classical writers / care nothing fer
are: Virgil Except the Ecologues,
which / haven't read in ten years.,
Euripides, Horace, Beowulf, Froissart,
DR.. Johnson, paradise Lost" ana
Paradise Regained," the "Henriad."
Orlando Furioso," THE Luciad," Ad-
olson and Steele, Alexander Pope,
Macaulay, Southey, Byron, Words
worth and Lowell. think that both
Tennyson and Longfellow are as much
moderated now as they were over-
rated in their lifetime, and that they
were both extraordinary technicians
with thin but authentic lyrical gift.
The books i fe-read (not in toto, but
IN part) with the greatest frequenc,
are; The Anatomy of Melancholy,'
The Crock of Gold" "Jurgen," Lucian'.
Dialogues of the Gods" THE Deipnos.
ophists," by Athen@us; Frances LIE
Jarain d'Epicure." "Troius and Ores.
sida," "Huckleberry Finn" The Golden
ASS" George Moore's "Avowals," Whib-
ley's "A Book of Frankness," Dekker's
Cults Hornbrook," Swift's ESSAYS
Aazlitt's fable-Talk," Heine's prose
work, Helne's poems, Dryden's poems
Kenny de Gourmonts "Cnemin de We
lours' and LA Culture des Idees.
human All-Too- Human" "The Satyri
con OF Petronius, Plutarchs Lives
and Samuel Buffers translation of the
Odyssey"
My tavorite poets are: Sappho. Anac
reon, Catullus, Shakespeare, Marlowe
herrick, Dryden. Bonnie, Patpore, Shell
Ley, beddoes, Browning, Thompson
Dowson, Yeats, Villon, Verlaine. Rim
baud, Corbiere, Hugo, Heine, Goethe
Z. 6. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, Maxwell
sBodenheim, Conrad Aiken, Edna ST
Vincent Millay, Elinor Wylie. Emil
Dickinson, Adelaide Crapsey, Amor
Hare Carl Sandburg, James stephens
Edwin Arlington Robinson and H. D.
have never seen formulated the
DRY OF aesthetics which could no
shoot full of holes In five minutes. TIL,
ce-Spingarn theory / consider tn,
most fallacious of them all. Conside
the fundamental tenet of the theor,
as applied to criticism: THE poets in
tention must be judged at the momen
OF the creative act, as mirrored in tn
work of art itself, and not by the yaeu
ambitions which he imagines to be hi
real intentions before and after Tn
creative act is achieved" II eithe
Mr.. Spingarn or Signor Croce will tel
We what was 1.-The intention at the mo
ment OF the creative act" of Shake
speare when be wrote that greatest o
all poems, "The Phoenix and the Tor
toise." / undertake to give reading
from Signor Croee's huge tome on "Aes
thetics" at the Coffee House Club t
sell copy of Creative Criticism" t
harry Lauder.
The men who interest me mos
among the younger group are: Ga
critics) Kenneth Burke, Edmund viii
son jr., Hansell Baugh and Ben Ra,
Redmsn; Gas fictionists) Ben Hecht
Robert Nathan, John Dos Passes
Thomas Beer, Harvey Ferguson, Her
bert Seligmann, Eliot III. Paul, Scot
Fitzgerald. T. E. Cummings. Rutl
Suckow, Lilith Benda, Thxra Winslow