Evening star., 1925-09-12

The historian of the future who de
sires to trace the deeper currents that
swayed the course Of popular feeling
during the last 20 years will read the
plays performed on the Abbey Theater
stage with perhaps closer attention
than the speeches delivered on poiti-
cal platforms.
Less Artistic Activity.
The stir of artistic excitement is not
now so obvious as in the years before
the war. Indeed, there are some Irish
men who, disappearing the treaty, fix
its results with responsibility for an
artistic decadence. l have heard Prof.
Clery, one of the most ardent, as he is
one of the most intellectual, of the
republicans, express this opinion. He
put it epigrammatically by saying
that since the treaty Dark Rosaleen
has bobbed her hair"
1t Is true that in these days one no
longer runs the danger of being held
up in Dublin streets by poets eager
to discharge a lyric or playwrights
with unacted masterpieces sticking
out of their pockets. On the other
hand, the publication of an Irish book
by an Irish writer instead of being,
as it was in the old days, an event
almost worthy of celebration by brass
bands and triumphal professions, is
dCCHpltu DIS d IlOI Illeil IilGlutill lISl
is a true story of a Dublin student
who was first made aware of the
existence of a nterar- movement in
his own city by an arr lie in French
review. This at least would be i'm
possible under new conditions. Peo-
pie may not be interested in Irish
literature but at least they are aware
that Irish literature is a fact
If the new generation of writers
with a difference
also do the best known of the old.
Mr.. Yeats can still pluck for us in
poetry "the golden apples of the sun,
the silver apples of the moon," but
in the intervals he deliberates on af-
fairs Of state in the Senate, in which
he has become oratorical, if not elo
quent, on the thorny question of di-
vorce.
1t is symptomatic that Mr.. Yeats
is engaged in putting the finishing
touches to the most elaborate of his
prose works, an exposition or his
philosophy, not of poetry, as one
might expect, but Of history. When
this book is launched Mr.. Yeats pro-
poses to issue, somewhat on the model
of Ruskin's 'Fors Clavigera," a Sc
ries of periodical miscellanies deal
ing mainly with his reflections and
criticisms on the course Of Irish af-
fairs.
Russell Publishes New Lyrics.
E in his weekly, the Irish States
man is concerned even more directly
with current political gu. stions. He
is less absorbed than is Mr.. Yeats
with the brilliant presentation of an
uncompromisingly individual point Of
view and aims rather at the humaniz-
ing of politics. This descent into the
controversial areas, far from relaxing
4l's powers, has inspired him to turn
anew to poetry, and within the last
few weeks he has broken a silence
of 20 years with new book of lyrics,
"The Voice of the Stones" His hand,
far from losing it's cunning, has gain
ed in strength and precision, and to
the old gift of vision is added a new
quality of ripeness.
Perhaps the most accomplished of
the new clan of poets is Dr. oliver
Gogarty, who, like Mr.. Yeats, Is a
Free State senator. But there is no
hint Of senatorial solemnity in his
lyrics, which, with their flashing wit
and delicate yet disciplined harmony,
recapture in these modern times a
note hitherto sounded by the Caroline
poets alone.
In his verses DR.. Gogarty sits above
the battle, yet the title of his book,
"An Offering Of Swans" recalls his
dramatic escape from irregular guer
rillars when the poet, swimming the
Liffey by night, vowed If he reached
the shore in safety to place three
swans upon the river in token of his
gratitude.
A young Galway writer, Francis
Higgins, in THE Island Blood" has
made his mark as an interpreter of
the Gaelic spirit in English verse, and
he and Austin Clarke have contended
as against Mr.. Keats and 4I that the
need of Irish poetry is greater We
hemence and richness of expression.
Though he owes nothing to Gaelic
models, this impression of power is a
strong element in the work Of Rich
ard Rowley, the first singer who has
found in the mill chimneys and ship
yard gantries of Industrial Belfast a
beauty as compelling as the curve OF
Dublin Bay or the line of the Wick
low Hills.
Day Laborer Becomes Dramatist.
For a time it seemed as If Irish
drama had escaped from the Celtic
mists only to perish in a desert Of
didacticism. A return to better things
has been made possible by the merg-
ence of a dramatist of genius in the
person of Sean O'Casey. He is a Dub
lin day laborer, who has beaten all the
intellectualiStS at their own game. An
uncompromising realist, Mr. O'Casey
differs from other Irish dramatic real
lists in a gift Of humor and an in
stinctive sense of the theater. Though
in THE Shadow of a Gunman" and
June and the Paycock" he handles
the most furious political controver-
sizes of the hour, his interest is not in
the formulas themselves, but in their
impact upon the everyday lives of or
dinary people. The moldering Dub
lin tenements from which most Irish
writer's have averted their eyes have
been shown by Mr.. O'Casey to contain
as rich lode of dramatic ore as Synge
unearthed in the cabins of Connemara.
In THE Glorious Uncertainty" a
joyous comedy on the national mania
for horse racing, Brinsley MacNamara
shows no small measure Of the energy
and gusto that mark O'Casey's work.
Lennox Robinson struck out a new
path with 1.-The Round Table" and
his Portrait" produced a few months
ago. is a still more daring experiment
in psychological drama.
This year for the first time the Free
State Government has made grant to