The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-01-05
I'd CARAVAN
CARRIES NO
VITAL WORK

can Literature, Edited by Alfred
Kreymborg, Lewis Mumford,
Paul Rosenfeld. The Macaulay
Company. $500.
Reviewed by EDWIN ROLFE.
1t is difficult to review so huge
tome as the Caravan and do crit
ical justice to all the authors rep
resented in its 872 pages. Differ
emit trends are evident in it, rang
ing from the "best, accepted ira
ditions in American literature" to
the new insurgent crop, which also
is represented in many diversified
literary tendencies. So difficult
has been the task of the compilers
of this anthology that they have
produced a veritable tumble of
trends, tendencies, and schools.
Making the matter worse is the fact
| that no definite policy has guided
. the compilers in their work; they
have allowed the contributions to
run slipshod over them and into
the pages of the Caravan, produc-
ing, as a result, volume distin-
guished by no tangible aspirations,
no definite guiding point, and very
little coherency in the quality of
the writings embodied in it.
The First American Caravan
was a little more definite, more
selective in its sum production.
Although diversified, and dia-
metrically opposite literateurs of
all creeds found their ways into
it, it contained something APP
preaching a definite striving to-
ward some tangible goal. This
goal, though far from present in
the first volume, showed itself in
the quality and character of the
contributions, and reader, turn
ing the pages, found himself
conscious of a well and carefully
chosen path, onto the narrow by
ways of which the First Caravan
was presumably, to have been
the beginning of a definite de-
parture. Although jumbled, it
was thought that by the time the
second Caravan was published,
the wedding out would have prog
ressed to an extent that would
make it possible for reader to
note definite trend, definite
casting out of some schools and
the retention of others, and
capitalization (of whatever sort
it turned out to beg of its editors
hopes. This contamination, how
ever, has not taken place. The
Second American Caravan, if
anything, is more jumbled and
incoherent than the first.
Decadent Dial Group.
Out of all the chaos, however,
one fact stands out. This is the
inclusion in its pages of works by
such writer's as Wallace Gould,
Conrad Aiken, Hart Crane, Yvor
Winters, William Carlos Williams,
H. D.; John Gould Fletcher, Mark
Van Doren, Jean Toomer, Waldo
Frank, and others of their iIk.
These names, it may be remem-
bered, were at one time or another
associated with the Dial group, a
group distinguished from others
W the fact that it attempted to
cover it's entrance into the Ivory
Tower of literature by raising the
weakened battle cry of 'esthetic
perfection" classical beauty and
perfection as applied to modernity"
and other shibboleths that, to be-
come living forces, would have to
be dug out of the slime of an age
twenty centuries past. That this
collection of authors have outward
ly split is not significant insofar
as the breaking of the group is
concerned. Having no tangible
compulsion toward writing, toward
creating valid and true literature
belonging to and interpretive of
modernity, it was inevitable that a
break would come; that oppor-
tunism would split the ranks into
even more ludicrous and vacillating
groups than the original Dial
group; that each would unfurl new
tissue paper proclamations and
manifestoes in the wind, and con-
tinue in his indefinite vague
course. But these differences were
in actuality, as thin as their mani
festoes. The Dial group remains
the Ivory Tower Of all these groups,
and outcasts return to the fold of
its pages with an almost Consider
ing the mutual villifications)
amazing frequency.
If these writers made up the en-
tire Caravan, one would know that
the aspirations of the huge volume
were definitely petty bourgeois,
trimmed with sloppy mysticism and
the elevation of false, non-existent
individualism; but others find their
way in, and it is their inclusion that
produces this tumble, although it
brings with it few sparks of life.
A Significant Contribution.
"Carolus Elston," by Jonathan
Leonard, it seems to me, is the most
significant individual contribution
IN kn MI