Evening star., 1934-08-25

II r. X y
LITERATURE OF THE ITALIAN
RENAISSANCE. BY Jefferson
Butler Fletcher. New York: The
Macmillan Co.
There are many people, both stu
dents and general readers, who nave
felt the charm of Italy during its
great Renaissance period and are
Immediately attracted by any book
title which suggests that there Is
something about the Renaissance be-
tween the covers. When the covers
are turned back the yield may prove
poor or it may add to the rich store
already provided, from Vasari IN his
not altogether accurate Lives OF
Painters, Sculptors ana Arcnltects
to Col. Young's long and altogether
delightful History Of the Medici."
prof. Fletcher Of Columbia Univer-
sity. translator of Dante's Divine
Comedy" confines himself to the
literature of the Renaissance, a wide
enough field with Dante, Petrarch
and Boccaccio dominating 1t and
Lorenzo the Magnificent, Poliziano,
Pulci, Boiardo, Sannazaro, Machia-
velli, Castiglione, Ariosto, Folengo,
Cellini, Aretino and. Tasso adding to
its brilliancy. The birthplace OF the
Renaissance was Italy and its birth
century was the fourteenth, but from
italy the individualistic and re-
viyifying movement spread all over
E,lrone The sources of the revival
in literature and art and the con-
tributions made by different authors
to the new and thoroughly Italian
literature are traced by Prof. Fletcher
in this volume, which Is scholarly
but not pedantic, and does not claim
to be either complete history OF
the literature of the period or text
book. It is really collection OF re-
lated essays, on origins, development,
phases and decline of Renaissance IN
Spiration in literature. Some OF the
specific subjects discussed are the
Renaissance doctrine of platonic~ love,
the popularity of Petrarchs lyrics,
feminism and the salon, the creation
of a national living language under
the influence of Lorenzo de Med1cl,
the general misunderstanding OF
Machiavelli's political teaching, tne
growth the novel, biography. poetry
and drama as literary forms.
BROKEN MUSIC. BY Norma Mac
Taggart. New York: z. p. Dut-
ton & Co.
Emily Marvel, the most English girl
Imaginable, Is within few months
of marriage with Jack Harradine,
a young doctor practicing in York
shire, whom she has known all her
life and who is as typically English
as she. It looks like a very suitable
match, but then Emily'S brother
Oswald brings home two German
friends, Hugo Pfaumer, who Is ag-
gressive and conceited. and Kurt
Eckhart, thoughtful, tolerant, lover
of literature and study. Kurt is 'Dr."
Eckhart because, Oswald facetiously
says he wrote a thesis on Words
worth-he catalogued all the words
connected with Nature-vale, dale,
primrose, daffodil, and so on-and
deduced from the proportions between
LIlcIu JIldb WOIuoWOALA III LAC0 N6ACo
better than dales, or dales better
than wales. Then he had his
visiting cards reprinted" BY an emo
tional process entirely too rapid for
the reader to follow, Emily's feeble
affection for Jack disappears and
she falls vehemently In love with
Kurt during the space of O week end.
They marry, but not to be happy
ever after. Kurt has just been ap-
pointed to a post as "lektor" In the
university of his home town, to which
he takes Emily to live. The fat
in the Mendelstrasse, looking down
on the shallow river which runs
through the town, Is so different from
her spacious English country home
that she thinks of 1t as unreal and
toylike. Her husbands father and
mother and the university professors
and their wives seem to her very
foreign" Adjustment Is gradually
coming about when the World War
begins and Emily and her two chill
dren, Franzi and Gerda, 60 to live
with her husbands parents, while
Kurt goes to the front with the Ger
man Army. The interest in the story
shifts to the children after the war
and they are taken to adulthood and
marriage, with their mixed national-
ity always evident a. Q factor IN
their development. In the end Emily