Evening star., 1936-12-12


(Macmillan.)
to be reported here, he was forced to
run away from his war. and DR.. He'd
ms party assisted him, willy-niliy,
with their highly convenient motor
lorries. They then found themselves
faced with embarrassing explanations
to make to the victorious authorities.
But it all came out we'll in the end.
1t is as picturesque a record as has
appeared in q long time. Whether it
be read as history or adventure, it Is
excellent entertainment.
THE OXFORD BOOK OF ENGLISH
VERSE Edited by william But
Ter Yeats. New York: oxford Uni
versity Press.
THIS collection, which must call for
the attention of readers every
where. represents its distinguished
editors personal preferences and per-
sonal Interpretation of poetic history
in recent decades, and seems some
what less than a representative an
thology. 1t may be that it is more
worthy for that reason; better per-
haps to have the personal willful
choice Of q brilliant man than the
careful, reasoned-out program Of a
pedant. You will get less chaff that
way in the long run. Yet it is Gu
rious to find an anthology Of modern"
verse that ignores such poets as Rob-
ert Frost. Vachel Linsay, Edward Ar
lington Robinson and Elinor Wylie.
Mr.. Yeats writes, to be sure, that
he has deliberately omitted the work
of all American poets save those whose
writing seems to him essentially Eng
lish. But does this omission belong
in an anthology of modern" verse?
Would 1t not be better to change the
title to an anthology of modern Eng
lish and Irish verse? Then it would
cover the case, as Mr.. Yeats pre-.
sents it.
For his book is built up around his
own individual Interpretation of the
development OF English and Irish
poetry in the years since Pater. The
first revolt against the Victorians, he
says, began with the group of young
Hamlets which included Ernest Dow
son, Francis Thompson and Lionel
Johnson; they drank black coffee and
absinthe, went mad and committed
suicide They were determined to
purge poetry of all non-poetic stuff,
they worshipped Catullus, Verlaine
and Baudelaire. THE bitter and the
gay" they called themselves. Lord,
could such posing be?
After them came the folk versifers,
Housman and Hardy and Synge, with
Robert Bridges and Kipling contin-
uing Victorian forms in chastened
manner. And then the day Of Edith
Sitwell and T. S. Eliot, the artificers.
To them and their contemporaries he
devotes brief chapters in his intro
duction. They tell US little, these
chapters, beyond that he found rea-
son for including such and such q
poets work. His introduction is not
q critical explanation of his anthology,
nor is it, in any except the most
strictly personal sense, history Of
poetry in modern times.
Yes. on the whole, incomplete as the
seems, and limited as is its
the collection does con-
trive to touch many peaks, and con-
tains relevant material for q student
Of modern poetry. 1t is q valuable
work. The reviewer has long since
come to rate any anthology by what
it actually contains, and not by what
1t announces itself as containing. This
volume has some excellent modern
verse in it. The anthology perfect
cannot be compiled for any man ex-
cept by himself.
BITTER VICTORY. BY Louis Gull
loux. Translated from the French
by Samuel Putnam. New York:
Robert M. Mcbride g. Co.
THIS is . savagely bitter novel
about human defeat. Old as the
theme is. it is still quite possible to
write books on it that have newness,
and M. Guilloux has done that. His
book reads with an inevitable famili-
arity, but with a vivid life. II at times
1t becomes o trifie wearying, that Is
because Of the authors monotonous
insistence on grim physical details;
it is not because he has lacked artistic
The story Is that of Prof. Merlin,
Cripure, q schoolmaster in
q provincial French city during the
third year Of the World War. He is
the man who has loved honor and
who finds himself . worldly failure,
the town laughing stock. Nothing in
his whole existence bears out his
inner convictions. He appears q
buffoon, satyr, q pedant, q very
mockery Of q man. It Is possible for
inferior men to laugh at
him quite sincerely.
Such q tale, of course, rests entirely
on its authors ability. 1t has been
told too many times before to claim
attention as concept. Sufiice 1t to
repeat that M. Guilloux keeps his
novel alive, fresh and forceful through
out. No lover Of the novel form can
fail to feel respect for it. But the
book is too intelligent, too savage, too
subtle to appeal to very large public.
ESTATE. BY Vera
Britain. New York: The Mac
milan Co.
THIS is . novel written to q thesis,
= and consequently more on the
argumentative side than on that of
the story. It deals with women's
rights. setting forth the justification
for feminine emancipation through
the medium Of three marriages. two Of
the Victorian period and ons q the