(c) 1957, Times NewspapersPegasus, and other Poems
Doc ref: TLS-1957-0621 Date: June 21, 1957
THE TIMES L1TERAR Y SUPPLEMENT FRIDAY JUNE 21 1957
AFTER BAUDEL~ MARCEL RA Yl'ofOND : From Boudelaire 10 Surreu/ism. Peter Owen. 30s.
Professor Raymond's critical survey of French poetry after Baudelaire has become a standard work; and rightly so, since it is written with an unusu31 combination of acumen and zest. Though primarily a history of late Symbolist and post·Symbolist verse, it sels out to evaluate the work oC a large number of individual poets, to rela le each poel's work to the various schools and movements-no easy task at a time when no li terary constellation remained constant for long-and even to define the principal t rends of the period, using: poetry as a seismograph. If the work is no longer wholly sa tisfying, one reason is that the instrumen t recorded a great many cataclysms that have not occurred, and failed 10 predict others thaI have: and a second reason is that some of the major poets of the period have not received the auention which they now seem to deserve.
Yet the prese nt translation-anooy. mous and evidently Americanwould deserv~ a warm welcome if it answered the s.pecial requirements of English r~aders-and of those Eng· lish readers who arc Jikely to avail themselves of a translation. Unfor· tunately it fails to do so in two important respects. What is most regrettable i'i that the work has not bee n brought up to date, either hy the authl)r or by the trans.lator. Nearly a quarter of a century has passed since the bunk was written: and though the Second World War rna )' not have been as crucial a turning· point in the hi"tory o r European clll~ ture as Ihe First World War. there can be litt le doubt th ... t Professor Raymond 's cri tical viewpoint and treatment of individual poets wou ld be rather dilrerenl now.
11 take), the reader some time to accepl the raci that .. the war" referrcu to in these pages is the First World War; and when we read that M. Aragon':\ .. reccnt novels. illus· Hilling t h~ uO<:trine of • soci:Liist rea lism: ha ve ce rt ~til\ merits, even litl! rary merit<;," we ca nnot know whtH nuvcis 3rc in q uest i\}fl , sincc we arc told that this translation is based o n thc French cllition of It)..J7. but n....,t ..... h~th~r th e work was revisecJ a.l
that t ime. ]f it wa& revised, the revision was neither thorough nor extensive. The later works of such poets as Bluard , Max Jacob, Reverdy, Jouye, SuperYielle and Sainl·John Perse-all of whom are included in the su rvey- are not taken into account; not 10 mention poets who have become prominent in the past twenty years.
The second requi rement of the English reader-which is not met by the otherwise valuable bibliography added to the English translation by Mr. Bernard Karpel , Libra rian of the Museum of Modern Art, New York-is for a chronological table giving the titles and dates of pub1ica~ t ion of the works discussed in the text; and even a few brief b iographical notes on the poets would have been helpful. The bibliography lisls critical books and articles, as well as eartier bibliographies, rererred to by Professor Raymond, antho logies of modern French verse, English trans· la tions and critical works on the poets jn French and English; it does not lessen the English reader's perplexity a t the bewildering profusion of names wilh wh ich this work confronts him. emile Despax, C harles Dcrennes, Leo Larguier. Ma rie Dauguet-what reader, other than schola rs who can use one of the French editions, bas heard or thcm all '?
True, these numes occu r in the chapters dealing with the early )'ears of the century ... The cen tury dawneJ gray," Professor Raymond wri tes: and it is one of the merits of th is book th at i t makes one sec the achievement of Valery, Claudel, pcguy. Verhaeren. Apollinaire and other innovator~ ... gainst a background more d rab than one would have thought p\)~sible after the new depa rtures of Rimbaud, Lafargue and Corbiere.
The Engl ish edition has a some· wha t unnecessarily bell igerent int ro· duction by Mr. Harold Rosenberg. Illuinly directed at Mr. Elio t's ioHuence on contemporary Americ~t n :tnd English poets. and an appendix. on .• Mallarmc and Painting " b}' M. Danicl-Henry Kahmveilcr. There a re English translations. most of them undistinguished. of .. 11 Ihe poems :md pI"t1se pass:\gcs cited in the tcxl.
.TTTYYYYYTYYTYYYYYYYYYYYTTYYTYYYYYYYY.
E ~ ~ ~
E 0JtJt£J.te ~ E ~
'E ~ ~ Sainte-Beuve ~ ~ HAROLD NICOLSON ~
~ " [(a,old Nicolson rchc""es 'he known facts of Sainte- j .,.. BC lI vc's life, and is fully informative. His na rrative is clear ~ t and shape! y. He succeeds in the difficult task of communi-~ caring to us his own personal sympathy with his 'subj ect-~ and this ," ... ithout shirking \ln}' of the regrettable facts. and ... without apologising for tllem at undue length."
~E . DAVID WILLIA~IS (The l HfJlJcheJltr GuardialJ)
... .. For man)' the most fascinating and valuable chapters in the book 'will be those on POf[.Royal. Sir Harold places us all in his debt by dealing with both the place an" the work.
~,. Never has the story of the Jansenist heresy and the srormy ~
hundred r ears of the famous monastery been more simply, ... more vividly. and more .Iucidly told. The shelf of Sir ~~ Ha rold' s own writing is now long and varied, but these two ...
~ chap ters-for his critical appreciation of Sainte-Bcllve's .,.. masterpiece is of the same high order-will surely bc p icked ~ E out for years to come as among [hose in which bis art ~
EI -,." ;T:~o .. ry oi Arne.i". -. ~. i Undel'World Lingo ~ The editors of (his Dictionary, compiled --c within the walls o f o ne of America's largest ~ prisons, were two long-term con victs and a
~ pnson.chaplalO, aSSIsted by more than a score ~ ~. of expert' p[Jsoner-advisers.· j6,. ~
.44.4 ••• 4.4.4 •• 4 ••• 4.4~ ... ~3
FLIGHT AND ARRIVAL C. D AY LEWIS : Pl!gas~s. And Other Poems. Cape. lOs. 6d.
Mr, Day Lewis's new collection is divided into Ihree parts and these parts happen ex<:ellentl y to illustrate his scope as a poet, Part one consists of four poems which retell Greek myths. Their grace and elegance of sty le is immediately striking; they have a fine felicity of image a nd invenlion. I t is a question whether .. Psyche" or .. Pegasus" is the more successful. But, in each, the" moral," the psychological overtone. though in teg rated with Ihe narrative is n ot wholly orga nic. T hus, in the last verse of .. Pegasus," we have comment straight from the horsc's mou th; in the last verse of" Psyche" she warns--Dear souls, be tolll by Int. I would
not take love as a aift . and so 1 had to learn ....
If th~ poems were abs01utely whole, these finales would be redundant; but so nearly are they whole that Ihere is a good case fo r cutting th em anyway. .. Bauds and Phi lemon," that somewhat mawkish story of connubial bliss, is given every chance by the poet to reestablish itse lf: it is a beautifu l piece of nar rative composition. Ariadne's dramatic monologue is also a good piece of narrat ive; but in this case it should not be. M r. Day LewiS' is not able to infuse character enough into Ariadne 10 give her aba ndoned musings dramat ic validity. When she apostrophizes her dead half·b ro!hcr, the Minotaur, whom sh~ has helped These us to dC'\lroy-
C('Imc. lay Your nHlLlI.: on my for saken breas t
:lnu ic:t us Cumrurl ..:ach ul h.: r, Then! ~h :t ll hc no
mon: blood . f'j\) 1lI0r..: hlomJ. QUI' hll1cJy i<; (..:
cxpand~ Jnt...., a legcnd whe re all can drea m
aWJIY Their erilllr.:s and IVo unds, a ll victims
1r.::11"1l from U~ HI)w to r~de¢1ll th.: \Vi ll lhat mad.: them , .. -one knows what has led Mr. Day Lewis tow;lrds Naxos, But the impulse anll the thought behind the poem h<Jve no t survived the impo~iti!')n of dramatic form un sc<l thed. In fact thcse fOllr pielo:cs of classiea I pastiche ( th~ word is lI sed in no dcrog:ltor)< s~nsc:) d.:m onSlrate unce again what:t fi rsl·c1ass narrative poet Mr. Day Lewis is. Now that his techn ical control is so su re. and words obey his call. onc hopes that he will return to :1 contemporary subjcctperhaps fl ight. It is a long hop fron) •. the two l i~utenants. Parer and
M' Kintosh" to Pegasus (via a flight over the Alps). The next take-off should be impressive.
The bad poems of a really good poet can often be endearing, and one may be endeared to two or three poems in part two. The inclusion of poems for reasons of personal sentiment is always understandable if nol aesthetically defensible, bu t a critic whose attitude to the poet's work was less than well disposed would find it hard to excuse" The Mirror." Part two is the weakest, and it is worth considering why. The poem " Seasonable Thoughts for Intellectuals." with its exquisite piclure of A shaa; wave·boppina in emblematic
niiotbl Aer~~ (hat mollen iron, seenl$ Less a bird than lbe shadow or some bird
above, So i nvuln~rably it skims . is a very good poem-just. For Mr. Day Lewis is primaril y of a lyrical temper and tempo, and his satiric touch is too of~en laborious,: .. The Committee" and .. The Wrong Road" are worthy poems. Also. when this poet is a ttempting to be wholly objective, his s tyle secms to become muddy and unsure. .. Final lnst ructions" is a lmost a parody of Mr. Henry Reed's ('1 unconscious) imitations of Mr. T . S. Eliot; and .. George Meredith, 1861," is one of those fashionable biographicitl snapshots which the ligh t of the poet's own personal p rejudice has got inlo, and obscured the negative. What ariscs out of this sect ion is the conv iclion that Mr. Day Lewis is at his best, and most objective, when he is being most personal.
The thi rd part of the book strongly underlines this. There is not a weak poem; the poet is a t his most moving and beguiling ... T he Hom,~ Where I was Born,"· · Last Words," .. Time To Go," these are poems to keep: prim; illrC'r purl'.\'. And it is no t so often that wha t is obviously the piec(' of a collection turns out to be 50. Here, it is. The sonnet-sequence" Moous Of Love" is one of the b~st poems, perhaps the best, Mr. Day Lewis has yet written. 11 is first -rate poetry-of its time, as it shoultJ be; individual, no onc but Mr. Day Lewis could have written it: a.nd it hns the stamp of the universal. T echn ica ll y, these sonnets wi th their ingenious variations or rhyme·scheme are of great virtuosity; but their real q uality lies in a strength or feel ing anu tenclern ess of perception deeply rooted in humanity.
GERMAN VERSE ANTHOLOGY The P('''~ffill Book 01 G('rIllUIf Verse.
In trod ucl!d and ElIitcd by Leonaru Forsler. Penguin Books. 6s.
An an thology o f poetry designed, lik e the Hook of Gc'rm(fl/ Verse which hu<; now been added 10 the Penguin PllctS. to r~ach a fa r larger numbe r of readers than lInr other pub lica tion of its kind. will be expected to oner a representative survey of what is genera lly assumed to be the best.
It lacks of necessity the unity and the int imacy which can be given to an anthology by a compiler who is guided cnti rely by his personal response and predilections. Bul if it wou ld be wrong to look for a wholly fresh approach or any great surprises from the Penguin book, the inclusion of samples f ro m the very carliest Germa n Jiterature in their original and the admission of dialect verse does considerably extend the scope of this se lection compared with previous compilations published in Ih is ·eoun lry. T hus, whereas the a.llord Book 01 Germall Verse, for in sta nce. devotes only abou t a fifth of the tex t to the poets before Goethe, this collection, a lso arranged in ch ronological order, establishes him, more sa ti sractorily, roughly in the centre of the book, and so in the development of German poetry.
Medieva l ly rical poems arc not alone responsible for this suggest ive shift in emphasis, for the editor has also, most happily. admitted a wide range of fine examples from German se venteenth·century poetry, especi· aJly rrom the mystics o f the S ilesian school and the lyrical a nd devolional poets inHuenced by them. Inclusion of some or Logau's short Sinll· .,prtlI'C"t' brings the we ll · known .. Ocr Mai ": I)i..:ser Monal i.~ t ein Ku~s. d.:n d Cf
Himmd sibl der Erde. [).I~~ sie jctzllnc.l seine Bmul, k.uenfti~
cine M utt er werdc. and a lso epigrams like th is by Angelus SiI .:sius: J)<!r Te ll fd i!>1 so gut dcm Wescn nacb
ats. duo
Was g.:hCl ihm dann all? G • .'storb'llcr Wi ll' lind R uh '.
That German" metaphys ica l " poe tr )f of the mid·seve nteenth cen tury need nOl, for sensitivity and di rectness of imagery, feur comparison with the 'classic period from 1750 to 1850 may be a suggestion new to some English rcaders, but ill Germany this rediscovery is not as recent as the popularity of Donne a nd Marvell in (bis country.
Neither the somewhat bombastic ballads of FreHigrath and Fontane nor the sentimental "longing and dreaming " of Emanuel Geibel a re greatly to the tas te: of our time and so the editor has made rather short work of the romantics a nd postromantics of the nineteenth century. In what remaios-Moerike, Keller, Lenau, Platcn, Rueckert-he has made 110 new finds; his selection from th ese poets a lmost entirely duplicates poems already included in the Oxford Book. T wo German poets of Ihis period to whom he seems to respond warmly arc Hebel, whose lengthy Vcrgamg!ic""c;/ is given in full, and Heine-a somewhat sur· prising combination. A newcomer to this type of an th ology is Christian Morgenstern ; he will be welcomed by many who havc a firm and delighted alIeclion for Palms tro m and Korf. Hormannslhal. Rilke. Stefan George, Georg Trakl and fi nally Ber tolt Brecht and G ottrried Benn dominate the somewh at con· ventional Jist of modern poe ts, which the compi ler has decided to li mit to authors born before the year 1900.
The poems arc accompanied by plai n prnse translations in small type which. though sometimes very plai n. have the meri t of accuracy and will therefore certa in ly be found useful. Criti ci<;lll . in am' ca~e, is disarmed by this ('II"oi culled from Goethe : Sch ich die WC:I-ke der Meister an. So sen ich ua!; ..... as sic Itctan ; Bctraehl ich mcin~ Sicbcnsachcn, 8cb ieb, was ich baeu' sollen machen.
379
MAY MORNING by RtMY
T ronsloted from the
French by D. B. Wyndham Lewis
ISs.
.. A mtmonbtt and humblinr book," David Williams In Truth.
HOW TO FREE YOURSELF FROM
NERVOUS TENSION by DR. SAMUEL GU1WIRTH
ISs.
II The greatest sinrte scourge or the modern world is nervous tenslonthe art of relaxation can be learned by anybody."
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