The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century Part 20

This does not mean that he lacks originality. It was a daring stroke--body-s.n.a.t.c.hing in 1914. To produce a work like _Spoon River Anthology_ required years of acc.u.mulated experience; a mordant power of a.n.a.lysis; a gift of shrewd speech, a command of hard words that will cut like a diamond; a mental vigour a.n.a.logous to, though naturally not so powerful, as that displayed by Browning in _The Ring and the Book_. It is still a debatable proposition whether or not this is high-cla.s.s poetry; but it is mixed with brains. Imagine the range of knowledge and power necessary to create two hundred and forty-six distinct characters, with a revealing epitaph for each one!

The miracle of personal ident.i.ty has always seemed to me perhaps the greatest miracle among all those that make up the universe; but to take up a pen and clearly display the marks that separate one individual from the ma.s.s, and repeat the feat nearly two hundred and fifty times, this needs creative genius.

The task that confronted Mr. Masters was this: to exhibit a long list of individuals with sufficient basal similarity for each one to be unmistakably human, and then to show the particular traits that distinguish each man and woman from the others, giving each a right to a name instead of a number. For instinctively we are all alike; it is the Way in which we manage our instincts that shows divergence; just as men and women are alike in possessing fingers, whereas no two finger-prints are ever the same.

Mr. Masters has the double power of irony and sarcasm. The irony of life gives the tone to the whole book; particular phases of life like religious hypocrisy and political tr.i.m.m.i.n.g are treated with vitriolic scorn. The following selection exhibits as well as any the author's poetic power of making pictures, together with the grinning irony of fate.

BERT KESSLER

I winged my bird, Though he flew toward the setting sun; But just as the shot rang out, he soared Up and up through the splinters of golden light, Till he turned right over, feathers ruffled, With some of the down of him floating near, And fell like a plummet into the gra.s.s.

I tramped about, parting the tangles, Till I saw a splash of blood on a stump, And the quail lying close to the rotten roots.

I reached my hand, but saw no brier, But something p.r.i.c.ked and stunned and numbed it.

And then, in a second, I spied the rattler-- The shutters wide in his yellow eyes, The head of him arched, sunk back in the rings of him, A circle of filth, the color of ashes, Or oak leaves bleached under layers of leaves, I stood like a stone as he shrank and uncoiled And started to crawl beneath the stump, When I fell limp in the gra.s.s.

This poem, with its unforgettable pictures and its terrible climax, can stand easily enough by itself; it needs no interpretation; and yet, if we like, the rattler may be taken as a symbol--a symbol of the generation of vipers of which the population of Spoon River is mainly composed.

In the _Anthology_, the driving motive is an almost perverted pa.s.sion for truth. Conventional epitaphs are marked by two characteristics; artistically, when in verse, they are the worst specimens of poetry known to man; even good poets seldom write good epitaphs, and among all the sins against art perpetrated by the uninspired, the most flagrant are found here; to a bad poet, for some reason or other, the temptation to write them is irresistible. In many small communities, one has to get up very early in the morning to die before the village laureate has his poem prepared. This depth of artistic infamy is equalled only by the low percentage of truth; so if one wishes to discover literary ill.u.s.trations where falsehood is united with crudity, epitaphs would be the field of literature toward which one would instinctively turn.

Like Jonathan Swift, Mr. Masters is consumed with hatred for insincerity in art and insincerity in life; in the laudable desire to force the truth upon his readers, he emphasizes the ugly, the brutal, the treacherous elements which exist, not only in Spoon River, but in every man born of woman. The result, viewed calmly, is that we have an impressive collection of vices--which, although inspired by a sincerity fundamentally n.o.ble--is as far from being a truthful picture of the village as a conventional panegyric. The ordinary photographer, who irons out the warts and the wrinkles, gives his subject a smooth lying mask instead of a face; but a photograph that should make the defects more prominent than the eyes, nose, and mouth would not be a portrait.

A large part of a lawyer's business is a.n.a.lysis; and the a.n.a.lytical power displayed by Mr. Masters is nothing less than remarkable. Each character in Spoon River is subjected to a remorseless autopsy, in which the various vicious elements existing in all men and women are laid bare. But the business of the artist, after preparatory and necessary a.n.a.lysing, is really synthesis. It is to make a complete artistic whole; to produce some form of art.

This is why the _Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard_, by Thomas Gray, is so superior as a poem to _Spoon River Anthology_.

The rich were buried in the church; the poor in the yard; we are therefore given the short and simple annals of the poor. The curious thing is that these humble, rustic, unlettered folk were presented to the world sympathetically by a man who was almost an intellectual sn.o.b. One of the most exact scholars of his day, one of the most fastidious of mortals, one of the shyest men that ever lived, a born mental aristocrat, his literary genius enabled him to write an immortal masterpiece, not about the Cambridge hierarchy, but about illiterate tillers of the soil. The _Elegy_ is the genius of synthesis; without submitting each man in the ground to a ruthless cross-examination, Gray managed to express in impeccable beauty of language the common thoughts and feelings that have ever animated the human soul. His poem will live as long as any book, because it is fundamentally true.

I therefore regard _Spoon River Anthology_ not as a brilliant revelation of human nature, but as a masterpiece of cynicism. It took a genius to write the fourth book of _Gulliver's Travels_; but after all, Yahoos are not men and women, and horses are not superior to humanity. The reason why, in reading the _Anthology_, we experience the constant p.r.i.c.king of recognition is because we recognize the baser elements in these characters, not only in other persons, but in ourselves. The reason why the Yahoos fill us with such terror is because they are true incarnations of our worst instincts.

There, but for the grace of G.o.d, go you and I.

The chief element in the creative work of Mr. Masters being the power of a.n.a.lysis, he is at his best in this collection of short poems. When he attempts a longer flight, his limitations appear. It is distinctly unfortunate that _The Spooniad_ and _The Epilogue_ were added at the end of this wonderful Rogues' Gallery. They are witless.

Even the greatest cynic has his ideal side. It is the figure of Abraham Lincoln that arouses all the romanticism of our poet, as was the case with Walt Whitman, who, to be sure, was no cynic at all. The short poem _Anne Rutledge_ is one of the few that strictly conform to the etymological meaning of the t.i.tle of the book; for "Anthology" is a union of two Greek words, signifying a collection of flowers.

Like Browning, Mr. Masters forsook the drama for the dramatic monologue. His best work is in this form, where he takes one person and permits him to reveal himself either in a soliloquy or in a conversation. And it must be confessed that the monologues spoken by contemporaries or by those Americans who talk from the graveyard of Spoon River, are superior to the attempts at interpreting great historical figures. The Shakespeare poem _Tomorrow Is My Birthday_ is not only one of the worst effusions of Mr. Masters'

pen, it is almost sacrilege. Good friend, for Jesus' sake, forbear!

Outside of the monologues and the epitaphs, the work of Mr. Masters is mainly unimpressive. Yet I admire his ambition to write on various subjects and in various metres. Occasionally he produces a short story in verse, characterized by dramatic power and by austere beauty of style. The poem _Boyhood Friends_, recently published in the _Yale Review_, and quite properly included by Mr. Braithwaite in his interesting and valuable Anthology for 1917, shows such a command of blank verse that I look for still finer things in the future. With all his twisted cynicism and perversities of expression, Mr. Masters is a true poet. He has achieved one sinister masterpiece, which has cleansed his bosom of much perilous Stuff. Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new.

Louis Untermeyer was born at New York, on the first of October, 1885.

He produced a volume of original poems at the age of twenty-five. This was followed by three other books, and in addition, he has written many verse-translations, a long list of prose articles in literary criticism, whilst not neglecting his professional work as a designer of jewelry. There is no doubt that this form of art has been a fascinating occupation and an inspiration to poetry. He not only makes sermons in stones, but can manufacture jewels five words long. Should any one be dissatisfied with his designs for the jewel-factory, he can "point with pride" to his books, saying, _Haec sunt mea ornamenta_.

Somewhere or other I read a review of the latest volume of verse from Mr. Untermeyer, and the critic began as follows: "One is grateful to Mr. Untermeyer for doing what almost none of his contemporaries on this side of the water thinks of doing." This sentence stimulated my curiosity, for I wondered what particularly distinguis.h.i.+ng feature of his work I had failed to see. "For about the last thing that poets and theorizers about poetry in these days think of is beauty. In discussion and practice beauty is almost entirely left out of consideration. Frequently they do not concern themselves with it at all."

Such criticism as that starts with a preconceived definition of beauty, misses every form of beauty outside of the definition, and gives to Mr. Untermeyer credit for originality in precisely that feature of his work where he most resembles contemporary and past poets. I believe that beauty is now as it always has been the main aim of the majority of American poets; but instead of legendary beauty, instead of traditional beauty, they wish us to see beauty in modern life. For example, it is interesting to observe how completely public opinion has changed concerning the New York sky-sc.r.a.pers. I can remember when they were regarded as monstrosities of commercialism, an offence to the eye and a torment to the aesthetic sense. But I recall through my reading of history that mountains were also once regarded as hideous deformities--they were hook-shouldered giants, impressive in size--anything you like except beautiful. All the mountain had to do was to go on staying there, confident in its supreme excellence, knowing that some day it would be appreciated:

Somebody remarks: Morello's outline there is wrongly traced, His hue mistaken; what of that? or else, Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?

Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?

We know better today; we know that the New York sky-sc.r.a.pers are beautiful; just as we know that New York harbour in the night has something of the glory of fairyland.

No, it will not do to say that Mr. Untermeyer is original in his preoccupation with beauty; it Would be almost as true to say that the chief feature in his work is the English language.

What is notable in him is the combination of three things; an immense love of life, a romantic interpretation of material things, and a remarkable talent for parody and burlesque.

s.e.x and Death--the obsessions of so many young poets--are not particularly conspicuous in the poetry of this healthy, happy young man. He writes about swimming, climbing the palisades, willow-trees, children playing in the street. Familiar objects become mysterious and thought-provoking in the light of his fancy. His imagination provides him with no end of fun; he needs no melancholy solitary pilgrimage in the gloaming to give him a pair of rimes; a country farm or a city slum is quite enough. I like his affectionate salutation to the willow; I like his interpretation of a side street. His greatest _tour de force_ is his poem, _Still Life_. Of all painted pictures, with the one exception of dead fish, the conventional overturned basket of fruit is to me the most barren of meaning, the least inspiring, in suggestion a blank. Yet somehow Mr. Untermeyer, looking at a bowl of fruit, sees something I certainly never saw and do not ever expect to see except on this printed page, something that a bowl of fruit has for me in the same proportion as the stump of a cigar--_something dynamic_.

I do not understand why so many Americans plaster the walls of their dining-rooms with pictures of overset fruit-baskets and of dead fish with their ugly mouths open; but in "still life" this paradoxical poet sees something full of demoniacal energy. O Death, where is thy sting?

Never have I beheld such fierce contempt, Nor heard a voice so full of vehement life As this that shouted from a bowl of fruit, High-pitched, malignant, l.u.s.ty and perverse-- Brutal with a triumphant restlessness.

But the fruit in the basket is dead. The energy, the fierce vehemence and the l.u.s.ty shout are not in the bowl, but in the soul. Subjectivity can no further go.

It is rather curious, that when our poet can behold such pa.s.sion in a willow-tree or in a mess of plucked fruit, he should be so blind to it in the heart of an old maid; though to be honest, the heroine of his poem is meant for an individual rather than a type. If there is one object on earth that a healthy young man cannot understand, it is an old maid. Who can forget that terrible outburst of the aunt in _Une Vie_? "n.o.body ever cared to ask if my feet were wet!" Mr.

Untermeyer will live and learn. He is not contemptuous; he is full of pity, but it is the pity of ignorance.

Great joys or sorrows never came To set her placid soul astir; Youth's leaping torch, Love's sudden flame Were never even lit for her.

_Don't you believe it, Mr. Untermeyer!_

Even in his "serious" volumes of verse, there is much satire and saline humour; so that his delightful book of parodies, called _---- and Other Poets_ is as spontaneous a product of his Muse as his utterances _ex cathedra_. The twenty-seven poems, called _The Banquet of the Bards_, with which the book begins, are excellent fooling and genuine criticism. He wrote these things for his own amus.e.m.e.nt, one reason why they amuse us. A roll-call of twenty-seven contemporary poets, where each one comes forward and "speaks his piece," is decidedly worth having. John Masefield "tells the true story of Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son"; William Butler Yeats "gives a Keltic version of Three Wise Men in Gotham"; Robert Frost "relates the Death of the Tired Man," and so on. I had rather possess this volume than any other by the author; it is almost worthy to rank with the immortal _Fly Leaves_. Furthermore, in his serious work Mr.

Untermeyer has only begun to fight.

And while we are considering poems "in lighter vein," let us not forget the three famous initials signed to a column in the Chicago _Tribune_, Don Marquis of the _Evening Sun_, who can be either grave or gay but cannot be ungraceful, and the universally beloved Captain Franklin P. Adams, whose _Conning Tower_ increased the circulation of the New York _Tribune_ and the blood of its readers. Brightest and best of the sons of the Colyumnists, his cla.s.sic Muse made the _Evening Mail_ an evening blessing, sending the suburbanites home to their wives "always in good humour"; then, like Jupiter and Venus, he charged from evening star to morning star, and gave many thousands a new zest for the day's work. Skilful indeed was his appropriation of the methods of Tom Sawyer; as Tom got his fence whitewashed by arousing an eager compet.i.tion among the boys to do his work for him, each toiler firmly persuaded that he was the recipient rather than the bestower of a favour, so F. P. A. incited hundreds of well-paid literary artists to compete with one another for the privilege of writing his column without money and without price.

His two books of verse, _By and Large_ and _Weights and Measures_, have fairly earned a place in contemporary American literature; and the influence of his column toward precision and dignity in the use of the English language has made him one of the best teachers of English composition in the country.

CHAPTER X

SARA TEASDALE, ALAN SEEGER, AND OTHERS

Sara Teasdale--her poems of love--her youth--her finished art--Fannie Stearns Davis--her thoughtful verse--Theodosia Garrison--her war poem--war poetry of Mary Carolyn Davies--Harriet Monroe--her services--her original work--Alice Corbin--her philosophy--Sarah Cleghorn--poet of the country village--Jessie B. Rittenhouse--critic and poet--Margaret Widdemer--poet of the factories--Carl Sandburg--poet of Chicago--his career--his defects--J. C. Underwood--poet of city noises--T. S. Eliot--J. G. Neihardt--love poems--C. W.

Stork--_Contemporary Verse_--M. L. Fisher--_The Sonnet_--S. Middleton--J. P. Bishop--W. A. Bradley--nature poems--W. Griffith--_City Pastorals_--John Erskine--W. E.

Leonard--W. T. Whitsett--Helen Hay Whitney--Corinne Roosevelt Robinson--M. Nicholson--his left hand--Witter Bynner--a country poet--H. Hagedorn--Percy Mackaye--his theories--his possibilities--J. G. Fletcher--monotony of free verse--Conrad Aiken--his gift of melody--W. A. Percy--the best American poem of 1917--Alan Seeger--an Elizabethan--an inspired poet.

Sara Teasdale (Mrs. Filsinger) was born at St. Louis (p.r.o.nounced Lewis), on the eighth of August, 1884. Her first book appeared when she was twenty-three, and made an impression. In 1911 she published _Helen of Troy, and Other Poems_; in 1915 a volume of original lyrics called _Rivers to the Sea_; some of these were reprinted, together with new material, in _Love Poems_ (1917), which also contained _Songs out of Sorrow_--verses that won the prize offered by the Poetry Society of America for the best unpublished work read at the meetings in 1916; and in 1918 she received the Columbia University Poetry Prize of five hundred dollars, for the best book produced by an American in 1917.

In spite of her youth and the slender amount of her production, Sara Teasdale has won her way to the front rank of living American poets.

She is among the happy few who not only know what they wish to accomplish, but who succeed in the attempt. How many ma.n.u.scripts she burns, I know not; but the comparatively small number of pages that reach the world are nearly fleckless. Her career is beginning, but her work shows a combination of strength and grace that many a master might envy. It would be an insult to call her poems "promising," for most of them exhibit a consummate control of the art of lyrical expression. Give her more years, more experience, wider range, richer content, her architecture may become as ma.s.sive as it is fine. She thoroughly understands the manipulation of the material of poetry. It would be difficult to suggest any improvement upon

TWILIGHT

The stately tragedy of dusk Drew to its perfect close, The virginal white evening star Sank, and the red moon rose.

Although she gives us many beautiful pictures of nature, she is primarily a poet of love. White-hot pa.s.sion without a trace of anything common or unclean; absolute surrender; whole-hearted devotion expressed in pure singing. Nothing is finer than this--to realize that the primal impulse is as strong as in the breast of a cave-woman, yet illumined by clear, high intelligence, and pouring out its feeling in a voice of gracious charm.