July 1, 1944
The Hand That Writes the Credit
The Great Depression that began in 1929 to engulf America came on in waves. The first wave knocked over the Bank of the United States in New York, and had […]
July 1, 1944
The Sweet and Lovely Language
Gerard Manley Hopkins was a champion and great master of epithet. He expected poetry, including his poetry, to catch and convey vividly what eye saw and heart felt. Vivid was […]
July 1, 1944
Instress of Inscape
The early Hopkins follows Keats and the “medieval school” (as he called the Pre-Raphaelites). The latest Hopkins, who wrote the sonnets of desolation, was a poet of tense, economic austerity. […]
July 1, 1944
Paul Valery: Poetics as an Exact Science
In the preface that he added, twenty years later, to a reprint of an early work, La soirée avec Monsieur Teste, Paul Valéry made the following admission: “I was suspicious […]
July 1, 1944
Sprung Rhythm
A poet’s theories are not always the best guide to his poetry. Wordsworth should not be judged solely from the “Preface” to the Lyrical Ballads, nor Sidney Lanier from his […]
April 1, 1944
Broadway Letter
The most prosperous and barren season in years—this is the current story in a nutshell. For an out-of-town visitor, a select list might read as follows. Othello, because it is […]
April 1, 1944
Renaissance and Renascences
For many centuries the history of Europe has been divided into three periods: Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Modern Era, the latter ushered in by the Italian Renaissance. This […]
April 1, 1944
The Love and the Separateness in Miss Welty¹
He could understand God’s giving Separateness first and then giving Love to follow and heal in its wonder; but God had reversed this, and given Love first and then Separateness, […]
April 1, 1944
An Introduction to Goethe’s Theatre
From the French. Criticism has soon finished its task with certain authors, however great they may be. When a Mistral, for example, has received the tribute of a Maurras, the […]
April 1, 1944
Artists, Soldiers, Positivists
Remembering our Winter discussion, I return to those great difficulties which disturb Mr. Ames, or any other man interested in art’s good name. Let us call them the moral difficulties, […]
January 1, 1944
Art Needs a Little Separating
Mr. Ames has given me permission to follow him with some comment upon the general state of aesthetic studies, in the light of his essay. It seems to me an […]
January 1, 1944
Art and Science¹
Art and science are alike in having for their province the whole of experience, their ultimate motive being to rearrange, integrate and interpret it to increase freedom, to open avenues […]