October 1, 1939
The Aesthetic of Finnegans Wake
Critics who have found nothing to say for this book, and critics who have found nothing to say against it, are both uncritical. The first understand only that Joyce disdains […]
October 1, 1939
Surrealism as a Public Art
Movements in the field of plastic art are literary productions. To a plastic artist a statement of aims is a noose. Enough rope and plastic interests go hang, or at […]
October 1, 1939
Science, Art and Technology
A consideration of science, art, and technology is inevitably a study of basic human activities and their interrelations. The theme is an old one, and many pages by many writers […]
October 1, 1939
The Present State of Poetry: A Symposium: In England, in France, in the United States
I. In EnglandBy HERBERT READ To one whose practice in the art was formed a quarter of a century ago, the present state of English poetry cannot be altogether satisfying, […]
October 1, 1939
The Criterion, 1922-39
A leader, Mr. Eliot stated in one of his Criterion Commentaries, may be defined as that one of the Gadarene swine which runs the fastest. Mr. Eliot may have had […]
October 1, 1939
Foreign Periodicals
The European thought and creative effort of the nineteen-twenties was brought to a focus in three periodicals—The Criterion, Die Neue Rundschau, and Nouvelle Revue Française. Of these, only the NRF […]
July 1, 1939
Beauty as Feeling
Stranger, when you appeared there on the horizon miles to the east, a speck silhouetted against the dawn, you stepped on my toes and bumped into me. Did you not […]
July 1, 1939
Faulkner’s Mythology
William Faulkner is really a traditional moralist, in the best sense. One principle holds together his thirteen books of prose—including his new novel, The Wild Palms—giving his work unity and […]
July 1, 1939
Texts from Housman
The logic poetry has or pretends to have generally resembles induction more than deduction. Of four possible procedures (dealing entirely with particulars, dealing entirely with generalizations, inferring the relatively general […]
July 1, 1939
World’s Fair Notes
Enter the World’s Fair from your train, and alongside and aloft are banners: Science is inscribed on a deep blue field, the sun scattering red and orange rays, while yellow […]
July 1, 1939
Yeats and His Symbols
Before I become involved in some local studies in the poetry of Yeats, and some theory which it suggests, I had better record my general tribute to the poet. I […]
July 1, 1939
Paleface and Redskin
Viewed historically, American writers appear to group themselves around two polar types. Paleface and redskin I should like to call the two, and despite occasional efforts at reconciliation no love […]