And in the Human Heart
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By
DUELL, SLOAN & PIERCE
IN a recent article on modern poetry, Conrad Aiken demanded a return to the romantic tradition; ‘Let us he reckless, lavish, generous, afraid of no extremes and no simplicities.’ In this sonnet sequence he has followed his own advice and has returned to the Elizabethan manner. The poems are full of color, music, and verbal felicities, but in spite of the subject matter they lack intensity. They sing of love as an absolute more than of the passion of an individual lover.
Let us remember this, when we embrace:
In us are met the powers of time and space.
In us are met the powers of time and space.
It is this insistence upon the universal and eternal aspects of his theme which gives the poems a slightly rarefied and unreal quality. There is somewhat too much of the O altitudo about them. The note is sustained so long that it becomes strained, while the Elizabethan coloring of the vocabulary, word sequence, and sonnet structure robs it of a distinct individuality.
E. D.
The critics in this issue of the Atlantic are: —
W. H. C. WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN
R. K. D. RICHARD ELY DANIELSON
E. D. ELIZABETH DREW
W. E. WILSON FOLLETT
A. J. N. ALBERT JAY NOCK
E. W. EDWARD WEEKS