Contemporary American Literature | Page 5

Edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford. 1920.
STUDIES AND REVIEWS
Cambridge.
Ath. 1919, 1: 361; 1919, 2: 633; 1920, 1: 243, 665. Atlan. 125 ('20): 623; 127 ('21): 140. Bookm. (Lond.) 57 ('19): 30. Cur. Op. 66 ('19): 108. Dial, 65 ('18): 468. Dublin Rev. 164 ('19): 218. Harv. Grad. M. 26 ('18): 540. Lond. Times, May 30, 1919: 290. Nation, 106 ('18): 674. New Repub. 15 ('18): 106. New Statesman, 16 ('21): 711. 19th Cent. 85 ('19): 981. Pol. Sci. Q. 34 ('19): 305. Scrib. M. 69 ('21): 576 (portrait). Spec. 122 ('19): 231. World's Work, 4 ('02): 2324. Yale Rev. n.s. 8 ('19): 580; n.s. 9 ('20): 271, 890.

+George Ade+--humorist, dramatist.
Born at Kentland, Indiana, 1866. B.S., Purdue University, 1887. Newspaper work at Lafayette, Indiana, 1887-90. On the Chicago Record, 1890-1900.
Although some of his earlier plays were successful and promised a career as dramatist, his reputation now rests chiefly upon his humorous modern fables.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fables in Slang. 1900. More Fables. 1900. Forty Modern Fables. 1901. The County Chairman. 1903. (Play.) The College Widow. 1904. (Play.) Ade's Fables. 1914. Hand-Made Fables. 1920.
For complete bibliography, see Cambridge, III (IV), 640, 763.
STUDIES AND REVIEWS
Moses.
Am. M. 73 ('11): 71 (portrait), 73. Bookm. 51 ('20): 568; 54 ('21): 116. Harp. W. 47 ('03): 411 (portrait), 426. No. Am. 176 ('03): 739. (Howells.) Rev. 2 ('20): 461.

+Conrad Potter Aiken+--poet, critic.
Born at Savannah, Georgia, 1889. A.B., Harvard, 1912. Has lived abroad, in London, Rome, and Windermere.
SUGGESTIONS FOR READING
1. A good introduction to Mr. Aiken's verse is his own explanation of his theory in Poetry, 14 ('19); 152ff. To readers to whom this is not accessible, the following extracts may furnish some clue as to his aim and method:
What I had from the outset been somewhat doubtfully hankering for was some way of getting contrapuntal effects in poetry--the effects of contrasting and conflicting tones and themes, a kind of underlying simultaneity in dissimilarity. It seemed to me that by using a large medium, dividing it into several main parts, and subdividing these parts into short movements in various veins and forms, this was rendered possible. I do not wish to press the musical analogies too closely. I am aware that the word symphony, as a musical term, has a very definite meaning, and I am aware that it is only with considerable license that I use the term for such poems as Senlin or Forslin, which have three and five parts respectively, and do not in any orthodox way develop their themes. But the effect obtained is, very roughly speaking, that of the symphony, or symphonic poem. Granted that one has chosen a theme--or been chosen by a theme!--which will permit rapid changes of tone, which will not insist on a tone too static, it will be seen that there is no limit to the variety of effects obtainable: for not only can one use all the simpler poetic tones...; but, since one is using them as parts of a larger design, one can also obtain novel effects by placing them in juxtaposition as consecutive movements....
All this, I must emphasize, is no less a matter of emotional tone than of form; the two things cannot well be separated. For such symphonic effects one employs what one might term emotion-mass with just as deliberate a regard for its position in the total design as one would employ a variation of form. One should regard this or that emotional theme as a musical unit having such-and-such a tone quality, and use it only when that particular tone-quality is wanted. Here I flatly give myself away as being in reality in quest of a sort of absolute poetry, a poetry in which the intention is not so much to arouse an emotion merely, or to persuade of a reality, as to employ such emotion or sense of reality (tangentially struck) with the same cool detachment with which a composer employs notes or chords. Not content to present emotions or things or sensations for their own sakes--as is the case with most poetry--this method takes only the most delicately evocative aspects of them, makes of them a keyboard, and plays upon them a music of which the chief characteristic is its elusiveness, its fleetingness, and its richness in the shimmering overtones of hint and suggestion. Such a poetry, in other words, will not so much present an idea as use its resonance.
2. An interesting comparison may be made between the work of Mr. Aiken, and that of Mr. T.S. Eliot (q.v.), of whom he is an admirer. See also Sidney Lanier's latest poems.
3. Another interesting study is the influence of Freud upon the poetry of Mr. Aiken.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Earth Triumphant and Other Tales. 1914. Turns and Movies. 1916. The Jig of Forslin. 1916. Nocturne of Remembered Spring. 1917. The Charnel Rose; Senlin: a Biography, and other Poems. 1918.