POETRY AND M. MARITAIN
411
"this-wordliness" of modem poetry rather than its excessive spirit·
uality that Maritain is attacking in his inverted image that shows
everything upside down: nowhere in the
Kenyon
piece does he
mention the Symbolists as belonging to poetry's movement towards
self-consciousness and self-liquidation. Yet Symbolism is the one
school which his theory might describe. As Valery stated in "A
Foreword,"
(Variety,
I) the followers of Mallarme had "the ambi–
tion of definitely isolating poetry from every essence other than its
own," and "in the profound and scrupulous worship of all the
arts, they thought to have found a discipline, and perhaps a truth,
beyond the reach of doubt." This is exactly what Maritain is say·
ing about modem poetry as a whole. Moreover, the decline of
Symbolism, according to Valery, resulted from its inability to
"coexist with the conditions of life" and its striving "towards a
beauty always more conscious of its genesis." Here, if anywhere,
the dialectic of the dark night would seem to have found a cor·
responding reality of literature. Not a word, however, about Sym·
holism! Though the Surrealists, who in reaction against Symbol·
ism have gone to extremes to disentangle poetry from itself, are
given a special -place in Maritain's abyss. Does this omission sig–
nify that Maritain's view of modem poetry is itself nothing but
Symbolist esthetics criticising itself in the mirror of Aquinas? Or
is Symbolism not his enemy, because its inspiration and its aims
were derived from literature alone and its investigations restricted
to the magic of words? In any case, to criticise modem poetry as
if
its history were identical with that of Symbolism and to say
nothing of Symbolism itself is more than odd.
Actually, Maritain's philosophy is a reaction against those
particular interests of modem poetry that give it its novelty and
historic importance. To check trespassing upon holy ground, he
marks off for poetry the narrow strip of activity bounded by the
artisan principle of serviceable making, and advises quiescence
and docility to those who have "strayed" outside it. The issue
with him is the elimination either of the liberty of the artist or of
his daring, at a time when liberty and daring are the sole resources
of spirit.
The free artist not only makes but makes as he is "acted
upon." Or stated differently, he not only decides
how
to make but
is final judge of
what
to make. To Maritain, the term "free artist"
is a destructive contradiction. In Footnote 43 of
Art et Scolastique,
