142
our experience of literature. For
example, the superiority of Shakes–
peare to Spenser can be formulated
in terms of this ability to support
the theme of a work by an ample
use of the actual. This is what is
meant, in
Ulysses,
by the state–
ment that "the fundamental ques–
tion about a work of art is from
how deep a life does it spring,"
although
A.
E., to whom the sen–
tence is attributed, probably meant
the opposite of what Joyce did.
Or, again Henry James must be
cited: "There is, I think, no more
nutritive or suggestive truth than
that of the perfect dependence of
the "moral" sense of a work of art
on the amount of felt life concer–
ned in producing it." It is this es–
sential dependence that has es–
caped Winters.
That is why he is able to con–
demn
The Waste Land.
What his
view comes to, in the end, is a
preference for the correct plati–
tudes of statement: and this is just
where his predecessor Irving Bah–
bit soon arrived.
But it should also be said that
Winters has such intense love of
literature that even when he is ut–
terly wrong in his theories or opini–
ons, his very love &.nd intensity
help the reader to a more intimate
knowledge of the subject. One
reader at least will now never for–
get what autotelic means; and
more importantly, Winters' very ex–
cesses of judgment by their rhetor–
ical bang and boom make one read
neglected authors such as Edith
Wharton and Henry Adams as a
historian.
DELMORE SCHWARTZ
PARTISAN REVIEW
Three Boo/as
that light!
THE HITLERIAD
by
A. M.
Klein.
A witty, venomous verse
satire on Hitler, his gang and the
things they stand for. The work of a
Y?ung Canadian poet who doesn't pull
his punches, The Hitleriad does a
thorough job of making the Nazis
ridiculous as well as hateful. $1.00
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF THE
MASTER RACE
by
Bertolt
Brecht.
In swift, dramatic scenes
Brecht gives us the inside picture of
the spiritual and moral corruption
that Hitlerism has bred among the
German people of all classes. No
book has presented a more terrify–
ing record of the way Fascism can
infect and destroy even those who
would like to resist it. With an
essay on Brecht by E.
R.
Bentley.
$2.00
THE SOLDIER
by
Conrad
Aiken.
One of our best poets has
written a remarkable long poem
that tells us-in the way that a
poet can tell us things about war
that a general can't--what it means
to
be ·a soldier. From the battles of
ancient times
to
those of today we
trace the lot of the common soldier
caught in the tragic tangle of war.
$1.00
are
NEW
DIRECTIONS books
69 West 44
New York
City
18
