CORRESPONDENCE
NON SEQUITUR
Sirs:
As one who is a mere layman of the
arts and who possesses little forensic
skill, I should like to express my views
on the tempest aroused by Mr. William
Barrett's analysis of the poetry prize
awarded to Ezra Pound.
Treating them in the order of their
appearance in your magazine, I find
in Mr. Auden's piece two statements
requiring immediate refutation. The
first, that the withholding of the prize
would have been equivalent to suppres–
sion is an obvious non sequitur. The
other is a concept which, if widely ac–
cepted, would have seriously injurious
consequences. Unashamed antisemites,
Mr. Auden avers, "must be regarded
as children who have not yet reached
the age of consent in this matter.... "
Unless I am reading teo much into this
assertion, its logical conclusion would
be to find condonable all antisemitic
acts performed by unrepentant anti–
semites. This, to me, bears the seed of
a dangerous doctrine.
Mr. Davis, I feel, has placed a per–
ceptive finger upon a possible cause
for the selection of Pound as the reci–
pient of the Bollingen laurel. With him
I think that "snobbery and prestige
have counted heavily."
As for Mr. Greenberg, I am deeply
sympathetic towards his position, but
unlike him I
do
quarrel with the Fel–
lows' aesthetic verdict, even if I were
to grant "its primacy in the affair at
hand." Mr. Barrett's crucial question,
"how far is it possible, in a lyric poem,
for technical embellishments to trans–
form vicious and ugly matter into beau–
tiful poetry?" still has to be answered.
Let us dismiss all other considerations
and retain as sole criterion "art for art's
PERLE FINE
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Gertrude Stein: Form
&
Intelligibil-
ity by Rosolind S. Miller ............
$
3.50
Oostoievsky (F. M.) The Dillry of a
Writer, 1st English Trllnslotion by
Brllsol 1873·1877, 2 vols. boxed. 12.50
Nicoll (Allardyce) Shakespeare Sur–
vey II. Review of productions
since the turn of the century.
Illus. ................................................ 3.95
Selected Critical Studies of Bau–
delaire. Edt. with an intro. by D.
Parmee ............................................ 2.00
Playwriting for Elizabethans 1600-
1605, by M. C. Hyde .................. 4.00
Spender (Stephen) The Edge of Be-
ing. A New book of poems ........ 2.50
Ignatow (David) Poems .................. 2.50
O'Fllolin (Sean) The Irish. Philos·
ophic History of Irelond ............ 3.50
Lowson (John Howard) Theory
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Technique of Playwriting
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