BOO KS
57'1
will give it up without trying, in spite of the notes on meaning and
pronunciation. These things in themselves, of course, do not necessarily
JIlake a bad poem, but the chronicler's duty in this case seems to be,
first of all, to point out the difficulties. The poem is about the history
of Great Britain, from the glacial period to the present, especially as
it is related to the history of art and the history of Christianity. The
manner is somewhat Poundian; that is, the writing is poetry of a loose,
conversational sort. As a matter of fact, it lapses frequently into plain
prose. The method is associative and
symboliste;
the poem purports to
be the ruminations of a Catholic during the ritual of the
Mass.
The
structure is a series of reminiscences, conversations, historical dialogues,
and fragmentary quotations. The whole is in the nature of an exercise,
and as such it achieves a degree of brilliance which few modern poets
can hope for. It is a display of virtuosity. But the author's tone is so
wearied, his
g~it
is so laborious, that I see little hope of any real enthu–
siasm for his work. Even his nostalgia, though it is strong, is shadowed
by his consummate defeatism. Britain, for all we know, may be dying;
but one seldom encounters a writer so willing-and so able-to hasten
the process. I suspect that
The Anathemata
will achieve a distinction,
though a dubious one, as the very last product of the "modern" period:
it carries the method of symbolic writing, as it was
prescr~bed
some time
ago by Mr.
Eliot,
to a final and devastating conclusion.
St.-John Perse has acquired among English-speaking people a spur–
ious fame, largely because he was introduced to us by T. S. Eliot and
his first appearance in our language was a translation by Mr. Eliot. I
think that, at the time, Eliot was doing a necessary job of work; hence
Perse's distinction here has been the result of Eliot's own growing (or
grown) reputation. The fact is, Perse is an individual and comparatively
accomplished writer, but his achievement is small. Perse relies upon a
vision of the world which is quite contrary to the current fashion; that
is, his outlook is expansive in the extreme. He likes deserts, seas, the
great dominions of nature. In the present instance, his interest is in
Winds.
These are the winds which sweep east and west and from before
time to aftertime; they represent the spirit of destruction, death, rebirth,
and the immense and terrifying vacuity itself. More plainly, this is a
poem of man's westwardism. It begins with Columbus and ends with
an invocation to the Pacific islands. In between it seizes upon the -
American mountain and the American plain as the hope for freedom
and
creativity
and justice in the world. It is a grand theme. But, after
Whitman, it sounds a little naive. Perse cannot invest his subject with
the American poet's particularity. As for the writing itself, in French
