THE NEW ERA IN ODERN American verse is acquir

critical commentaries. One of the latest and best additions to this growing library is Mr. Louis Untermeyer's "The New Era in American Poetry." Mr. Untermeyer has achieved a volume which is scholarly without being pedantic, and vividly alive without ever sinking into superficial cleverness.

Mr. Untermeyer happens to be very much more partial towards some of the alleged new poetry than is the present reviewer, but he holds no brief for isms and cults. He is catholic in his tastes, recognizing merit in divers schools and searching diligently to understand and interpret the purpose of the authors concerning whom he writes and the standards which they themselves have set for their work. His criticism is honest and frank, frequently instructive, and almost always stimulating.

Mr. Untermeyer's volume is composed largely of a series of articles on many of the best-known figures in American poetry. Very few of these chapters are marred by either careless analysis or hasty judgment. Even his briefest comments upon those writers whom he evidently regards as the less important figures in American poetry leave the impression upon the reader's mind that he has read and carefully digested all their works. Such a statement cannot be made in regard to Professor Phelps's recent volume on a similar theme.

"The New Era in American Poetry" contains many characterizations notable both for their brevity and their exactness. Of Edwin Arlington Robinson, for instance, Mr. Untermeyer writes:

Seldom buoyant and never brash, Robinson responds to other qualities that are considered less national but are no less local. His shrewd appraisals, his careful cynicism, his reticence that screens a vigorous psychology-these are the direct results of his distinctly Puritan inheritance. The sharp epithet, the condensation, the direct and simple speech-American poetry has been given a fresh character by these things. And it owes much of their use to the careful art of Robinson.

Of a poet of different caliber and worth he shrewdly says: "Aiken cannot shake off what might be called an adolescent underworld complex." Here is a Freudian truly hoist with his own petard.

With equal skill (and more particularity, it seems, than perhaps the subject-matter is worth) Mr. Untermeyer analyzes the ultraradicals of the passing hour. In the first paragraph of his chapter on "Others " he

says:

One of the most outstanding features in the work of several of our younger poets is a consistent distortion not only of past standards but of present values. This distortion is the natural consequence of an unnatural fear of formulas, both of phrase and idea, and exaggerated horror of the accepted pattern in any of its forms. As an expression of insurrectionary youth, as a scornful contempt hurled at a literary philistinism or the capitalist system or middle-class prejudices, this revolt is the sign of a healthy and creative discontent. But when, in an attempt to avoid the cliché at any cost, it becomes incoherent in metaphors that are more delicious than daring, when it pulls any casual image to pieces or turns a vagrant

The New Era in American Poetry. By Louis Untermeyer. Henry Holt & Co., New York.

AMERICAN POETRY'

and merely bright emotion into a dark study, it is likely to be a confession of its own creative failure-an admission of an inability to work and play with the material of life. One does not have the right to demand continuous high spirits from the poetically young; one does hope, however, to be saved from the blasé retrospection and weary vision of crabbed youth.

This is sound and convincing criticism, and typical of much of the incisive reasoning in which this volume is so rich. But the keenness of so many passages in this volume makes the reader turn with bewilderment to one of the statements made in regard to the poetry of Edgar Lee Masters. Masters's "Spoon River Anthology," Mr. After quoting many extracts from Mr. Untermeyer says:

In all of these excerpts it is easy to see where the element of poetry has strengthened and vitalized the conception. More than half of their power would have vanished had these

LOUIS UNTERMEYER, AUTHOR OF "THE NEW ERA IN AMERICAN POETRY"

portraits been printed as prose paragraphs. Observe this last one in that form:

He then reprints as prose one of the epitaphs from the "Spoon River Anthology" and continues:

Aside from all technical considerations, it will be seen at once that Masters's original manner of presentation was not merely an effective but the only logical one. As prose, "Jonas Keene" is nothing but a rather dull statement. As poetry, it justifies itself-not only because it sharpens the lines to the reader but because it sharpened them for Mr. Masters.

As far as the present reviewer can see, Mr. Untermeyer has here virtually declared that the element of poetry is synonymous with mere typographical arrangement. With all due respect to Mr. Untermeyer, poetry is not the product of the composing-room. The element of poetry in Will Shakespeare and Walt Mason cannot be determined by any such method as Mr. Untermeyer has apparently accepted in his judgment of Masters. The present reviewer

would be very much more dissatisfied with the author of "The New Era in American Poetry" if he thought that Mr. Untermeyer really meant what his words, taken at their face value, seem to imply.

A review of this volume should not close without at least one more word of praise. Too much cannot be said for the skill which Mr. Untermeyer has shown in the generous selection of typical poems from the authors whom he discusses to illustrate the various phases of their work. He has created a critical anthology of great value.

THE NEW BOOKS

HISTORY, POLITICAL ECONOMY, AND POLITICS
Cubans of To-Day. Edited by William Bel-
mont Parker. Illustrated. G. P. Putnam's
Sons, New York.
Money and Prices. By J. Laurence Langhlin,
Ph.D. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
New Municipal Program (A). Edited by
Clinton Rogers Woodruff. (National Municipal
League Series.) D. Appleton & Co., New York.
Peace Congress of Intrigue (A). (Vienna,
1815.) Compiled by Frederick Freksa.
Translated by Harry Hansen. The Century
Company, New York.

The roots of the late war go back to the Congress of Vienna. There it was that Prussia laid the foundation for the military domination of Germany, that Poland knocked in vain for admittance, that the German Confederacy found no recognition for liberalism, that reaction in France was strengthened, and that the Hapsburgs obtained rule over Italy. The immense contrast between the two Congresses emphasizes the difference between government by arbitrary rule or by hereditary overlords and government by the people themselves. The Congress of a century ago was dominated by Alexander of Russia, who had dreamed of a League of Nations, but who had forgotten his dream. The Congress of to-day in its outcome will, we hope, be dominated by those who cannot forget such a dream. In the ultimate analysis, however, as the author of this valuable volume points out, both Congresses are based on force, but with this difference: at Vienna force was to serve the outworn institutions of the nobility and of divine right; now force is at last in the hands of men directly representative of the people. Prussian Political Philosophy. By Westel W. Willoughby. D. Appleton & Co., New York.

The Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins has been adviser to the Chinese Government, and is now about to become adviser to the Polish Government. In the present volume he contrasts American and Prussian political ideals. Here in America we regard the people as the constitutional source of all political authority: we believe in really representative government. In practice Prussia has denied such doctrines. Professor Willoughby outlines the Prussian political philosophy which defends the denial to the people of their right to control their own government and which calls on them to subordinate their individual judgments to their rulers' pronouncements. Among the many instrumentalities available to the Prussian Government for inculcating its political philosophy is the educational system, which, from the primary school to the university, is a state agency. The author emphasizes the army General Staff, which has been able to dic

tate state policies not only with reference to matters military but also with reference to foreign affairs. We thus see that the Government's military arm (whose only legitimate function should be to carry out the civil Government's policies) has, like Frankenstein's monster, become stronger than its creator. This valuable volume should have had an index.

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY History of Religions. By George Foot Moore, D.D., LL.D., Litt.D. International Theological Library. II-Judaism, Christianity, Mohammedanism. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

At this momentous turning-point in the world's history this account of three great missionary religions competing for world dominion is both timely and valuable. Cognate in origin, each believing in a divine revelation, in the creation of all things by a divine fiat, and in a way of salvation from divine wrath toward the ungodly, each claims to be the only way. Yet such fundamental affinities are offset by antipathies due to the individuality of each that they are mutually incompatible and hostile. Professor Moore fills up this outline by exhibiting in copious detail the historical development of each in ancient, medieval, and modern times. The religion he describes is that of intelligent and religious men. He finds and describes the same varieties in each of the three religions-sages, saints, scientists, hostile sects, mystics, Aristotelian philosophers, liberals and conservatives, reformers and pious persecutors. To know Christianity adequately one needs to know its competitors as here described.

Reunion in Eternity. By W. Robertson Nicoll.

The George H. Doran Company, New York. In this volume by the editor of the "British Weekly "the author hardly does justice to himself in the opening chapter in saying: "Depending entirely on the teaching of the New Testament, we propose to set down a few points which are generally admitted to be part of its unveiling." In point of fact, his quotations from the New Testament are slight, his quotations from other books abundant. In his second chapter, "Immortality without God," he quotes from such skeptical writers as Swinburne, Carlyle, and Buckle. His book is not so much an argument, either Scriptural or philosophical, for personal immortality as an interpretative account, with quotations, from a great variety of thinkers of different temperaments, of a world-wide faith in a personal immortality and its almost inevitable consequence, the immortality of love and the reunion of the loved ones in another life.

World's Debate (The). By William Barry.

The George H. Doran Company, New York. This English scholar and historian opposes "Catholic England to Heathen Prussia." He pays tribute to the work of the Roman Catholic Church. Himself an ardent Catholic, but having always lived in the company of men and women whose faith differed from his, what he says concerning the Catholic point of view in this war is worth heeding. He concludes that democracy and Christianity should recognize each other as by origin and spirit of the same nature. Both in style and in method of handling his subject he is original and forceful.

FICTION

Life at Stake (A). By Marcel Berger. Translated by Fitzwater Wray. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

A war story which describes realistically

and rather drearily the discomforts and unpleasing life of a French poilu who, after being wounded, is forced to serve in the "auxiliaries.' The thing is well done, but hardly seems worth doing.

Shadow of the Past (The). By F. E. Mills Young. The George H. Doran Company, New York.

Trail of the Beast (The). By Achmed Abdullah. The James A. McCann Company, New York.

A detective story. The action is in Paris, and the plot after the French type of which Gaboriau was the first exponent. But the "hero" is an American "sleuth." It is an exciting, dramatic tale. But we wish the author wouldn't begin sentences with "too"66 -as Too, he had an impulse," etc.

EDUCATIONAL

Colleges in War Time and After (The). By Parke Rexford Kolbe. Introduction by Philander P. Claxton. (Problems of War and Reconstruction.) Illustrated. D. Appleton & Co., New York.

Education by Violence. By Henry Seidel Canby, Ph.D. The Macmillan Company, New York.

German Conspiracy in American Education (The). By Gustavus Ohlinger. The George H. Doran Company, New York. This little volume contains interesting evidence concerning German educational propaganda in America before and during the war. The most curious circumstance revealed by the author is that some of the propagandists should actually have dreamed of cutting our National culture loose from its stem and grafting it on a German stem. Mr. Ohlinger warns against a renewal of attempts to introduce German into the grade schools. In The Outlook for February 26 mention was made of such an attempt in Missouri.

Our Winter Birds. How to Know and How to Attract Them. By Frank M. Chapman. Illustrated. D. Appleton & Co., New York.

WAR BOOKS

Dardanelles Campaign (The). By Henry W. Nevinson. Illustrated. Henry Holt & Co., New York.

As we have noted in connection with such books as Brand Whitlock's "Belgium" and Ambassador Morgenthau's book on Turkey, the most satisfactory treatment of the great war so far has been in separate books relating to single phases and countries rather than in general histories of the war. Mr. Nevinson's book will undoubtedly remain the most complete, probably the final, book on the British failure in the Gallipoli campaign. He speaks very frankly of the lack of sound planning, of the timorous yielding of experts who should have pointed out the dangers more positively; but he tells also of the marvelous heroism and intrepidity of the Australian and British troops who fought a losing fight on the peninsula. Padre in France (A). By George A. Birming

ham. The George H. Doran Company, New York.

Canon Hannay, whose Irish tales have delighted so many readers, now, still under his pseudonym, tells of his experiences as a British chaplain in Belgium and France. Sky Fighters of France: Aerial Warfare, 1914-1918. By Lieutenant Henry Farré. Translated by Catharine Rush. Illustrated. Houghton, Mifflin Company, Boston. This book will at once take its place as one of the handsomest books yet issued about the war. As recording the experiences of an artist, this is altogether fitting. The score or more of reproductions of the artist's paintings are matched in vividness by the accounts of air battles, mostly told in conversational style as the result of

talks and flights with the most famous "aces" during the memorable campaigns here described.

Social Studies of the War. By Elmer T. Clark. Illustrated. The George H. Doran Company, New York.

Trailing the Bolsheviki. By Carl W. Ackerman. Illustrated. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.

Mr. Ackerman is one of the best known and forceful of war correspondents. His present book has claim to attention, first, because it is a clear presentation of the conditions as he saw them in Siberia, and, secondly, because it is full of human interest and entertaining writing. The author traveled, he tells us, some twelve thousand miles with the Allies in Siberia. He stayed long enough in Omsk to record striking experiences with the refugees from Bolshevist cruelty and oppression who had been passing through that city literally by the millions.

Vagabonds of the Sea. The Campaign of a French Cruiser. By René Milan. Translated by Randolph Bourne. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York.

Victory Over Blindness. How It Was Won by the Men of St. Dunstan's and How Others May Win It. By Sir Arthur Pearson, Bart., G. B. E. Illustrated. The George H. Doran Company, New York.

BOOKS FOR YOUNG FOLKS

Stories of Great Adventures. (Adapted from the Classics.) By Carolyn Sherwin Bailey. Illustrated. For the Children's Hour Series. The Milton Bradley Company, Springfield. Woodcraft Boys at Sunset Island.

Bv

Lillian Elizabeth Roy and M. F. Hoisington. Illustrated. The George H. Doran Company, New York.

POETRY

By the Banks of Stillwater. By Paul Shivell. Vol. I. The Stillwater Press, Dayton, Ohio. There is an appealing simplicity about all of Mr. Shivell's poetry which inclines his critics and his readers to overlook his many technical limitations. Crude and uneven in form though they 'frequently are, many of his poems attain to a dignity of spirit and outlook which is not often found. His attitude towards his art and his manner of speaking are well described and illustrated in the first stanza of his "Summer and Submission," included in the present volume :

"Content to serve with my fellows,
One of an infinite throng,

I have not denied my soul the joy
Of fellowship in song,
But finding men preoccupied,

Have waited and labor'd apart,
In ignorance, but with gratitude

And the peace of God in my heart."
Mr. Shivell is a Wordsworthian both in
his virtues and his defects. As Edwin
Arlington Robinson has succinctly put it:

"Some of Wordsworth lumbers like a raft," and so does much of "By the Banks of Stillwater." But through halting lines and unpoetic phrases there shows the portrait of a devout and courageous spirit, content with life and rejoicing in all its labors. We wish that "By the Banks of Stillwater" had been edited as critically as the author's previous slender volume in Houghton Mifflin's "New Poetry Series." Perhaps, however, had this volume passed through such a winnowing it would have failed to present as complete and satisfying a picture of the man whose life it represents.

66

By the Banks of Stillwater" is the first of a series of three volumes, of which two are yet to appear. It is interesting to note that Mr. Shivell is his own typesetter and publisher. Typographically his volume is eminently well done.

[Those who are using the weekly outline should not attempt to cover the whole of an outline in any one lesson or study. Assign for one lesson selected questions, one or two propositions for discussion, and only such words as are found in the material assigned. Or distribute selected questions among different members of the class or group and have them report their findings to all when assembled. Then have all discuss the questions together.]

I-INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Topic: Shantung.
Reference: Pages 601-604.
Questions:

1. What is the story of Shantung as outlined by Mrs. Wright? 2. What, too, are some of China's objections to the Shantung arrangement as Mrs. Wright sees them? 3. Make as many comparisons as you can between the question of Shantung and that of Alsace-Lorraine. Give reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with Mrs. Wright's attitude on these questions. 4. What reasons does Mr. Wheeler give for upholding the decision of the Peace Conference about Shantung? 5. Which of these writers, in your opinion, has presented the Shantung question more convincingly? Reasons. 6. State and discuss your personal belief as to whether the Peace Conference should have given Japan a foothold in China. 7. The main fact is that Japan has been granted certain rights in China. How do you think this whole matter could be finally settled with as little national prejudice and hatred as possible? 8. What have you learned from Mrs. Wright and Mr. Wheeler about Japan and China and the people of these countries? 9. State and discuss four propositions found in or suggested by these articles. 10. Talk for five minutes on "The Future of Japan." 11. Two very valuable books to read on the Far Eastern situation are "The Far East Unveiled," by Frederic Coleman (Houghton Mifflin), and "The Mastery of the Far East," by A. J. Brown (Scribners).

II-NATIONAL AFFAIRS

A. Topic: Labor Troubles; The B. R. T.
Strike; The Shopmen's Strike; Presi-
dent Wilson and the Shopmen;
Strikes.
Reference: Pages 593, 594; 597-599.
Questions:

1. Make a summary of the causes of labor troubles as found in these references and list the results indicated. 2. Name the essential industries of our country. Would you favor a law making strikes in these industries a criminal offense? Discuss at length. 3. Explain the seriousness and the significance of "any action which brings the authority of authorized representatives into question or discredits it." Illustrate fully. 4. Make clear just what is meant by the factory system. Discuss its advantages. Has it any disadvantages? If so, name them. Do you think people generally would be more contented had it never been intro

duced? Reasons. 5. Some think trade unions and labor organizations are an industrial curse. What is your opinion of them? State your reasons. 6. Discuss the attitude you believe business corporations and private business men should hold toward wage-workers. 7. If you owned a business, would you be willing to share the profits with your employees and grant them a voice in the management of your business? Explain why or why not. 8. Write an editorial of about three hundred words on the relation of work and thrift and the present industrial situation. 9. Two suggestive books are struction," by Schafer and Cleveland Democracy in Recon(Houghton Mifflin), and "Industry and Trade," by Bishop and Keller (Ginn). B. Topic: Andrew Carnegie-WealthReference: Pages 596, 597. Maker, Knower of Men, Wealth-Giver.

Questions:

66

1. Give all the facts you can about the life and deeds of Andrew Carnegie. 2. How do you account for his success? Which had more to do with his success, Mr. Carnegie's personal qualifications or the industrial and social conditions of his time? Give reasons for your opinion. 3. Mr. Carnegie believed it a disgrace to die rich. Discuss whether it would be a good thing for America if the inheritance privilege should be entirely abolished. What are some of its evils? 4. James Russell Lowell believed that democracy was a form of society in which a man could climb "from a coal pit to the highest position for which he is fitted." Is the United States such a democracy? Discuss and illustrate. 5. What lessons do you see in the life of Andrew Carnegie?

C. Topic: Radicalism in the Making.
Reference: Pages 599, 600.
Questions:

1. What does Professor Davenport mean by "the movement towards agrarian radicalism" in the Northwest? How does he account for it? 2. Explain the trend of things that lead Senator Davenport to conclude that "there is need of a party of constructive liberalism." Do we need a new political party?

III-PROPOSITIONS FOR DISCUSSION (These propositions are suggested directly or indirectly by the subject-matter of The Outlook, but not discussed in it.)

1. Labor is never an economist. 2. The law of supply and demand is a thing of the past. 3. The workman should be considered a machine.

IV-VOCABULARY BUILDING

(All of the following words and expressions are found in The Outlook for August 20, 1919. Both before and after looking them up in the dictionary or elsewhere, give their meaning in your own words. The figures in parentheses refer to pages on which the words may be found.)

Venire, astute, virus, obtuse (600).

Copyright by Clinedinst, Wash.

ROOSEVELT'S

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"MARE NOSTRUM "

The publication recently in The Outlook of "The Hermit of Amerongen," by BlascoIbáñez, has suggested to me the propriety of some further notice of the distinguished Spanish author, in view of the fact that an English translation of his latest novel, "Mare Nostrum," is just appearing from the press.

The publication in America, last year, of the excellent translation by Mrs. Charlotte Brewster Jordan of the Spanish novel of Vicente Blasco-Ibáñez, entitled "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," is a curious illustration of the sudden leap into popularity which sometimes comes to a writer previously unknown in a foreign country, although widely known in his own. "I awoke one morning and found myself famous," said the author of "Childe Harold"-and Blasco-Ibáñez might well have said the same of his phenomenal suecess with American readers. For at the time of the publication of "The Four Horsemen" in this country he had already written many novels and was widely known and celebrated, not merely in Spain, but also throughout Europe; but, though many of his earlier works had already appeared here and in England, their translation seems to have attracted so little attention that it is safe to say that the author was practically unknown in this country until rediscovered by the translator of "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse." Very suddenly came the phenomenal success which has made the name of the author and his scholarly translator known throughout the land. This success has led the reading public to look with eagerness for the appearance of the author's latest work, "Mare Nostrum" (Our Sea), just published in an English translation, which keeps up the standard set in the earlier companion work.

"Mare Nostrum," like "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," has to do with the great world war which has just come to a close, but it deals with a different phase. In the other story the scene is on the land -in Argentina and on the great battlefield of the Marne. The new novel is concerned with the submarine activities of the Germans in the Mediterranean Sea, and at the same time with their elaborately organized spy system, in which feminine wiles play a prominent part-so much so that one is constantly reminded while following their criminal complications and intrigues of the French dictum, " Cherchez la femme."

But, apart from the interest of the story, with its incidents of plot and many scenes of thrilling adventure, there is much interest attaching to its framework and varied background. There are many vivid character portraits, many charming pictures of sea life with delightful presentation of the mythological divinities of the ocean; and not merely these, but also elaborate excursions among what I may call the fauna and flora that haunt its mysterious depths.

As regards the translation of his work into a foreign language, a great author must naturally feel some concern. A good English translation is not the easy work that some suppose it to be. Any tyro may dig out some kind of version by plodding over grammar and dictionary. But an author has a right to something more than a bald, literal, wooden translation. Each language has its own peculiar idioms which call for the highest skill in their rendition into another tongue.

Having read "The Four Horsemen " ir