Two Anthologies: Poetry and Fiction

178 Mr. Guerard, in seeking close examinations of individual novels — like those by Dorothy Van Ghent, Paterson, and Alvarez—has noted their paucity, one might say relative paucity. He appears to wish to avoid the "large essay in synthesis." One must recognize, of course, that Hardy's thought so links his work that the "large essay in synthesis" is particularly appropriate to studies of his work. Also, Mr. Guerard remarks that "Since 1940, criticism of Hardy the novelist has not been particularly active, partly because THE SOUTHERN REVIEW had covered so much ground, partly because Hardy does not lend himself to the methods of the new critics. . . ." Yet my own compilation of writings about Hardy, some 2,000 items and still in progress, shows a considerable increase of writings about Hardy the novelist after 1940, although, granted, mainly of the "large essays in synthesis" kind. Further, in more recent years, quite a few critics have turned to close examination of individual novels, especially of THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE and JUDE THE OBSCURE. Four of the thirteen articles Mr. Guerard elects to reprint are from THE SOUTHERN REVIEW Hardy Number of 1940 and two others are from D. H. Lawrence's PHOENIX (1936). The remaining articles are mainly dated in the 1950s; one is dated I96I. Curiously, the PMLA annual bibliography for I96I lists 18-20 items on Hardy, and the one for I960 lists about 24 items, many of them major examinations of individual novels. One could do better, I think, than Mr. Guerard's selection. Interestingly, Mr. Guerard writes that Hardy "stands massively between the talented but often compromising Victorian 'giants' and the meditative and austere Conrad." He thus, in a sense, seems to view Hardy as a "transitional" novelist and Conrad as among the "austere" moderns. We suggest that Charles Burkhart's "Conrad the Victorian," ELT, Vl: 1 (I963), 1-8, should provoke some discussion about such a comparison. Purdue University Helmut E. Gerber 5. Two Anthologies: Poetry and Fiction. CHIEF MODERN POETS OF ENGLAND AND AMERICA. Ed by Gerald DeWitt Sanders, John Hebert Neleon, and M. L, Rosenthal. [The British Poets, Vol I.] NY: Macmillan, 4th ed, 1962 [1st ed, 1929L MASTERS OF MODERN BRITISH FICTION. Ed by George Wickes. NY: Macmillan, I963. Both volumes are of special interest to readers of ELT because of the significant amount of space given to ELT authors. Twenty-three authors are represented in the poetry volume, eleven of them now on the revised list of ELT authors or candidates for early inclusion. Hardy is represented by about 50 selections (40 pages), Hopkins by I9 (17 pages), Bridges by 20 (13 pages), A. E. Housman by 25 (14 pages), De La Mare by 26 (15 pages), Masefield by 11 (19 pages), Lawrence by 28 (32 pages), and so on, with significant representation of James Stephens, Sigfried Sassoon, Edwin Muir, and Wilfred Owen, among those particularly active during the ELT period. The selections include not only frequently anthologized ones, but many items not commonly included in textbooks. Mr. Wickes' volume of fiction is interesting partly because one of its subsections gives particular attention to the Edwardians, Conrad, Wells, Bennett, Galsworthy, and Norman Douglas. Among the four authors listed under the heading "Revolt and Experiment," Wickes includes Ford and Lawrence, and among the four 179 authors under the heading "Postwar" he includes Forster and Mansfield. Thus, out of 29 authors included, we can count 9 ELT authors. One might question Mr. Wickes' use of the word "fiction" in his title, for it is misleading. The selections are largely passages from novels, autobiographies, miscellaneous essays and books like THE HILL OF DEVI and TWILIGHT IN ITALY, theoretical statements on fiction like the section from THUS TO REVISIT, Forster's W. P. Ker Lecture on English prose, and so on. I, for one, am not entirely convinced of the usefulness of chapters and parts of chapters from works of fiction in such a book as this. Discussion of a single chapter in a novel, unless students have read the entire novel, does not seem very fruitful to me. Purdue University Helmut E. Gerber Orlando Park. SHERLOCK HOLMES, ESQ. AND JOHN H. WATSON, M.D.: AN...