Richard Le Gallienne: A Bibliography of Writings About Him

Ill RICHARD LE GALLIENNE» A Bibliography of Writings About Him By Wendell Harris and Rebecca Larsen (Northern Illinois University and St. Louis Park, Minnesota) This bibliography includes all the substantive treatments of and references to Le Gallienne's works in books and periodicals of which we are aware together with selected newspaper reviews. It does not include brief obituary notices. Addleshaw, Percy. "Robert Louis Stevenson» An Elegy and Other Poems," ACADEMY, XLVII (June I895), 519-20. Le G is better as a prose writer than a poet» although he has written a number of good poems, his carelessness, lapses in taste, and failure to suppress his inferior work produce irritatingly uneven poems and collections of poems. "It is curious how he continually ignores the fitness of things» he possesses none of that intuitive certainty that compels a man to say the right thing at the right moment." Archer, William. "Richard Le Gallienne," POETS OF THE YOUNGER GENERATION (Lond & NY« John Lane, 1902), pp. 251-61. "There is such a thing as looking a poet too well» and Mr. Le Gallienne's eminently poetical exterior, taken along with his liquid and exotic name, have done some injustic to his real talent." [Comments approvingly on English Poems (especially "Paola and Francesca," "A Lost Hour," "What of the Darkness"), Robert Louis Stevenson (especially "Ballad of London," "If, After All," and portions of Le G's Rubâivat).! "Neither his culture nor (perhaps) his character fits him for the very highest flights. But he has said some things finely, and many things beautifully, ..." B., L, "Shorter Notices," FREEMAN, II (Oct 1920), I65. The Junk Man is a "mere shell of poetry - the forms without the feeling ." Le G doesn't merit Howells' comparison with Keats. The rhymes are monotonous and the poetic figures familiar. The volume resembles a market product. B., W,S. "Richard Le Gallienne« A Collection of Poems Rich in Their Gift of Beauty," BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT, 11 March 1914, p. 25. Le G's last volume was disappointing, but his youth, poetic experience and power come rippling forth in The Lonely Dancer. The volume is "so rich a gift of beauty ... as in all perfected dreams of art, that criticism becomes a profanation in handling it." "To a Bird at Dawn" must have touched the spirit of Keats. The volume is full with the bloom of lyric genius. Ballou, Jenny. "Gallic Romance," NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE BOOKS, 12 June 1938, p. 12, Not for the sophisticated, From a_ Paris Scrapbook is for the "innocents abroad.""Le G's Nostalgic 112 aim is to refresh the historic memory. The volume could be supplementary reading for students of French history. When Le G ventures to discuss the "acute, living present . . . it is with a pique unworthy of the poet." Bickley, Francis. "The Day Before Yesterday," BOOKMAN (Lond), XLIX (Dec I915), 94-95. [A review of Vanishing Roads with mild praise.] Le G has not deserted the point of view of those who were young in the 1890*s for the bleaker attitudes of 1915. "The Book Bills of Narcissus." NATION (Lond), LIV (March I892), 217. |_Mild praise of Book Bills as giving a somewhat entertaining insight into the "modern" youth of the time.] "Books and Authors." OUTLOOK (NY), LIV (July I896), 162. [An approving review of Retrospective Reviews.! Le G seems to have read what he criticizes, and his remarks are "penetrating and just." Braithwaite, W. C, "The Felicity of Richard Le Gallienne» A Book of Poems which Reveals Him as a Sorcerer Playing with Life and Himself a Willing Victim," BOSTON EVENING TRANSCRIPT , 6 Nov I920, Sec. 4, p, 5· Le G was never more youthful than in The Junk Man. The "Ballads of Unchanging Beauty" proves that he has "recaptured the song of the lark. . . with an eye for illusions that any lover might envy." Le G's ballads are exquisitely done and have the romantic artifice of the Gallic balladist. "The Eternal Way" has a force of temper and glow in it. Brawley, Benjamin. "Richard Le Gallienne and the Tradition of Beauty," SEWANEE REVIEW, XXVI (Jan I9I8), 47-62. [Gives high praise to Le G's poetry and prose, especially the...