Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
History
Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922
Lovecraft, H. P. (Howard Phillips)
Essays; Literature -- History and criticism; Periodicals
concise exposition of the United's new ideals, and its masterly
refutation of the common fallacy that political quarrels are necessary
to stimulate activity in the press associations.
_The Looking Glass_ for May is a journal unique in purpose and quality.
Edited by Mrs. Renshaw in behalf of her many gifted recruits, it reveals
a condition absolutely unexampled; the acquisition by one member of so
many high-grade novices that a special publication is required properly
to introduce them to the United. "To a Critic of Shelley," by Helen H.
Salls, is a long piece of beautiful blank verse, marred only by one
accidental rhyme. Miss Salls is evidently one of those few really
powerful poets who come all too seldom into Amateur Journalism,
startling the Association with impeccable harmony and exalted images.
The present poem grows even more attractive on analysis. The diction is
of phenomenal purity and wholly unspoiled by any ultra-modern touch. It
might have been a product of Shelley's own age. The metaphor is
marvellous, exhibiting a soul overflowing with true spirituality, and a
mind trained to express beautiful thought in language of corresponding
beauty. Such unforced ornateness is rarely met in the domain of amateur
poetry. We feel certain that Miss Salls has already become a fixed star
in the empyrean of the United. Exalted poetry of quite another type is
furnished by the work of our new Director, Rev. Frederick Chenault,
whose two exquisite lyrics, "Birth" and "The Sea of Somewhere," appear
in this issue. With little use of formal rhyme and metre, Mr. Chenault
abounds in delicate conceptions and artistic renditions.
"Retrospection," by Kathleen Baldwin, is likewise a poem of high order,
and of fairly regular metre, evidently following comparatively recent
models in technique. "The Faithful Man," by I. T. Valentine, shows
growing poetical talent, but is cruelly injured by the anticlimactic
line. Not that there is any anticlimax of sentiment, but the colloquial
mode of expression shocks the reader who has been perusing the more
dignified lines which go before. "The Stonework of Life" is an excellent
prose sermon by Joseph Ernest Shufelt, which displays great ability in
the field of metaphor and allegory. Mr. Shufelt possesses an admirable
style, unusually well fitted for didactic matter of this sort; indeed,
it is regrettable that he should ever depart from such congenial themes
and turn to the wild sensationalism which he shows in _The Badger_. In
demonstrating the beauties of morality and religion, he has few
superiors, and a task so appropriate to his genius ought to claim his
whole attention. True, his thoughts may follow strange courses in their
quest for truth and beauty, but were he always to curb them within the
bounds of probability and conservatism, as here, he would never lose the
confidence of his public, as he has done with his strange war theories.
"The Autocracy of Art," by Anne Vyne Tillery Renshaw, is the leading
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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