Five Hundred Years of Chaucer Criticism and Allusion, 1357-1900, by Caroline F. E. Spurgeon. Three volumes. Cambridge: The University Press. [Prince Mirsky in the London Mercury] MISS SPURGEON's book, which was originally printed for private circulation to members of the Chaucer Society, is a valuable contribution, not only to the study of Chaucer, but to the history of literary criticism. It is an anthology of, I think, a quite novel type, and gives ample matter for meditation on this, latterly so greatly overgrown, branch of literature. The general impression is, perhaps, and Miss Spurgeon is herself of the opinion, that considerable progress has been made in the last century. But, after all, was the progress as real as it seems, and was not W. P. Ker almost right when he hinted that we have gone no further than Dryden? The book, anyhow, is delightful and often quite amusing reading. Miss Spurgeon in her introduction is rather hard on those of the earlier critics who did not give Chaucer his due. She even advances the dangerous opinion that Matthew Arnold was the last remnant of the 'uncritical' age when he denied Chaucer the 'high seriousness' of Dante. Was De Quincey so very much more 'critical' when he thought Chaucer 'worth five hundred of Homer'? Or Blake when he said, 'Nor can a child be born who is not one of these characters of Chaucer'? Or Ruskin when he singled out Chaucer, together with Moses, David, Hesiod, Vergil, Dante, and Saint John, as 'one of the men who have taught the purest theological truth'? Personally I liked this last quotation better than any other in the book. To be sure, the nineteenth was, at times, an imaginative rather than a critical century! Tōjūrō's Love, and Four Other Plays, by Kikuchi Kwan. Translated from the Japanese by Glenn W. Shaw. Tokyo: The Hokuseido. [Times Literary Supplement] THE author of these plays is reputed to be the foremost of the younger Japanese writers. Most of his work consists of novels and short stories, but he has shown a growing inclination toward the drama. It is not easy to decide his merits as a dramatist on the strength of the present volume. The five plays it contains have themes that are common enough to the traditional drama of Japan, but the dramatist's method suggests a more than passing acquaintance with Western models. To what extent this impression is owing to the translator, whose English is highly idiomatic and sometimes a little slangy, we do not know. Certainly the dialogue has a kind of European naturalness which, if it existed at all, in the Japanese theatre would be something of a rarity. The first of the plays in the volume, which is easily the best of them, is apparently one of the most popular on the Japanese stage to-day. It is a dramatization of one of the author's own prose tales, dealing with an imaginary incident in the life of Sakata Tōjūrō, a famous actor of the early years of the Genroku Period, who tried to introduce naturalism into the art of acting. In the play we are shown Tōjūro's consternation at having to play the part of a ‘paramour' in a new piece. Although a great rake and fully experienced in the ways of loose women, he has never yet made love to another man's wife. In order to acquire the knowledge necessary to the playing of his part he pretends to be enamored of Okaji, the wife of the manager of the theatre. Deceived by his histrionic experiment, she first pities and then requites his seeming passion. Tōjūrō gives a highly realistic and successful performance of his part, and Okaji, realizing the deception, commits suicide. The action of the play is very smooth; there is hardly an unnecessary word in the three scenes. No unusual depth of insight is revealed, but the dramatist clearly possesses an unusual power of characterization and a keen eye for the dramatic situation. One is intrigued by the references to Japanese morals and ideals in the plays, but it is difficult to get into contact with their artistic motive. That the dramatist is continually being reproached for both an absence of conviction and financial success is, perhaps, an illustration of the tact with which he pursues what is in Japan a fairly unpopular calling. BOOKS MENTIONED WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM. The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet's Mind. Edited from the manuscripts, with introduction, textual and critical notes, by Ernest de Selincourt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926. 258. OUR OWN BOOKSHELF Twenty-Five: Being a Young Man's Candid Recollections of His Elders and Betters, by Beverley Nichols. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1926. $2.50. BEVERLEY NICHOLS is the sort of terribly clever young Englishman who says, "Twenty-five seems to me the latest age at which anybody should write an autobiography.' Evidently he does not believe it is the earliest, for his previous works are entitled, Prelude, Patchwork, and Self. The first of these a novel in which he faithfully reproduced all his boy friends at Oxford-made quite a stir and enjoyed quite a sale among the abovementioned boy friends. His latest volume tells us, in an inimitable style that is all its own, how the author came to the States on one of those numberless British-propaganda invasions to which we were subject during the late war. He then moves to Oxford, where he was President of the Union, and in that capacity entertained Winston Churchill and Horatio Bottomley. He has also visited the Balkans, where he talked to the Queen of Greece and Compton Mackenzie. He seems to have come to a temporary stop in London, where he sees a lot of charming people who write. Every line of the book is excessively British and tiresomely knowing. We are, for instance, assured that neither Rudolph Valentino nor Nicholas Murray Butler is an intellectual giant. As might be expected of one who labors over so trite a matter, we are also informed that Noel Coward and Michael Arlen are splendid fellows, not so much on account of the marvelous stuff they have written, as because they were both condemned to whole weeks of hard work before they at last won through to success. Unless the faintly patronizing air, from which even so well-intentioned a Britisher as Mr. Nichols cannot quite escape, grates on delicate American sensibilities, the book should enjoy a good sale, for it presents many of the flashier figures of the day in the sophisticated luxury to which they are accustomed. Mape, the World of Illusion, by André Maurois. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1926. $2.50. MAPE is the name that a little girl once made up for that country of the imagination to which most children, some grown-ups, and all artists, now and then repair. Goethe, or rather Werther, lived in it the whole time, and the first sketch in this book tells of the young poet's ridiculous affair with Fräulein Charlotte Buff. It is related with all the unctuousness of a Frenchman gloating over the failure of a German Don Juan. The second sketch, occupying the second third of the volume, is more in the nature of a story, the point of which is summed up in Oscar Wilde's epigram, 'Life imitates Art much more than Art imitates Life.' It tells of a young man who tries to measure up in real life to one of Balzac's characters. The third Mapian is neither a reader nor a writer, but an actress the renowned Mrs. Siddons, of whose dramatic ability Mr. Maurois has no very high opinion. Here he is in more of an E. Barrington historical romance mood and less in the Stracheyesque vein of Ariel. The latest Maurois book, not yet translated into English, is a novel, and we are inclined to place Mape halfway between the author's biographical writings and his new imaginative work. One can hardly call his war books pure fiction, but here we see further evidences, beyond anything that he has yet revealed, of humor, insight, and above all of imagination, that may foretell still more brilliant triumphs to come. A History of English Literature. Vol. I: The Middle Ages and the Renascence, by Emile Legouis. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926. $3.75. ONE could count on the fingers of one hand the histories of literature that have themselves been first-rate books, but one would certainly have to include - and not on one's thumb! - Taine's history of English literature as perhaps the greatest of all. M. Legouis is one of several living Frenchmen who have inherited Taine's interest in that literature, and have gone beyond him, in many cases, in knowledge. Few English scholars know the period covered by this volume better than M. Legouis knows it, and this, together with his detachment as a foreigner, gives him a claim on every student's attention. His book is a little dull, if the truth must be told, and perhaps as much because of the inclusion of historical, bibliographical, and biographical material as for any other reason. But every student of English literature will be interested in his accounts of such first-rate figures as Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. A Costly House -or a Good One? This is the difference that The House Beautiful Building Annual will mean to you. It will show you just how substantial, and comfortable, and easyto-run your home can be. It contains all the information you will need to make sure of Sound Construction Good Work- Do These Things Have To Be? you have probably asked yourself of the smoky fireplace, the bothersome rainspouts, the shabby floors, and other discouragements that mark the carelessly built house. Indeed they do not. The Building Annual offers you every secret of a house that will run year after year not only economically, but supremely well. The Homebuilding Story from A to Z Loans, bids, contracts, payments, your relations with architect and The Atlantic Monthly Co., 8 Arlington St., Boston, Mass. Gentlemen: I enclose $2.00 OR I will pay the postman $2.00 plus delivery charges for a copy of the House Beautiful Building Annual. Name. Address L.A. 6-26-26 STUDY SUGGESTIONS FOR THE CLASS-ROOM April 3, 1926 THE GIST OF LOCARNO. What are the defects of the Locarno Treaty as an instrument of peace in Europe? Define the special nature of its contribution. Has the author of this article a peculiar authority in international affairs? Summarize what you know of his career. THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN FRANCE. Comment on the author's criticism of French Parliamentary manners. How does he account for the shortcomings of the average Frenchman as a citizen of a modern democratic state? Re-state his objections to a dictatorship. ECONOMIC READJUSTMENT. Why is the restoration of the goldstandard in England not responsible for her business depression? Summarize the author's criticism of the unemployment dole. What important facts must be chiefly considered in the problem of economic reconstruction? DIPLOMACY-A JAPANESE OPINION. Explain the effect of democratic institutions on diplomatic methods. Do you agree with the author that democracy is consistent with international security? Explain: (1) 'Louis Napoleon's Mexican expedition or his Prussian war'; (2) 'the opium war in China'; (3) 'the last South African war.' THE JAPANESE DRAMA. Name and define the four types of Japanese literary drama. Can you compare any of these plays with European types? What is the present state of the Japanese theatre? The purpose of these suggestions is not only to assist the teacher in adapting the Living Age to the class-room, they are also intended to show our more casual readers how readily the magazine lends itself to a systematic study of the world we live in. Dept. 5. J The Atlantic Monthly Company takes pleasure in announcing the spring publication of the first two volumes of These are the initial volumes in a series of five Readers (for Grades IV to VIII inclusive), the outgrowth of Dr. Condon's profound personal conviction that "soul culture is the most important and most necessary phase of education, and that social and civic ideals and the development of personal character are the things of greatest concern." Designed primarily as basal texts, these books are filled with material of ethical importance, not only for the classroom but for the home. Yet in the whole series there is no touch of didacticism or of self-consciousness. The books are full of the natural interests of developing childhood, of freshness and enthusiasm. Early in his year with the Atlantic staff, Dr. Condon sought advice in this vital enterprise from thousands of teachers, librarians, and men and women in other professions and occupations, representing a great cross-section of American life at its best. We feel confident that the outcome will meet with a significant and widespread response in the educational world. THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY |