Spitzer. a New Synthetic Treatment of Contemporary Western Lyricism

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A New Synthetic Treatment of Contemporary Western LyricismAuthor(s): Leo SpitzerSource: Modern Language Notes, Vol. 72, No. 7 (Nov., 1957), pp. 523-537Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3043523 .Accessed: 20/11/2014 10:11

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total eradication) of emotions, e miiay ell lhaveborrowed t fromlPiccolomini,who expresses he same concept. The same may be saidof Luzan's interpretation f the actualization f catharsis by way ofblabituation ndl xample. Finally, n his attemipt o extend he genusof tragedy o include fictional lots, Luzaindeviseswhat he thinks san original hreefold lassification f tragedy, hich n reality s merelya borrowing rom Piccolomini.

Pennsylvania State University FLORINDO V. CERRETA

A New Synthetic reatmentof Contemporary Western Lyricism

Hugo Friedrich's new book,Die Struktur er modernten yrik vonBaudelaxire is zur Gegenwart,1 s intended s one link in a chain ofpublications f "Rowohlts Deutsche Enzyklopadie," estined o en-lighten hegeneral German ublicabout the present tatus of research

in the different ields of scholarship. While easily readable for apublic of high intellectual apacities, t represents lso a scholarlyachievement n its ownright, s wemigbt haveexpected t from HugoFriedrich wbo, now that death has laimed Ernst Robert Curtius, sunquestionably hegreatest erman iterary ritic n Romance. Havingbegunwith comparative tudy Abbe Prevost n Deutschland, 929),he conquered ne Romance iterature fter the other, writing boutaniti-romantic hought n France (1.935),Descartes 1937), Stendhal,Balzac and

Flaubert (1939), later branching ut into Italian (DieRechtsmetaphysile er Gittlichen Komi6die,1941) and then intoSpanish literature Der frem)zdealderon, 1955). His great masterwork s his Mlontaigne1949) which eemsto me the most ntelligentcomprehensive ppraisal of thcat lusivephilosopher hich know.

At the end of a slhort ita appenided othe present olume, rofessorFriedrich characterizes is whole activity s showing predilectionfor unsentimental oets and aversion against the method calledErlebnis und Dichtung. The same sympathy nd the same aversionlhavenspired heauthor n this book. WVhoevers awareof the dangersof emotionalism nd intuitionism orGerman iterary cholarship ill

I (HTamburg, Rowohlt, 1956), 214 pp.

VOL. IXXII, INovember 1957 523

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appreciate he work of a scholar who, by his choiceboth of subjectmatter nd method, hows deep affinity ith the intellectualism fRomance iterature nd Romance iterary riticism. A book of Fried-

rich's is always distinguished y clear concepts, legant definitions,serene udgment nd terse, unemotionalwriting. He showssimilarequipoise n the skilful dosageof the historical nd the descriptiveapproach: in his Montaigne, or nstance, ll the possible sources'usedby the essayist re duly displayed nd gauged,but the protagonistof the bookremains Montaigne n his uniqueness. This tendency asled to serious disagreement ith Curtius whose nclination, rowingwith the years, oward dissolving he great iterary igures y whatFriedrich alls " Kontinuitatsdenken met with his strong pposition.

The title of the bookunder discussion irst illedme with misgivings:given the manifold narchic endencies f modern yricism, ould itbe possiblefor a critic o succeed n the attempt o master he chaosandto discover hat ntellectual nity mplied y heterm structure ?But in fact, Friedrich's work splendidly ulfills he promise of histitle. Indeed, undisturbed y abels such as Expressionism, adaism,Futurism, Unanimism, Hermetism, urrealism, tc., Friedrich con-vincingly hows, s only a literary istorian f his width of horizoncould have done, a relative unity n all these movements-a unitywhich can be traced back to only one particular period and countryin which the archetype f contemporary yrics first ppeared. ThusFriedrich has done for European poetry omething imilar to whatwas achievedby Diez for the Romance anguages: the reconstruction,on the basis of a comparative tudy of the existing ariants, f theirhistorical rchetype only here the archetype an be grasped moreeasily because, contrary o Vulgar Latin, it exists n the clear lightof history) whose milieu Friedrich defines s the late nineteenthcentury n France. Thus it was France that n the nineteenth enturyestablished, o to speak, he lyrical mother onguefor Europe just asit hadprovided he " epictongue par excellence n the twelfth entury.It would be possible o reword famous dage by saying (au XIXesiecle) le FranSais a la tete yrique. Such a discoverywill displeasethe chauvinist itterateurs n certain ountries, specially he Spaniardswho, ccording o Friedrich, re only ooready o assert heir national

independence or dependence nly on the Spaniard Gongora). ButFriedrich has shown beyond oubt that the triangleMallarm6

Baudelair e < mb dRimbaud

524 Modern angiuage otes



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in nuce contains ll subsequent iscoveries nd experiments s theyappear n the twentieth-century oetry f England (America), Spain,Italy, G-ermany.

Friedrich's method onsists n working, s it were, from oth endstoward he middle; thus he will, in the chapters n the three greatFrenchmen, nticipate he developments hat they have nitiated whilein the crowning hapter n twentieth-century estern yricism akenas a whole, he reminds s of what it owesto that French ancestry.As for he antecedents f Baudelaire, Rousseau,Diderot, Novalis,andother omantics re treated n an introductory hapter, whereas aude-laire's ndebtedness o Poe is woven nto the chapter bout the former.Since Friedrich xcludes rom is book ll poetry hat s not " modernin his sense (that is poetry sking for the consensus f the reader,a Goethean r Hugoesque tradition which survives n Germany, orinstance, n George, ofmannsthal and the early Rilke, in Italy inthe oratory f D'Annunzio), Baudelaire comes to a position, om-parable othat of Goethe n his time, s the nitiator f all " modernlyrics and this erm ncludes contemporary lyrics), he parallelismwith Flaubert's nfluence n European prose fiction eing duly noted.The stupide XIXe siecleproves fter ll not to have been as " stupidas its amateurish etractors ished t to be: this s one of the nsightsonegains from riedrich's ook. From Baudelaire s a starting oint,there branch off hen two main directions mbodied n Mallarme ndRimbaud, he one the form-respecting estroyer f the things of theoutwardworld which he replacesby attractions, ontrasts, ensions),the other the form-destroying estroyer f all aggregates f things(whodelights n " sensuous rrealism ), both having n common, itheach other nd with heir ncestor, he profound atred gainst hings-as-they-are nd things-as-they-are-commonly-represented-a eflectionof the solation f the poet n the midst of eveling political, echnical,and rationalizing rocesses n the society round him. The poets oftodaywhogenerally, nd often o a higher egree, hare this ituation,and the attitude oward t, with their predecessors all into the twomain categories f Mallarmeism r Rimbaudism. Also in modern rt,whoseconnectionswith modern poetry Friedrich onsistently ointsout, wewitness he sametwomain tendencies hichhavebeen defined

by Kandinsky s the triving oward the great bstraction and " thegreat reality." Professor riedrich has found n ingenious device norder o make the reader grasp the basic unity between he " Frenchtriangle" and contemporary yricism: he offers n each of the three

vo I.XX[, November 19J7 . 525



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all the poets are based on the original texts (gelnerally ccompaniedby translations) which are found either n the text of the authoror in an appendix. The last two lines of the work reveal Fried-rich's general attitude toward modern yrics: " One may love itor reject t, but this must be a love or a rejection ased on an intel-lectual act " (Erkennen). Mr. Friedrich has erkcannt odern yricsand has in the end not come out with a rejection, n attitude o behighly praised f we remeember is statement t the beginning f hisbook that he is no " avant-guardist y principle and feels " more thome" with Goethe than with T. S. Eliot. It was then not withemotional ias, but with ntellectual mpathy hat he has been ableto study with o much ove and labor those phenomenawhich t firstsight re the most disconcertilnghat poetry as ever produced. Whenfaced with so unprejudiced his-torical reatment f contemporarysubject matter, we cannot withhold from the author our deep-feltlhomage. He may serve s an example of " personal ulture withoutresentments," specially o us in this country where so often feelthat scholars tudy, or example, he medieval iterature ecause theylike its theocratic hought nd dislike the free-thinking ide of theRenaissance r, conversely, tudy Renaissance iterature ecausetheydislikemedieval heocracy, eing n other words, ot equipped o studyboth the Middle Agesand the Renaissance ecauseof somefanaticism(pro or con) lurking ehind heir cholarly ndeavors.

Very helpful ndexes particularly most welcome ndex of subjectmatter which ometimes uggests o us new rapprochements), biblio-graphy reduced o the most essenitial ata and a chronological able(with such witty uxtapositions s: " 1885 Death of Victor Hugo inParis "-" 1885 birth of Ezra Pound in Haily, U. S. A.," or " 1926

Rilke's death n Val-Mont, witzerland -" 1927T. S. Eliot becomesan English citizen ) conclude the volume, o slight n appearance,so strong n impact.

This does however ot mply hat the work s beyond riticism. Asto material ncluded, n Anglo-Saxon ublicwill be surprised o findmissing uch great names as G. M. Hopkins (with his " realism ofdisrealization ) or Walt Whitman the discoverer f what I calledin a book mentioned n Friedrich's bibliography chaotic enumera-

tion ). Furthermore, mong the ancestors f " sensuous rrealismsurely Rabelais, Quevedo and Gracian would have deserved n out-standing place. It is also regrettable hat, for reasonsprobably on-nected with publisher's conomies, ot all the poems commented n

VOL. LXXII, November 1957 527



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in detail can be read in the appendix and, conversely, hat not allthe poems printed n the appendix have been commented pon inthe text and also that no poem of the ate Rilke has been analyzed).

A more essential weakness of our book is due to the occasionalinability f the author, s of so many iterary ritics ndowedwith akeen sense for inguistic nnovation, o present his pertinent bserva-tions within he proper inguistic ramework. or example, riedrichinfers p. 129) from he final ine of Gottfried enn's poem "Welleder Nacht ": " die weisse Perle rollt zuruick ns Meer that since nopearl had been mentioned efore, ather general movement f rolling,the definite rticle s meant to be " a phonetic ign of the absolutemovement" of the rolling back) and to give this "determinant" an" indeterminate," mysterious onnotation. But if we consider thewhole tanza:

Welle der Nacht-, zwei Muscheln miterkoren,die Fluten str6men sie, die Felsen her,dann Diadem und Purpur mitverloren,die weisse Perle rollt zuruick ns Meer,

we see the forward olling movement " miterkoren ) embodied ntwo (worthless) hells,while we lose to the receding waves" diademand purple as well as " the white pearl -the idea obviously einothat the wave takes back much more than it brings to the shore.' Diadem and purple are the insignia of past grandeur (of theIstrian palace now vacant, mentioned n stanza 1-the whole poem scentered n the wave-like assing of majesty)-a grandeur limaxedby the final mention f the white pearl. " Diadem and purple arein this context s unexpected or mysterious) s the pearl. Thedefinite rticle hat accompanies he atter, ust as in expressions ike'the best, the top,' may thus be considered s the article of superla-tivity the final position of the pearl also serves he visual effect fwhiteness n the night).

In the poem " Genazzano by M.-L. Kaschnitz:Genazzano am AbendWinterlichGliisernes KlappernDer Eselshufe

5 Steilauf die Bergstadt.Hier stand ich am BrunnenHier wusch ich mein BrauthemdHier wusch ich mein TotenhemdMein Gesicht lag weiss

528 Modern Language Notes



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10 Unterm schwarzen WasserIm wehenden Laub der Platanen.Meine Hiinde waren zwei Klumpen EisFiinf Zapfen an jeder

Die klirrten

Friedrich inds hat while the first ive ines with their nominal en-tences contain " something ike a real event in "empirical time"the following erbs, n the preterite, ender unreal, dreamlike ventsand since ome of these re future vents he preterite ecomesn trutha " supratemporal ense that gnores he" Zeitstufen." This analysisleaves out line 6 which hows preterite xpressing real event nd,in its pivotal role, must nfluence ur understanding f the meaningboth of what precedes nd of what follows t: by the preterite ierstand ch weunderstand etroactively hat the upwardmovement hichlhas ome to an end in line 6 (Klappern der Eselshufe teilauf . .)must have been nmeant o be in the preterite = die Eselshufe klap-perten teilauf . .). Again, line 6 ushers n also the vision whichhas for he poet he amereality therefore hepreterite) s the factualstanding t the well (witness he anaphora hier that similarly ridgesthe gap between eality nd dream). The following reterites o notinclude a future of planned suicide) nor are they meant "supra-temporally," ut they ndicate a past that was lived through n thedream. The effect f the poemresides n the gradual passagefromreality hat ncludes old of winter nd glasslike latter o a visionofdeath hat contains imilar lements: old and clattering ce. Betweenthese two states tands he well, the end of the ourney n reality, hepotentiality f death n the dream. Death moves nto reality mper-ceptibly r magically-and the uninterrupted reterites ender pre-cisely hisgradual nvasion.

At times Friedrich may stress linguistic oint overly much whileomitting ne a linguist would find all-important. n Benn's poem"Bilder," according oFriedrich, he articulation chieved s due, notto syntax, ut to variation f emphasis r tone: he s led to the negativepart of his statement y what he calls the "veiled" character f thehypothetic eriod. But in reality he period that takes up the wholepoem s most learly rticulated y yntactic means: the thrice epeatedsiehst du . . . (11. 1, 13, 15) is as clearly hypothetic lause as thedu siehst s a clear apodosis, or the feeling f a German, nd the useof the same word material, iehst du-du siehst, ather nhances he




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stringency f the conclusion rawn (cf. the even more dentical ndtherefore ven more conclusive wording n Chamisso: "Dut fragestnach den Riesen, du /indest ie nicht mehr"). In contrast o his

overemphasis n the hypothetic eriod, Friedrich ays nothing f theextraordinary yntactical actthat n the ist of the features f old age(depicted in modern paintings) two are clearcut nominatives, otaccusatives s the verb iehstdu would normally equire t: ... kcasigerBart . . . ein Lebensabend . . : it is as though the ugly thingspainted mancipated hemselves rom he syntactic exture, chievinga kind of destructive utonomy s they ften ppear to the bewilderedbeholders of modern paintings, while, on the contrary, he firmlyorganized eriod iehst du-du siehst presents framework syntacti-cal, as wellas mental) by which rder in this case the correct valua-tion of pictures, owever gly, as works of the "great genius") isre-established.

Mr. Friedrich eems t times fascinated y the boundless oweroflanguage as such (if I may thus translate his term " eigenmachtigeSprache"): often, e claims, the modern yrical poet is " alonewithhis anguage," nd allows t to go where t wishes, efying ny rationalinterpretation. or example, n Ungaretti's oemL'Isola:

A una proda ove sera era perenneDi anziane selve assorte, scese,E, s'inoltrbE lo richiam6 rumore di penneCh'erasi sciolto dallo striduloBatticuore dell' acqua torrida.B una larva (languivaE rifioriva) vide;Ritornato a salire vide

Ch'era una ninfa e dormivaRitta abbracciata a un olmo.In se da simulacro a fiamma veraErrando, giunse a un prato oveL'ombra negli occhi s'addensavaDelle vergini comeSera appi?e degli ulivi;Distillavano i ramiUna pioggia pigra di dardi,Qua pecore s'erano appisolate

Sotto il liscio tepore,Altre brucavanoLa coltre luminosa;Le mani del pastore erano Un vetroLevigato di fioca febbre

530 JModern Language lVotes



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the final "metaphoric dissonance" (hands like glass), coming s aclimaxafter o many " hermetic features uch as the pronoun he,'an " indetermninate eterminant," nd statements voking ather lines

of movement (arrival, encounter, est) than pastoral things andbeings island, woods,nymph, hepherd, heep), points to a level of" eigenmachtige prache." Here, it seems to me, the literary ritic,more overawed y the mystery f language than a linguist wouldbe,has abdicated oo early nd concedes oomuch omeaningless anguage.The 'he,' a generic ronoun erving s an " exemplifying device ustas much as, in all lyrical poetry hrough he ages, an ' I ' or ' you'would do, is shown n the beginning f our poem engaged n a move-ment downward to the shore of the island and to ancient forestslocated n the shore) whenhe is calledbackto the heights lo richiamo

'called him back,'not attracted im'; ritornato salire he turnedagainto the ascent )-and there, roceeding rom appearances (theghost whobecomes nymph) to the " true flame," e finds meadowwith virgins n whose yes hadowshavegathered ust as " the evening[sera nominative, ot in the evening'] gathers round the olive-trees -obviously the only trace of darkness n this dazzling and-scape-with trees mitting " lazyrain of arrows,"with nimals sleepin the "smooth" (not "soft") tepid atmosphere r grazing on the" shining over of the awn-and then finally here ppear the glass-like hands of the shepherd polishedby dull fever." It seemsclearthat we have here hepicture f a Southern sland madeof heat, orpor,laziness, ight, consuming ensuous ove: the hands of the shepherdhave become"polished glass" (a motif anticipated by the epithetliscio smooth') through he scorching lame of love in that torridclimate n which the amorousfever, ever exploding, ut persistent,has burnt ll organic iving matter n the lover. We have here whatI would call in German Verdinglichung, materialization f thepastoral themes f the flame of love and of the island of love (andthis Verdinglichung, lso to be observed n the end of Lorca'sRomancesonambulo nd Kaschnitz's oemquoted bove, s a foil o the Entding-lichung or disrealization haracteristic f modern poetry-both ten-dencies eading wayfrom he observablemodel n the outwardworld).This Verdinglichung s the modern, more radical counterpart o

preciosite n whichmetaphors ere uivies usqu'au bout.2 Oncethis s2 Or to the conceits of a Quevedo whose " logique conceptuelle " Amede Masin his recent book La Caricature de la femme . . dans l'oeuvre de Quevedo

(Paris, 1957) has duly emphasized. For example, when Quevedo assures us

VOL. I.XXu, Nrovember J9571 531



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understood ll motifs n the poem become learly visualizable nd thelanguageappears n strict ccordwith the dictation f imagination-which s not of a verbal, ut of a " materializing kind.

Similarly, believe that Friedrich p. 75) is overrating anguagewhenhe states hat n Mallarme'spoemSainte (whichwas first alledSainte Cecile ouant sur l'aile d'un cherubin) heEntdinglichung asbrought he poet to the point where vents nd things described xist"4 ot n reality, ut only n language (" nicht n der Sache,sondernin der Sprache ). While I am in full agreement with Friedrich'sjudgment s to disrealization the old nstruments iole, liute, andoreand the missalwith he Magnificat erveno longer), must point out

the absolutereality f the Saint who is still that Saint Ceciliawhodropped her own musical instruments n order to listen to celestialmusic and who s played upon, as if she herself were an instrument,by the angel. She has thus become n active-inactive utsicienne usilence notice that according o Pythagorean deas the silence of thespheres s only their music which human ears are unable to hear).Thus the spiritual, hysically nhearablemusic that plays within hesaint s a " real " fact, no flatus ocisof anguage. While there xistsno actual mass in which he Magnificatmight be sung there develops,at the window where the Saint is sitting, spiritual mass (as theexpression itrage d'ostensoir hows) in which the Saint may repeatthe vowsof Hannah and AMary: agnificat nima mia. Notice alsothe pallor of the Saint which ndicates he approach of death whichbrings her close to martyrdom nd Paradise. The poem with itsovertones f Pythagorean-Christian orldharmony tands much morein a long tradition han Friedrich eemsto have realized.

Again, in the sonnet Eventail (de Madame Mallarme), whichFriedrich akes mainly as an ars poetica dealing not with the fanbut with AMallarme'soetry r the poetry f the future, he stressesEntdinglichung disrealization) because things in this poem existonly n their bsence, are present nly n language." But I disagreefirst with the statement hat, n opposition o former oesiegalante," tender feelings r gallantry are missing n the poem (this wouldbe the dehumanizacion f Ortega) on the contrary ll in it (that isthe ong sentencewhich akesup these tanzas) tends toward hefinal

that his soul, his veins, his marrow burning of love wvill,when death comes,become " feeling ashes " and " loving dust," this is the same extreme of"materialization within the logic of a conceit " as in Ungaretti's poem thehands of the love-burnt hepherd which have become " polished glass."




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wish and compliment et e'ventail . . limpide . . toujours tel itapparaisse/entre es mains sans paresse. Secondly,while I do notdeny that, as always with Mallarme, delicate relationships ppear

between rt (or an objet d'art) and poetry, am convinced hat thefirst tanza is already concernedwith the fan (and contains com-pliment o its user):

Avec comme pour langageRien qu'un battement aux cieuxLe futur vers se degageDu logis tr6s pr6cieux.

"Language " and " verse refer here not truly o poetry, ut to the

poeticutterance mplied n the flicking f the fan by the ady (notice:" avec comme pour language -the language of the fan is only ametaphoric ne) : the poet followswith his eyes the actualization fthe potential n the fan, which ctualizationwill produce ts effect lefutur ers) each time t willmove wayfrom ts tres precieux ogis, hebody of the preciousperson who builds it (a precieux ompliment nits traditional orm: tres pre'cieux). Un battement ux cieux ntro-ducesthe dentification f the fan with hewing of an angel? again a

compliment ) whichwill be followed p by aile tout bas la courrierein the next stanza. This line is taken by Friedrich s an apostrophelacking yntactical ieswith the rest, out bas, translated ganz leise,'being the " boldest ossible apostrophe. wouldrather nalyze ile-la-courriere que] cet e'ventail, he emotional yntactical orm or anassertion: the fan s the wing of an angel, a "messenger romheaventhat flies ow [on this earth]," tout basbelonging othe voler mpliedin aile: with this identification f the fan with a heavenlywing oureyes are lifted beyond the earthly figure f the lady. Now we seebehind the lady the mirror n which a bright movement f the fanflickers o that fan and reflection f fan becomeone: limpide t thebeginning f stanza 3 can then refer s well to the mirror s to the fan.And now the Ronsardian dea of the frailty f the earthly eingwhoownsthe fan appears:

. . .oju va redescendrePourchass4e en chaque grainUn peu d'invisible cendreSeule 'a me rendre chagrin.

"iRedescendre -before and after he momentary hining f the fanin the mirror mist of ashesveilsthe bodyof the ady, shes nvisible




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being, only a vaguehomunculus, orn as he is from he ambivalenceof chastity purity-sterility) he is doomed froid plafond ndicatinga tomb). The atmosphere f death s condensed ven more n the asttwo stanzas

agoniser-expirer-funebres-te'nebres) here heflowerimage (the " rose ) returns nly to be denied any existence. Fried-rich s right n calling this poem " a poemabout negations (neithervase nor flower or Sylph exist, what exists s sterility nd death),but if he is right anguage has excellently xpressed he "negativecategory : why hen should the poet, n our poem,by the symbol fthe non-existent ose,have deplored he impossibility f " Sprachwer-dung," the impossibility or the language to find the " erlosendeWort"? Our poem deals with the negativity, ot of language, butof a sterile poetic magination. Cicero's use of " flower for " poeticexpression has no bearing on our poem,which contains no allusionto " poetry."

At times t happens hat failure o sense the importance f a par-ticular word prevents riedrich from eeing the full meaning of apoem. Thus for him n Addii of Montale p. 144) the ndeterminatetu of the second tanza represents nly a " remainder f humanity,"the main emphasis resting n the inhuman " automatons." But inreality he poet s complaining bout a suspected ersonal ttitude fthe tu, his beloved, n a moment the farewell) when nner tensionsusually become articulate. After having described ersely he me-chanical side of a train departure t a railway tation, xpressing ythe ine " Forse gli automihanno ragione a sceptic ubmissivenessnhis part to the overpowering echanization f our modern ives, heconcludeswith he sharp, lmost ccusingquestion:

-Presti anche tu ( ) alla fiocalitania del tuo rapido quest' orridae fedele cadenza di carioca?-

"will you too lend that horrible, ubmissive hythm f the (well-knownD) ancesongcarioca othe hoarse itany f your xpress rain "-where weobviously avean allusion othe habit of travelers f hear-ing the rhythm f the train according o their own favorite melody.The poet s horrified y the possibility hat his beloved oo (anche tu

-t

tu,mi

filiBrute?) may end her tacit support, nd in a trivialway (by hearing he trivial carioca in the rhythm f the train), tothe mechanization f our modern world. Surely a general culturalquestion s underlying he poem, but this is centered n a personal




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concern bout the beloved's reaction to the cultural situation hasshe herself een "mechanized and trivialized" thereby?) a concernwhich s " modern in that ovetoday earches nto strata of the soul

which formerly ould have been irrelevant or ove. Thus the poem(loes not show only a remainder f humanity, ut is pervaded byh-umanity by a human concern about a human attitude). Mr.Friedrich has not paid sufficient ttention o the most importantword (anche) in the poem and this, n his hands, has become, ikethat of Mallarme about the fan of Mme Mallarme, too strongly"dehumanized."3

All the poemsdiscussed n this overlong eview would seem to bear

out the truth hat modern yrics, ecauseof their difficult tructure,semantic ambiguities, ncoherence, nd arbitrariness, equire to agreater degree than did previous poetry even medieval poetry) thecollaboration ith the critic of the philologistwho will not abandonprematurely he search for meaning nd will warn the critic againstexplanations hat re linguistically mpossible. This is, of course, nlya consequence f the other ruth hat modern poets are more "philo-logical," that s, closer o language and its requirements not "alonewvith he language," as Friedrich elieves) in their disrealization nddishumanization f poetry than were former poets who concerned

"There are a few observations of detail which have not found their place inthe preceding discussion. P. 123: to the excellent analysis of Lorca's El Gritoas a perfect example of " disrealization " and "dehumanization" I should liketo add a comment on the clever procedure of the poet who introduces into thepoem the cry itself: jay Though we are told at the beginning that the crygoes from mountain to mountain, this cry is not yet formed; it is only instanza 2 that we are told of the starting point of the cry or rather where(in the olive trees) the cry will start: serd. Only after this announcementcan the cry be heard ( iay ). In stanza 3 it has begun its acoustic existence

(ha hecho vibrar), continuing as an echo so that again we must hear iayIn stanza 4 it has passed by " the people in their caves " (that it has passedabove their heads in its passage from mountain to mountain is indicated bythe parenthesis), yet still lingers as a vibration in the ether after the poemitself has ended: the last ;ay -which is placed outside of the parenthesis.It is true that, as Friedrich has felt, human beings here are only a parenthesisin the life of the self-sufficient ellipsis" of the cry. P. 138: Ciudad de losestios is incorrectly ranslated 'Wesensstadt' (confusion with estar?). P. 151:the por in the refrain line of G. Diego's Insomnio: Tu por tu suenlo y porel mar las naves should not be translated 'through' ('durch'), but 'along'(cf. the common phrases andar por esos mundos, por esas calles, etc.) -theidea being that the sleeping beloved proceeds on her particular well-defined

route (of sleep) as do the ships that ply the sea. The line is an imitationof Lorca's Romance sondmbule: "El barco sobre la mar/ y el caballo en lamontafia (again, the whole poem reflects he motif of " la regarder dormirtreated by Proust and Valery). P. 162: " [tes mains] n6es dans le miroirclos des miennes " (Eluard): miroir clos should not be translated 'umschlos-sener' but 'umschliessender Spiegel.'




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themselves ainlywith the mitation f things nd man. After hesehave receded o the background anguagehas becomeparamount-butlanguage s still addressed o the fellow man

The Johns Hopkins University LEO SPITZER

REVIEWS

Walther Azzolino, Grundziuge er englische prache und Wesenart(Max NiemeyerVerlag: Halle/Saale, 1954. 95 pp.). Tl:IS briefwork, presumably he last from Professor Azzolino's pen, for hedied before ts publication, unfortunately as an indefensible ndoutmoded hesis, s set fortlh n its opening, arag,haph:Der Denkstil eines Volkes pragt sich in nichts scharfer als in seiner Sprache.Es gibt keinen deutlicheren Ausdruck der Geistes-und Wesenart eines Volkesals seine Sprache. Wer die Sprache in ihrer nneren Form begreift, der begreiftauch das innere des Volkes, das diese Sprache spricht, seinen Geist, sein Wesen,und der versteht auch seine Philosophie.

These statements re of course ncapableof real proof, nd to supportthem t all requires great deal of generalizing n the basis of a fewselected xamples.

Such an example s the English use of things where German usesdie Welt: " But I know, h, know hings," the whole of things,"etc. This usage, Azzolinobelieves, eveals ein pluralistisches, naly-tisches Vorstellen egenuiber er deutschen Neigung zur Vereinheit-lichung und Synthese," nd he concludes hat only concrete hingsconstitute eality for the speaker of English (p. 11), citing a gooddeal of evidence-essentially tylistic ather han inguistic- in sup-port of his point. As much could doubtlessbe cited to prove theopposite.

The assumed " practical English mind is, according o Azzolino,

reflected n English sentence tructure pp. 14-15), which he believesto have become predominatingly aratactic, n grammatical con-version (" Die Leichtigkeit und Unbekiimmertheit, it der derEngliinder Nomina ohne weiteres ls Verben verwendet, eugt von


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Spitzer. a New Synthetic Treatment of Contemporary Western Lyricism

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