MODERN WRITERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23071, 23 June 1938, Page 18

MODERN WRITERS

GEORGIAN PERIOD PAST PROFESSOR" SEWELL'S VIEW An outspoken survey of modern trends in literature and drama, in which satire and humour were not lacking, was given by Professor W. A. Sewell, of Auckland University College, in an address to the Auckland Creditmen's Club in Milne and Choyce's Reception Hall yesterday. He ;piained that, while he had gone abroad to study the theology of Milton, he had occasionally emerged from "the state of coma commonly called research" to take an intelligent look around. ■ "To me it appeared that the best literature is coming from the United States and the Dominions, where I believe the chief literary fertility is to be found," Professor Sewell stated. "I discovered only two plays in the London theatre worth seeing—a view that was generally held—one being American and the other Russian (prerevolution). The best novel 1 read was Australian, and to my mind it was something on an epic scale." There was the feeling that at the moment English culture in literature had reached an impasse, and it did not know the way out. Ho did not think there wore any great poets in England, but the best were those who were writing under the excitement of an expected social revolution, and they were the only poets to move forward in the past few years in the mastery of words. They were mainly responsible for experiments in texture, technique and rhythm. There were, however, as good if not better poets in New Zealand, the work of It. A. K. Mason and A. R. D. Fairburn showing an equivalent technical mastery. With the death of Mr. John Drinkwater last year something had died in the spirit of English literature and an epoch had passed. The Georgian period had gone, and it might well be included in the text-books as history.