TRADITION & EXPERIMENT

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18512, 8 March 1930, Page 11 (Supplement)

TRADITION & EXPERIMENT

A FEAST IN LECTURES. Most publishing houses appear to be taking a well-earned respite from the production of novels, but the supply of war books and books on literary subjects show no diminution. Among the latter is “Tradition and Experiment,” a remarkable series of lectures. Imagine the flutter of excitement there would be if a local literary institution were able to announce on its programme for one season lectures by such notable people as Edmund Blunden, Rebecca West, R. H. Mottram, Edith Sitwell. T. S. Eliot, Ashley Dukes, J. D. Beresford, C. K. Munro, Osbert Burdett, and A. J. A. Symons. Yet, such was the proud achievement of the London City Institute, a kindred society to the W.E.A. The speakers dealt in alternate lectures with tradition and experiment in various literary fields—poetry, drama, the novel, biography and criticism. The lectures have been collected and are now available in book form. The plan of the lectures allows the history of each subject to be outlined, its growth and development traced, and its latest tendencies examined. Easily the best, and it is safe to imagine the most popular lecture, is that of Miss Sitwell on the congenial subject of “Experiment in Poetry.” It is successful because : has a touch of the personal, as all good lectures should. To illustrate the modern tendency to experiment in the texture of poetry—and it is interesting to note that this tendency is as old as Pope— Miss Sitwell has the courage to take one of her own poems, which present endless difficulties to the reading public, analyse it in detail, pointing cut what effects she is striving for, and how she hopes to achieve them. Nc one hearing or reading this lecture could ever doubt her sincerity again. Some of the lectures appear to have been revised for publication, and purged of their informality, to their detriment, but in every instance they convey a deal of information and comment in admirably concise form. “Tradition and Experiment” in pre-sent-day literature. (Oxford Univerity Press).