Board of Regents of The University of Oklahoma

Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
Review
Author(s): Stewart C. Wilcox
Review by: Stewart C. Wilcox
Source: Books Abroad, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Winter, 1958), p. 87
Published by: Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma
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ENGLISH: POETICS 87
flight, / It carvesthe day / With angry pur- "poeticdiction")dealsalmostexclusivelywith
pose, / And the doomedhousessail away." poets who Bernard Groom believes created
HarrietZinnes new methodsof expressionin the traditionof
Norman, O\la. poeticlanguagefoundedby Spenser,an inno-
vator standing for the fullest libertyin word
* RobertT. Moore,ed. Best Poems of 1955. usage. By giving a broadinterpretationto the
Stanford,Calif. StanfordUniversityPress. word "Spenserian,"Groom is able to include
1957.vi+ 116pages.$3.50. in his surveymost of the majorEnglish poets
This is the eighth annualissue in a seriesde- since 1600, who in turn furnish examplesof
signed to bring togetherthe best poems pub- aphesis,the superfluousprefixand suffix,peri-
lishedeachyearin the littlemagazinesof Eng- phrasis,farfetchedwords,compoundepithets,
land and America. Consideringboth the ad- and Latinismswhich he carefullyanalyzesas
mirableintentionof the editorsto encourage he developshis thesis. Of interestare his dis-
interestin new talent,and the highly selective cussionsof the "Spenserianperiod of Shake-
methodusedin choosingthe poemswhichwill speare'sdiction"of the eighteenthcenturyre-
appear,one might with reasonexpecta more vival which helped transmitcertaintypes of
impressive collection than is here evident. poeticword usage from earlierto more recent
Mostof the work is eithertoo conventionalor writers. AlthoughGroomfeelsthat Tennyson
too derivativeto be remarkable;and the win- was "thelast greatpoetwho could work with-
ner of the first prize in the anthology,Eric out a sense of restrictionwithin the poeticor-
Barker'selegy for Dylan Thomas, is perhaps der establishedby Spenser and Milton," he
the leastremarkableof all. Althoughthe book believesthat the Spenseriantraditionhas not
contains one excellent poem- Richard Wil- ended: In RobertBridgeshe sees a poet who
bur's "Love Calls Us to the Things of This. has "resetit more firmlyin its rightfulcourse
World"- and a numberof commendableones, and infused it with a new spirit for its future
the readermay questionwhetherall the pieces career."
includedreallyare the best poemsof 1955. Betty D. Evans
Sarah Youngblood Universityof Oklahoma
Universityof Oklahoma
*
Copyright Law Symposium Number
^ Paul Fussell, Jr. Theory of Prosody in Eight. New York. Columbia University
Eighteenth-CenturyEngland. New Lon- Press. 1957.xiv + 146 pages.$3.50.
don, Conn. Connecticut College. 1954. By inspiringthe writing and making possible
x + 170pages.$3.50. the publicationof these four essays through
Fussell finds "The historyof prosody... in- the Nathan Burkan MemorialCompetition,
separablefrom the history of ideas." Hence the AmericanSocietyof Composers,Authors,
his monographbecomes no mere survey of and Publishershas done again the legal, liter-
theoriesof meter; instead, it examineseigh- ary, and musicalworld a service. The first of
teenth-centuryassumptionsof taste, tracing the two winning essays- which were ad-
through"liberal"and "conservative" judged as equal and awardedduplicateprizes
theories
the developmentof emphasisupon accentual- - deals with "Piracyin high places:govern-
ism in such writers as Allan Ramsay the mentalpublicationsand copyrightlaw" and is
Younger,Sheridan,Samuel Say, and Joshua an excellent and exhaustive examinationof
Steele. Becausethe criticalapproachis sound this bafflingarea of copyright. The second,
in discoveringvariousmetricaltheoriesemerg- "Protectionof comic strips,"dealsthoroughly
ing from differentmodesof aestheticsensibili-with the developmentof laws and precedents
ty, the book is rootedin historicalevaluations.
designedto protectthe originatorof a rather
These appraisalsare so suggestive that they indefinablebut lucrativebit of property,the
oughtto stimulatefurtherstudiesin Augustan comic strip character.
and Romantictheoriesof versification. The first of the two papersgiven honorable
StewartC. Wilcox mention is "The Universal Copyright Con-
Universityof Oklahoma vention and the United States: A Study in
Conflictand Compromise."This presentsin
* BernardGroom. The Diction of Poetry clear order the developmentswhich have led
fromSpenserto Bridges.Toronto.Univer- to the UCC, its primarychanges to existing
sity of Toronto Press. 1955. ix + 284 law, and the implicationsof these changesfor
pages.$5.50. nationaland internationalpublishing.Of par-
This briefhistoryof the dictionof poetry(not ticularinterestto thosemaking theirliving by
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