Critical Essay | Critical Essay by The New York Times Book Review

Critical Essay by The New York Times Book Review

SOURCE: "New Poems by Alfred Noyes," in The New York Times Book Review, June 11, 1910, p. 339.

This review characterizes Noyes's The Enchanted Island as "a better book than the author has given us hitherto."

It is a common characteristic of the average human to be deeply discouraged over the popular contemporaneous mind; it is always so unintelligent, or so immoral, or so materialistic. Just now the general feeling is that it is too materialistic to appreciate true poetry, and therefore true poetry is not being written. As a matter of fact, if poetry were governed by the ordinary laws of supply and demand, its production would rank with cotton-spinning, or the manufacture of porcelain bath tubs—lower, indeed, since no one can deny the utility of these last-named arts. The truth is, that, as with the wind of the world or the soul of man, no one can say...
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