EDITORIAL COMMENT
STATUS RERUM
London, December 10, 1912
The state of things here in London is, as I see it, as follows:
I find Mr. Yeats the only poet worthy of serious study. Mr. Yeats' work is already a recognized classic and is part of the required reading in the Sorbonne. There is no need of proclaiming him to the American public.
As to his English contemporaries, they are food, sometimes very good food, for anthologies. There are a number of men who have written a poem, or several poems, worth knowing and remembering, but they do not much concern the young artist studying the art of poetry.
The important work of the last twenty-five years has been done in Paris. This work is little likely to gain a large audience in either America or England, because of its tone and content. There has been no "man with a message," but the work has been excellent and the method worthy of our emulation. No other body of poets having so little necessity to speak could have spoken so well as these modern Parisians and Flemings.
There has been some imitation here of their manner and content. Any donkey can imitate a man's manner. There has been little serious consideration of their method. It requires an artist to analyze and apply a method.