Ibn Gabirol.
[4] Musicians of To-Day, by Romain Rolland. [Henry Holt Company, New York.]
[5] Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky. [The Macmillan Company, New York.]
A Note on Paroxysm in Poetry
Edward J. O’Brien
Paroxysm is the poetic expression of that modern spirit which finds its most notable expression in other arts in the sculpture of Meunier, the polyphonic music of Strauss, the philosophy of Bergson, and the American skyscraper. It is the application of dynamics to poetry. It stands midway between romanticism, which is an escape into the past, and futurism, which is a flight into the future. Paroxysm is deep-rooted in to-day.
M. Nicolas Beauduin, its most noteworthy French exemplar, has many noteworthy disciples in France and Germany, and paroxysm is a well-known force in every literature except that of America, where its unconscious expression in life has been most remarkable. Students will find its philosophy set forth and its current phases in literature duly chronicled in M. Beauduin’s quarterly review, La Vie des Lettres. It is only possible here to offer a few very brief hints as to its literary aims and materials:
It aims to be a synthesis of modern industrial and mechanical effort.
It repudiates the ivory tower.