ic tones...; but, since one is using
them as parts of a larger design, one can also obtain novel effects
by placing them in juxtaposition as consecutive movements....

All this, I must emphasize, is no less a matter of emotional tone
than of form; the two things cannot well be separated. For such
symphonic effects one employs what one might term emotion-mass with
just as deliberate a regard for its position in the total design as
one would employ a variation of form. One should regard this or that
emotional theme as a musical unit having such-and-such a tone
quality, and use it only when that particular tone-quality is
wanted. Here I flatly give myself away as being in reality in quest
of a sort of absolute poetry, a poetry in which the intention is not
so much to arouse an emotion merely, or to persuade of a reality, as
to employ such emotion or sense of reality (tangentially struck)
with the same cool detachment with which a composer employs notes or
chords. Not content to present emotions or things or sensations for
their own sakes--as is the case with most poetry--this method takes
only the most delicately evocative aspects of them, makes of them a
keyboard, and plays upon them a music of which the chief
characteristic is its elusiveness, its fleetingness, and its
richness in the shimmering overtones of hint and suggestion. Such a
poetry, in other words, will not so much present an idea as use its
resonance.

2. An interesting comparison may be made between the work of Mr. Aiken,
and that of Mr. T.S. Eliot (q.v.), of whom he is an admirer. See also
Sidney Lanier's latest poems.

3. Another interesting study is the influence of Freud upon the poetry of
Mr. Aiken.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Earth Triumphant and Other Tales. 1914.
Turns and Movies. 1916.
The Jig of Forslin. 1916.
Nocturne of Remembered Spring. 1917.
The Charnel Rose; Senlin: a Biography, and other Poems. 1918.
Scepticisms: Notes on Contemporary Poetry. 1919.
The House of Dust. 1920.
Punch, the Immortal Liar. 1921.

STUDIES AND REVIEWS

Untermeyer.

Ath. 1919, 2: 798, 840; 1920, 1: 10.
Bookm. 47 ('18): 269; 51 ('20): 194.
Chapbook, 1-2, May, 1920: 26.
Dial, 64 ('18): 291 (J.G. Fletcher); 66 ('19): 558 (J.G. Fletcher);
68 ('20): 491; 70 ('21): 343, 700.
Egoist, 5 ('18): 60.
Nation, 111 ('2