* "Representative American Plays," edited by Arthur Hobson Quinn,
N. Y., 1917.
Nor is it possible to forecast the effect of a still more
striking movement of contemporary taste, the revival of interest
in poetry and the experimentation with new poetical forms. Such
revival and experiment have often, in the past, been the preludes
of great epochs of poetical production. Living Americans have
certainly never seen such a widespread demand for contemporary
verse, such technical curiosity as to the possible forms of
poetry, or such variety of bold innovation. Imagism itself is
hardly as novel as its contemporary advocates appear to maintain;
and free verse goes back far in our English speech and song. But
the new generation believes that it has made a discovery in
reverting to sensations rather than thought, to the naive
reproduction of retinal and muscular impressions, as if this were
the end of the matter.
The self-conscious, self-defending side of the new poetic impulse
may soon pass, as it did in the case of Wordsworth and of Victor
Hugo.
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