SENTIMENTALITY MARKS WORK OF MODERN POETS

"Carl Sandberg and Theodore Dreiser for all their seeming rude virility, are as much sloppy sentimentalists as any poets we have," Mr. Robert S. Hillyer 17, said in an interview for the CRIMSON yesterday. Mr. Hillyer, who is a member of the English Department, is also a poet of some note himself.

Sandberg's masculine vigor exists only in the booming, tough language he cases. In his fundamental ideas and attitude his sentimentality is as bad as that of the most maligned of nineteenth century writers. This is best illustrated in the way he writes about the working class whom he professes to champion. Undoubtedly he does champion them, but he also weeps over their oppression, and is constantly setting them up in potential, and terrible revolution against the ruling classes. Moreover, Sandberg is not really one of the working class because they do not read him. His readers consist mostly of the dilettante who like his poetry for the emotional stimulus it gives them.

"The expressionism of the modern schools is largely an outgrowth of egotism. The idea that any of my impressions are worth publishing without the least formulation, or the setting up of myself as the champion of this or that class are outstanding manifestations of this glorification of self.

"The opposite spirit in modern poetry is exemplified in George Santayana. Here we have a man who in spite of the difficulties of his environment determined that he was going to live in this word and not apart from it, and who world and not apart from it, and who has succeeded in pushing up through those difficulties. The essential vigor of his life and character are reflected in his poetry, which I believe will be read long after Sandburg has faded into obscurity."

The CRIMSON reporter then ventured to ask if Walt Whitman at least did not possess some of the robust masculine qualities which are attributed to him. "As in Sandburg, these qualities exist in Whitman's words only," Mr. Hillyer replied. "The sentimental note of his early stories was the underlying one in all of his works, even after he had picked up that trick of bold, virile lenguage which made him famous."