Dominican College of San Rafael - Firebrand Yearbook (San Rafael, CA)

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living that are mirrored in so many of the most popu- lar plays on Broadway. His comments on the good acting and good staging did not seem to soothe. Many of the modern students had seen the plays and could not accept this devastating point of view. Those who still live by the old ideals were pleased. Mr. Schorer talked on Modern Fiction, a huge subject, which he limited almost entirely to a discus- sion of British novelists, men whose writings reflect the social dislocations of a world in which the old sub- ject matter is dead, the new not yet born. This new literature, he pointed out, has lost much of what is good in the Victorian novel, so concerned with plot and morals and the relations of character to external circumstances. Yet this literature so barren of plot and of idea, so concerned with the finesse of style, this tumbling out of the stream of consciousness, this fiction that em- phasizes the individual and plays with the new psy- chology that alters our understanding of character, has its gain. The modern novelists, Mr. Schorer re- minded us, have not falsified; they have opened the naturalistic surface and revealed the depths of the human spirit. Their technique is not merely external, it is a deeply organic process that discovers the whole of modern consciousness. Modern fiction has had its 117

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Both Mr. Schnier and Mr. Mac Agy are interpreters of the ne vest trends. To them modern art is the ex- pression of the natural impulses of the artist, the term natural including the vagaries of dreams, the gro- tesque, and, according to nineteenth century expecta- tions, the bizarre. According to Mr. Mac Agy, art must not grow out of rigid disciplines of governments and the conventional standards of the art schools. He drew the attention of the audience to the signifi- cant return of the totalitarians to neo-classic art; rigid discipline, he holds, cuts off individual flexibility and he insisted that art must be individual and sincere. The pictures that he showed seemed mostly ridicu- lous, but he focuses on one aspect of modern art, the grotesque and the bizarre, in order to do away with the old prejudices that must be shaken loose by vio- lent methods. Mr. Schnier ' s views pleased in general, especially those who frankly wish enlightenment; Mr. Mac Agy seemed more puzzling, and stirred up those who be- lieve that they know. Strangely enough Father Kennedy kindled the strongest fires of all. His criticism of modern drama showed too much sympathy for the great writings of the past. He ruthlessly opposed the hollowness, the moods of despair, the acceptance of false standards of 116

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losses, but no more than life has. In it we find no illu- sions; it shows us what our fate is, what must happen to us before we can become the captains of our souls. Those who like to read and think and analyze have talked much about Mr. Schorer ' s lecture. To many he was no clearer than Mr. Harris ' or Mr. Perry ' s ab- stracts to the uninitiated in modern art; or than the movements of the fugue (to which he compared the play of ideas in Point and Counterpoint) to one igno- rant of music. What new flames may be kindled by Miss Prall and Darius Milhaud we do not yet know; but the thought- ful are aware that the program of The Arts has brought new concepts and given new understanding to those who reach out for them. S. C. M. CANDLESTICK TREE There ' s a candle-stick tree in my dream-drop land, Grace-angled shoots of upthrust sprays Reflect scarf-scarlet of gypsy band In fire-cupped hollows of wheat-white sand. Whirlpools of grains spin in facets till trays Of green light build layers, reality-spanned. I know I am here, but I dream I am free In the scarlet-green land of the candle-stick tree. Marjorie Hansen ' 50 118