Wedriesday; :March: 10, 1960 THE COLLEGE NEWS re. Page Three’ ‘Crossroads Africa’ Receives Students | Having assured the manage- ment that she had a strong stom- ner ‘having described as “just fantas- - way of African statesmen, repre- ‘Paris, where for a week there “cized among the ~ last time felt that his visitors the.180 students who are going to West Africa this summer for three months as a part of the “Crossroads Africa” program. Organized by Dr. James Robin- son of the Morningside Commun- ity Center in New York City, Crossroads will send its second Article By Karl Shapiro Brings Faculty Comment: Professors Discuss Modern Criticism And Poetry “Delightful” Music by Kristine Gilmartin » A bright snowy Sunday ‘after- noon and delightful music—what ach, Jan Douglass became one_of'| In a polemic against contemporary poetry published in the December 13 issue of the NEW to| \ORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, Karl Shapiro condemned it on the grounds. that it must be formally taught before it can be appreciated. “An art which must be taught to adults in its own time is sick . . . Criticism does not flourish in a time of greator healthy poetry.” Faculty members concerned with poetry and criticism expressed their views on Shapiro’s controversial stand. Nahm Considers Role Of Criticism theolgical and philisophical beliefs held at the time. The artist did not have to invent symbols. His audience was familiar with them ‘Mrs. MacCaffrey otes ‘Obscurity’ ward villages and in the modern, luxurious African cities in a pro- gram Jan quoted a veteran as tic.” The diversity of the pro- gram in store for her requires her to bring “everything from work’ boots to formals.” Good Digestion Demanded The participants range in age and experience from high school to graduate students; they come from the United States, Canada and England.. The largest group is from Yale; it consists of 14 stu- dents. The applicants had to go through an intensive screening program. Aside from assuring the executive director, Phillip Wei, that she has a good digestive system and has never had stomach trouble, Jan and the others also had ex- tensive applications to fill out. She still has not completed her tasks; a 15-20 page paper is due on some phase of African relations. Feels Like Pioneering Jan, an Anthropology-Sociology major especially interested in her courses.on cultural anthropology and social welfare, feels that she will end up going to Africa again after her school days are over; “things are happening so fast there and I feel like pioneering.” The three-month trip will involve a condensation in time, but not degree of this excitement. A meeting at Columbia Uni- versity in June dor the partici- pants will be an intensive session in informing them on all the im- portant phases of African life by sentatives, and scholars who will guide the activities. The group will then split in two; one group will fly to London, the other to will be further briefing by the British and French consuls. Both groups wil] then leave for Africa. The travellers will go in groups of ten or twelve to villages in the particular areas that they have selected. Jan is headed for Nigeria. In their new homes, the tourists will be treated with re- spect and ceremony but will be immediately assimilated into the village activities, including a five a.m. rising hour. Their advent will be _ publi- natives and among their urbanized counter- ‘parts who share an amazement that Americans are concerned with their lives, The Africans who often greeted the visiting Ameri- cans with displays of marked rac- ial prejudice (against whites) ex- perienced some change of attitude as they became better acquainted. with the Crossroaders. Jan was warned by the charter members of a few things; not to make any promises to the natives for which she might be indebted to them for life, and to expect gifts from their chiefs. One chief merited more than the ordinary food and beads; he gave them bottles of prize whiskey. Among these tribes, the highest form of compliment in one’s work consists of a man’s offering his old wife to aid in the task, Jan’s friends told her. They themselves were once approached by one such old woman as they undertook the back-breaking task of laying pipes “Tt doesn’t follow that because art must be taught,. it is sick,” stated Mr. Nahm when asked his opinion: of Mr. Shapiro’s contro- versial statements. “Isn’t the kind of art produced a product of the age?” he asked. “Isn’t the fact that it must be taught a comment on our times which are so concerned with highly abstract terms and such a complex view of the world? Present times have produced the ‘Modernism’; the times have also produced tht crit- icism, Both are an expression of the same wenplexing problems that we face. Modernism is only one aspect of the general situa- tion, “Shapiro seems to say that, basically, criticism and poetry are separate arts—arts that are mutually exclusive. However, I believe that wherever you find poetry you find criticism as well. Criticism and poetry flourish because of a common background that poet and audience shared. “The world is so complex to- day that art is subsequently so. Many find it difficult to interpret symbolism today because of the lack of common background. One can’t go back to the time of com- mon symbols. Either the artist today offers his own symbolism or expresses symbols of science or mathematics, The poet and critic may also have been misused. The common symbols of art today may exist in the form rather than in the content of specific works. Continued on Page 4, Col. 1 Lattimore Argues For And Against (Mr. Lattimore discussed points relating to two articles by Sha- piro—one on Eliot in the Saturday Review of Literature, and an earl- ier one on modern poetry as a whole in the New York Times Book Review Section. Of the article on Eliot he said, “I would hate to have anyone say that it is imipertinent of Shapiro ‘to attack Eliot’s intrenched posi- tion. The comparison of Eliot to castles in Bavaria (ugly but in- ‘Where you have civilization based on a com- at the same time. plex culture, poetry must concen- trate .on meaning, symbols, and significance rather than on style. “Criticism and poetry’ them- selves display this distortation of concentration on specific elements. The predilection in present per- plexed times’ is for significance and meaning and solution to con- temporary problems. Ewen if this is emphasized in the poetry that is being written, Mr. Shapiro sure- ly has abstracted that aspect from the genuine stylistic and expres- sionistic contribution these people have made. “He has a just right, however, to criticize some aspects of con- temporary poetry. There are, for instance, some poets who speak in philosophical terms without having completely transformed their theories into poetry. “The poets, painters, and sculp- tors of the Renaissance had com- mon symbols derived from the pipes and the girls ran nursery schools for the children, the men of the tribe sat around and watch- ed the strange Americans. Adter the momth’s residence in the villages, the group will meet to tour the West African area. It will visit the seats of govern- ment, the universities, cultural centers, and so forth. Their hosts on this part of the program will be native students and statesmen. It is at this point that some of the most challenging interchange of the trip will take place, in that here the Americans will have to demonstrate their interests and capabilities to the urbanized and_ destructable) with which the ar- ticle opens is magnificent rhetoric, and not without some truth. I wish he had gone on in that style. “Unfortunately he is trying to ittack Eliot simultoneously as a ritic and as a poet. This he nev- er really brings off. “Shapiro’s analysis of individ- good. In writing about them ‘he uses the word ‘masterpiece’, or its equivalent, in spite of himself. If you acknowledge masterpieces, why not be grateful? Give poetry all her right; she’s not to be form- tied. “Generally he doesn’t pay enough attention to whether Eliot wrote good poetry. He seems to want all poetry to be like one or anoth- er of a very few models, These models—/Whitman, Blake, Frost, Lawrence and Thomas—all have something in common: slightly bucolic, prophetic. In, insisting on one style, Shapiro is ignoring a dazzling amount of good poetry.” Mr. Lattimore denied Shapiro’s Continued on Page 4, Col. 2 Miss Woodworth Contradicts Critic. “When Mr. Shapiro makes the statement that an art that must be taught is sick, he is suffering from a complete misunderstand- ing of art,” stated Miss. Wodd- worth when approached on this subject. “Poetry is an art and art is never simple. To understand any great art, it is necessary to discipline yourself. An objective understanding comes only after long training and a cultivation of taste. As far as the expression a ‘contemporary art’ is concerned most artists are at least 50 years ahead of the people.” In commenting on Mr. Shapiro’s statement that criticism doesn’t exist in a time of great or healthy poetry, Miss Woodworth said that history just doesn’t bear this out. ual Eliot poems is at times very: commenting on GShapiro’s statement that “an art which must be taught to adults in its own time is sick,” Mrs. MacCaffrey said that it is true that in the past ed- ucation dealt with the literature of previous ages: people didn’t usually study the poetry of their own time, But in pursuing the classical curriculum, they learned to read difficult poetry. We have to teach all poetry nowadays be- cause people do not learn how to read carefully, They are not ac- |customed to reading poetry. For- merly, the people who read Mil- ton had read Virgil. Concerning the comment that “criticism is a branch of philos- ophy and in rare moments a liter- ary art. In our time it is neither,” ‘Mrs. MacCaffrey went on to state that she did not feel that criticism is am art, although sometimes it may share certain attributes of art (for example, Sidney’s Defense of Poesie). In our time some crities are try- ing to make criticism a_ science (an example, perhaps, is Kenneth Burke). People are interested in seeing how the minds of their fel- lows work, and the study of poet- ry. is one method of doing this. In considering modern critics and comparing them with those of the past, however, we must remember that only the best of the past has come down to us. It is true that many contemporary critics are poets, but it is also true that many great critics of the past have been poets: Arnold, Dryden, Sidney, Coleridge. Poetry reflects the whole intel- tellectual activity of an age. In an effort to revitalize the medium, poets employ different uses of the language. This may bring about some distortion and therefore “ob- security.” But Mr. Shapiro has vastly oversimplified the problem in his article. Not all the poetry of our time is obscure, and the ob- scurity which exists might be seen as part of.a cycle in the history of literature, a cycle which has mov- ed repeatedly from complexity to simplicity and back. “Finally, who is to be the judge of obscurity? Even newspaper poets are obscure to some readers, e _ Notice Bryn Mawr’s Debate Club will send a team of four to Brooklyn College March 11 and 12. The Bryn Mawr Team, Susan Gumpert and Miranda Marvin on the affirmative and Mary Lou Leavitt and Ginny Copen on the negative, will debate the following issue:--Resolved: . that Congress should be given |} “i éecisions more Could anyone askt wer is, nothing, especially when the music is as well performed and as spirited and lovely as it was in the recital given on March 6 in the Music Room of Goodhart by music students and members of the chamber music group, di- rected by Mme. Agi Jambor. gram opened with Bach, this time the Sonata in E flat major for ine Hoover and Jane Hess. The first movement} the allegro moder- ato, was just that—moderate. In the Siciliano, the flute carried a lovely, swirling melody. The final . allegro was a devilish one, full of swift interchanges of flute and piano which left the flutist breathless from exertion and the audience in a similar state from admiration. Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet (the third and fourth movements) was just lovely, done by Joan Gettig and Renata Knoke, violins, Ellen Magaziner, viola, Marion Davis, ’cello, and Nina Greenberg, clar- inet. The music was somehow suggestive of a spring afternoon in a park, especially the delight- ful melody of the clarinet bounc- ing up from the lower register. At the beginning of the fourth movement the tempo was a bit uncertain and rushed, but Miss Greenberg’s runs in her playful theme were flawless, and her ex- cellent work helped greatly in making the performance such a success. Next, Barbara Shoemaker play- Mendelssohn’s Organ Sonata No. 6, consisting of a chorale and andante sostenuto of majestic chords and a charming, running allegro. In the Suite Gothique by Boellmann, the chorale was im- pressive and the minuet was full of cheerful good nature and dig- nified high spirits that the organ- ist made a joy to listem to. Suite for Viola and Piano by John Davidson was played by Marcia Leigh with the composer Continued on Page 4, Col. -2 Search For Rocks Yields Cacophony For those people who have noticed the hydraulic drill in the Cloisters and do not ‘know the rea- son for all this activity, the pur- pose of the drilling is to find out if there is rock beneath the sur- face. A plan is in progress to ex- tend the library underground to connect the main stacks with the stacks in the West Wing. Overcrowding the library has long been a problem. Mr. Charles David, formerly Professor of His- tory here and later librarian at the University of Pennsylvania, was the first to suggest the solu- tion of building underground, as there is no land adjacent to the main building suitable for this purpose. Mr. Douglas Orr, an ar- chitect in New Haven, suggested that it would be possible to build two floors underground. Connect- ing the stacks would be a great advantage as less personnel would be required to manage them. whether or not there is rock in the ground, because the expense of digging through rock would be prohibitive. Drilling is being done at 30 foot — intervals, and so far no lange ex- tensions of rock have been found. If none is found building will start as soon as funds can be rais- ed. If the construction is done, the (Cloisters will remain much as they are now except that the iiage. While the donated wife laid be ck educated segment of the native For example, in two periods of African citizenry. Continued on Page 4, Col. 5 of the Supreme Court. The fountain-swimming tradition will not be interfered with. Neary Reviewer Praises * - Tne ais=—-— In traditional fashion, the pro-——— flute and piano, played by Kather- - It is important to determine ~~ beech trees will have to be remov- =. Hed and replaced by smaller ones.