Word: alken
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Just before the war, and in the very generation with the famous Benets, come T. S. Eliot, Alan Seager, Conrad Alken, and (Robert Nathan, whose "Peter Kindred" started the series of college novels generally credited to Princeton...
...times Mr. Alken's poems are almost pure music. Schumann, they remind one of, in their exuberance, their pulsing rhythms and sorrowful, lapsing melodies. Some of them are a little hard to follow, so intricately psychological they seem. But upon each re-reading they grow clearer--like music, honest music, which one hears, and wants to hear, again and again. Always the melody comes suddenly, strong and clear, to catch one at the throat...
...play is an oddity, as has been said, but it has some remarkably fine points. particularly in the matter of contrasts. Miss Alken, the author, has with consummate skill placed opposites side by side. Inherited and acquired refinement meet, and struggle with vulgarity and worse. Carelessness vies with efficiency; temperaments clash. Here and in the beauty of some of the lines (too often marred by imperfect diction) lies the achievement of the playwright...