Word: authorities
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1920-1929
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Mackaye calls this new play of his "a comedy of human nature with primitive background," and it is the first of a series of plays by means of which the author intends to continue his efforts to interpret American life in isolated mountain environment. Previously he has written of the native New England mountaineer; now his quest leads him to the Appalachians of Kentucky...
...understand, the main purpose of the Kentucky plays. The people tend to be obscured by the very plot which never fails to keep us laughing. And after the story is done, back we come in a short tag-ending to Beem's poetry of life, as if the author had suddenly remembered what the play was all about...
...dialogue is, of course, all mountain dialect, collected by the author at great pains. This dialect is in Mr. Mackaye's words "a noble illiteracy," a language "more flexible than that of the average university graduate," showing "richness of thought and imagination." It is native speech "undiluted by the Ink of the academic or journalistic." Clearly a language meant to be spoken, not printed, and this makes it very difficult for the reader of the printed version to enter into the spirit of either language or play...
...these triumphs without any education at all. That is an axiom of American history. And "they swear like pirates because their vocabularies are so limited that they have no other means of expression". After all, this reflection on one's vocabulary is only a sly shot at the college author fair target but there are certainly occasions, which Dr. Fitch neglects, on which anything but solid, sturdy. Anglo-Saxon profanity would be inappropriate and since these occasions are by no means rare in college days, proficiency in the art should be a point of pride. It is a poor compliment...
...Robert Hillyer '17, of the English Department of the University, will give a reading from his works this afternoon at 3.30 o'clock in Ye Olde Grey House, Anderson St. Boston. Mr. Hillyer is the president of the New England Poetry Society and the author of "Sonnets and Other Lyrics," "The Hills Give Promise," and other works...