Word: bartholow
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Striving for calm, deliberate portraiture, the skill of Mr. Robinson has drown in "Roman Bartholow" a narrative prose-poem, versified in sober lines of meditative characterization. Sophistication echoes through its pages, weary effete, and unenlivening: and yet the characters and plot are such as fit most aptly to his purposes: a modern novel spared. Philosophies and passions are expounded in dialogue that wisely never tries to sound like human talk. He has discovered a way of simplifying subleties that makes them stark and stubbornly incisive; and even his intensest episodes embody wan denial of emotion...
...story of Bartholow is human matter fit for the pen of James of Meredith not unlike "Modern Love" in theme and manner but Meredith devoid of ornament. Bartholow, celebrating liberation of soul and intellect, discovers late the treachery of the liberating Raven "a resident savior domiciled", serene, a hypocrite redeemed by understanding. The woman, Gabrielle, whose tragedy is just a foil for Bartholow's reveals how superficial insincerity can stultify a spirit over-prone to casual conformity, until it dies unnourished. Like a "confidant" the other character--perhaps the post--is an incongruous philosopher who talks a Latinized American appropriate...
...likeable distinctiveness; and certainly for suavity they lend an air of dignified austerity. If Mr. Robinson could claim to be American's first poet before he wrote this latest book, he still can claim that honor--although one questions if his title to it will be increased by "Roman Bartholow:"--for excellence at verse and excellence at portraiture alone don't make a poet. . . . And as for verse, what is it more than prose? As someone will discover, this review is written in Mr. Robinson's won metre...