Word: passion
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...section on Goodness, the author does not fall to include the familiar distribe on the passion in America for proyphylactic cleanliness. It is not extraordinary that our land of prohibitions both legal and moral, provides tantalizing stimulus for any sensitive observer, be he yokel or diplomat, foreigner or native wit. In this portion of the book alone does the author play the game he has chosen for though fairry adroit satire pinch-hits for the more rugged sincerity which any critical work presupposes he nevertheless concludes his observations in more commendable fashion than he approached his unfamiliar subject...
...poem is a long one, containing some 4600 lines of that admirably moulded blank verse which one expects of him. As in "Merlin" and "Lancelot", the chief emphasis is put upon the passionate and destructive love that burns his characters to ashes; and he has made every effort to make that love as real to his twentieth century readers as it was to Tristram and Isolt themselves. He has somewhat altered the story to do so. For example, the love drink is not one mentioned; Tristram and Isolt are consumed by a passion which it needs no magical agency...
...action; Mr. Robinson in terms of reflection. What they describe, he attempts to explain. In a word, his characters are self-conscious, fully aware of their situation and continually discussing it (the greater part of the poem consists of conversation) they are not the "possessed" lovers, consumed by a passion they do not attempt to understand, of the medieval story-tellers...
...this blind passion is itself one of the reasons why the original version is so moving. Does Mr. Robinson, apparently discarding it, and retelling the story in the terms of modern sensitivity succeed in making his account equally moving and convincing? This is the important question the reviewer must...
...overcome. But this the very introspection and sensitivity with which he has invested Tristram and Isolt make them unreal. They move behind veils, they are half hidden in a midst. Not always, of course; occasionally the mist lifts, the characters appear, and we feel the intensity of their passion...