Ryvanck, p

THE NEW POETRY IN FRANCE 289

The wiser minds also began to ask themselves whether there was not more advertisement than infatuation in this pompous display ot formulas. Among these symbolists, these decadents, these Romanticists of the younger generation, were tound a few, who wrote their poetry noisily in the old way, the Parnassian or Lamartine school of verse. It was, indeed, a case of now labels on very old merchandise. At bottom, was it not simply the younger generation bidding the older depart, — ■ in their own hurry to take their place ? Were these not new men who desired to come forward, rather than a new art?

For once, the wiser ones were wrong. There is no doubt ol this to day. We have passed the time when M. Brunetière believed himself obliged to warn us that « the value of the critical ideas of our symbolists w-as entirely independent of that of their works* ». The works have come, of a real value, and often of the very first order; to-day they commend the theories by which M. Rrunetière formerly excused them. Out of this indistinct, tumultuous crowd of young poets, whom M. Anatole France placed all upon the same level in 1891, have emerged many original and superior talents : MM. Henri de Régnier, Viélé-Griffin, Rodenbach, Samain, Verhaeren, and to these must be added Fernand Gregh. 1 might name many others who have succeeded in creating something of note^ But let us not be severe even on the mediocrities, the failures; no attempt has been lost. The unsuccessful ones marked out the path over which the famous have trodden, and the extravagant quest of the impossible has determined the boundaries of the field of the possible.

Success came wilh talent ; the new poetry is at home among the pages of the « Revue des Deux Mondes » and the « Revue de Paris ». The French Academy has crowned the symbolists ^ and even lines of fourteen syllabes, or rather the volume which contains themh Sometime in the