Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism | Hartmann, Sadakichi - Current Opinion (essay date 1916)

Current Opinion (essay date 1916)

SOURCE: "The Most 'Mysterious' Personality in American Letters," in Current Opinion, Vol. LXI, No. 2, August, 1916, pp. 124-25.

[In the following essay, the writer examines the public image Hartmann's life and personality fostered.]

The recent suggestion of Miss Amy Lowell, that no poet or writer ought to be paid for his or her literary work, but should earn a living in other kinds of work, would, if acted upon, deprive our poets especially of a picturesque and legendary quality that has added an undoubted glamor to much of their work. The modern young poet seems deficient in the power to create a legend about himself or is indifferent to its value. If he is going to look like a business man how can he hope to astonish and mystify the public? Such are the reflections suggested by a sketch of the weirdest figure of American letters—Sadakichi Hartmann—recently published in Bruno's Weekly....

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