Hartmann, Sadakichi - Harry Lawton and George Knox (essay date 1971)
Harry Lawton and George Knox (essay date 1971)
SOURCE: An introduction to White Chrysanthemums: Literary Fragments and Pronouncements, by Sadakichi Hartmann, edited by George Knox and Harry Lawton, Herder and Herder, 1971, pp. xii-xxv.
[In the following essay, Lawton and Knox discuss Hartmann 's last years of alcoholism and destitution, as well as his overall importance as a writer, critic, and cultural personality.]
A grotesque etched in flesh by the drunken Goya of Heaven. A grinning, obscene gargoyle on the Temple of American letters. Superman-bum. Half God, half Hooligan, all artist. Anarch, sadist, satyr. A fusion of Jap and German, the ghastly experiment of an Occidental on the person of an Oriental. Sublime, ridiculous, impossible. A genius of the ateliers, picture studios, ginmills, and East Side lobscouse restaurants. A dancing dervish, with graceful Gargantuan feet and a mouth like the...
[The entire page is 4809 words long]
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