An interview with Ridgely Torrence
Down in Waverley Place, to the northwest of Washington Square, there stands an old dwelling house which has been made over into apartments. And on the very top story of this house there is an apartment rich in literary associations. Here the late William Vaughn Moody lived from 1906 till 1909, and some of Moody's canvases (for the author of “The Great Divide” made painting his chief recreation) hang on the walls. At different times Percy MacKaye, Vachel Lindsay, and Edwin Arlington Robinson have lived here, and here, too, have dwelt poets from across the sea—Padraic Colum from Ireland, and Rabindranath Tagore from Bengal. And now this apartment is the home of Ridgely Torrence and his wife, known to magazine readers as Olivia Howard Dunbar.
In this apartment Mr. Torrence, who has recently come before the public more prominently than before because of the presentation in New York of his three dramatic interpretations of the life of the American negro, received a reporter from The New York Times and talked to him about poetry, the drama, and things in general. But this apartment—being in that strange territory known as Greenwich Village—really is as far from New York as if it were in Avalon or Arcadia or Terra del Fuego.
So what the poet and dramatist had to say had little to do with the matter just now most important in the minds of nearly all Americans—the nation's entrance into the war. What Mr. Torrence said about the war in answer to questions had to do very generally with its possible effects on American letters. But toward the end of the talk he volunteered the information that he is a pacifist, that he believes in nonresistance as a national policy, and that the desirability of nonresistance is the lesson intended by Granny Maumee and Simon the Cyrenian, two of Mr. Torrence's negro plays now being produced in New York City.
Mr. Torrence, in a brown tweed suit with a bright green tie, sat before an open fire. There was a tall bookcase near him holding many of the volumes once owned by William Vaughn Moody. On the wall over his head hung one of Moody's landscapes—gray and blue, gray cliffs and gray sky with a deep blue spot of sea in the background.
Mr. Torrence is a poet—it is by his lyrics and poetic dramas that he is best known. And since his most recent success has been with prose plays, the reporter asked him to talk about the poetic invasion of the theatre—to tell if he thought that the poet and the theatre have been too long separated.
“I do not think,” said Mr. Torrence, “that we ought to believe that the poet and the theatre have been too long separated—unless we mean the poet who happens also to be a dramatist. Ordinarily, the lyric faculty does not co-exist with the dramatic faculty. In the larger sense we cannot have too much poetry on the stage, but we can have too much lyricism.
“Of course, the greatest plays are the work of poets. Great plays are essentially poetic. But when we use the term poetry in connection with the stage, just as when we use it in connection with the novel, the term instantly becomes more fluid. Who can say that Charles Dickens was not a poet? It seems to me that in the larger sense of the term he most decidedly was a poet, a great poet.
“Who can say that...
(This entire section contains 1637 words.)
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such writers as Richard Brinsley Sheridan and George Bernard Shaw are not poets? Take Shaw, for instance. He has that penetrative vision of the human spirit, that creative insight, which undoubtedly is possessed only by the poet's eye! The mere fact that Shaw doesn't happen to tell of his vision in song means only that, in addition to being a poet, he does not happen to be a singer.”
Now, Mr. Torrence was asked how, in his opinion, American literature would be affected by the nation's participation in the world war.
“No one may safely prophesy about this,” he said. “We never can foretell what will come out of the depths of the creative mind. I think that it is very likely that we may see, for some time to come, less localized work, less work dealing with purely American scenes and themes. I'd be inclined to say that just as from the beginning of the war our attention has been drawn away from the United States, so that today the man in the street knows more of European politics than he knows of American politics, so we all will henceforth be drawn to a more nearly universal attention.
“I believe that this matter of native American themes is purely incidental. There is nothing epoch-making in the fact that a man writes about his own country. It seems to me the most obvious thing in the world for an artist of any sort to use the particular symbols that he sees about him. A man who yields to the creative impulse naturally uses for his material the things with which he is most familiar.”
Mr. Torrence has none of the characteristics of the Southerner, so it is rather surprising to find him showing that familiarity with negro life usually possessed only by those who have been brought up in those parts of the country where negroes are numerous. In reply to a question he said:
“I got my knowledge of the negro when I lived in Southern Ohio. I spent my boyhood in Xenia, Ohio. Xenia is a focal point for negro immignation, and it really is more Southern than any part of the South.”
The reporter asked Mr. Torrence's opinion of contemporary American poetry. “Is it,” he asked, “better than that of twenty-five years ago?”
“Oh, my, yes!” said Mr. Torrence. “Let me see—twenty-five years ago? Walt Whitman was still alive then, but he was just barely alive. Now poetry shares in a tremendous awakening. The whole world is quickened, even though it is quickened by what might almost be a death thrust.
“There is a living spirit over the face of the earth. The war is merely incidental. The war is the mouth of the volcano. But the upheaval is general and far bigger than the war.
“This is one of those moments of renaissance that from time to time sweep rhythmically over the earth—I suppose over Heaven as well, over all the worlds. These moments might be called rhythmic crises. A rhythmic crisis is on us now. Throughout the years there have been things gestated. Some of these were beautiful things, and now in this rhythmic crisis they are flowering beautifully in art. But also evil things were gestating. Malignant influences were brooding. And in these rhythmic crises everything, good or evil, comes out in flower.
“And murder will out. For 400 years the diplomatic relations of the so-called civilized nations have been based on lies and deceit. And the result of this we see in the war. The war is the result of these forces. The relations between the Governments of the world are false. And nothing good can come of lies.
“The beautiful things that were gestating through the centuries have flowered in art, and the deceits and other unworthy things have flowered in the war. So in the time of this world conflict we reap the reward of the brooding soul of man, aspiring through the ages to the highest and most beautiful things.”
“Incidentally,” said Mr. Torrence, “I am a non-resistant! I am a pacifist of the most pacifist kind. I believe in the doctrine of the sages, Buddha and Christ and Tolstoy. I believe that war only breeds war, that nothing is settled permanently by war. Armed force can never end war; military warfare can never bring about permanent peace.”
“Is this idea,” the reporter asked, “to be found in any of your writings?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Torrence. “It is the message of two of my negro plays now being produced—Granny Maumee and Simon the Cyrenian. These plays are pacifist. Granny Maumee is a pacifist; she lets her white enemy go when he is in her power, and she forgives him. Simon the Cyrenian is a pacifist; he obeys the voice that bids him put up the sword. Both plays present examples of non-resistance.
“The plays are not tractarian. I don't believe in tractarianism in art. They merely present figures that are non-resistant.
“I believe that the world has gone mad with war madness, and that the true radical must join the small army of non-resistants. The fact that the prodigious majority are for war goes far toward proving that war is wrong!
“If another nation should invade America, it would be a wonderful thing for America to take up its stand for non-resistance. The ancient nations all stood for armed resistance, and they all have perished. It would be a wonderful thing for us to stand for non-resistance—when we are perfectly able to resist—it would be a heroic thing. America might perish, but so have the nations perished that resisted invasion. And if we perish without resisting our enemies, we would perish heroically.
“What a glorious record to leave to future generations—that once there existed a nation, amply able to defend itself, that was brave enough to scorn the old way, the easy way and to try the other thing!
“And I don't believe that, America would perish. I believe that it would be perpetuated and that its example of non-resistance would transform the world. My dream is that our nation may stand for non-resistance as a heroic example to humanity.”
Plays for a Negro Theater
A letter regarding the production of Plays for a Negro Theater
