Likenesses of Rupert
Brooke, with his "angel air," [Footnote: See W. W. Gibson, _Rupert
Brooke_.] of Alan Seeger, and of Joyce Kilmer in his undergraduate
days, are perhaps as beautiful as any the romantic period could afford.
Still the young enthusiast of the present day should be warned not to be
led astray by wolves in sheep's clothing, for the spurious claimant of
the laurel is learning to employ all the devices of the art photographer
to obscure and transform his unaesthetic visage.
We have implied that insistence upon the artist's beauty arose with the
romantic movement, but a statement to that effect would have to be made
with reservations. The eighteenth century was by no means without such a
conception, as the satires of that period testify, being full of
allusions to poetasters' physical defects, with the obvious implication
that they are indicative of spiritual deformity, and of literary
sterility. Then, from within the romantic movement itself, a critic
might exhume verse indicating that faith in the beautiful singer was by
no means universal;--that, on the other hand, the interestingly ugly
bard enjoyed considerable vogue.
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