Book Reviews 421

The Slumber of ;\pollo, John Hollo\ca> (Cambridge: Cambridge l.:nl\rrslr> Prc\,. 19Y3).

151 pp.. E15.00, S29.95.

Professor Holloway’s book is a xrir‘s ofstudies constructed around a single theme:. that

is the decay in modern consciousness ofthe‘r\pollonian’ qualitlrs ofcl,mpreh~nsl\:nsss.

largeness of vision. thoughtfulness. and their replacement b> qualities more limited.

unambitious, practical and fragmented. In a ~vay. it IS a lament for the passing of the ideals

of the Renaissance in an age of spccialisation and dislocation. The problem. as aIwa.~s

with such books, 1s that every pxce of evidence is selected and arranged to illustrate the

thesib. In places the argument does therefore seem strained. though It must be admitted

that the author’s intention is not dogmatic-to ‘review the possibility’ rather than to

defend a ‘conviction’.

In a short book. Holloway covers an immense field. He begins with a rev&\ ofartists

from Piero della Francesca. through Dutch landscape painting to Rufino Tama>ano and

Jean Dubuffet. He considers the development of cartoon art, the language of politicians.

the attenuation ofslang. the limitations ofsociologists. and finally the tvritinps of certain great literary figures of the last hundred years in Europe and the United States. In each

case he mourns the passing of’thr comprehensive. all-comprehending mind. serene and

lucid-the Apollonian consciousnt’ss’ (p.87). Perhap\ inevitably the work is unr\en,since

Holloway is a professional literary critic and writes most fluently \iith the ease and

assurance of habit in the litcrarb context of the last three chapters. He is at his most

unconvincing when discussing the language of politics. arbitrarily isolating phrases or

individual words from sprxches of Gladstone. Ramsay MacDonald or Harold \\‘ilson in

order to argue for a radical shift in the consciousness and attitudes of politicians. Such a

shift there may have been. but this is not an adequate way to discover or illustrate it.

In Holloway’s writing on Shelley, Hardy, Edwin Muir and certain modern novelists, his

thesis takes on a new depth and significance. Shelley represents the artistic

‘comprehensiveness of soul’ and amplitude of consciousness which is displa)-cd in so

much nineteenth-century writing. It is found in the character of Anna Karenina, and in

Cardinal Newman’s definition of an ideal university; in Matthew Arnold and in George

Eliot. One senses an almost religious vision of consciousness exparding to an

apprehension of wholeness and the unity of all being. Perhaps it is this drift toaards the

religious which leaves one a little uneasy about certain Apollonian qualities as defined by

Holloway-that is, to be ‘unfailingly rational and objective’ (p. 134). Is there not in this

Apollo more than a hint of the powerful, lonely, Kantian and ultimately tragic \‘,‘estern

hero. the great ligurc cloom~Y_l to 5uI‘l’cr w0cS which hope thlnhs int.initc’!

Thomas Hardy reprcxnts for Holloway the Victorian fallin g awa\ from .Apollonian _I

‘largeness’ to ;I new sense of constriction. confusion and blankness. ‘No ansivercr I’. s;I)~

th poet. In Hardy ‘a glimpse of ,2pollonian awareness disintegrates into ~mallcr and

sadder consciousness, unseeing not mcrcly unknowing’ (p.98). The modern age ot

dislocation. discontinuity and the beleaguered consciousnes is ushered in.

771~ Sl~jr~brr of‘rlpollo is an old man’s book. It is a splendid read and beautifulI> L\ rittcn.

But is it the work oTa sage magisterially reviewing thedecay of the human spirit. or rather

the sad retlrctions of a highly sensitive and cultured mind which sees that things are not

Lvhnt they used to bc? One suspects that they never bvere. and that every age has its vision

only to have it marred and fractured. But if good taste, culture and an acute intelligence

count for anything. then Hollouny’~ book must be valued, \sith all its shortcomings. for

its ‘ordered control’ and ‘wise serenity’ (p. 145).