The Battle of Lepanto: A Victory for American Literature

On the anniversary of the battle of Lepanto, I am reminded of another anecdote from the life of Floyd Dell, one of the leading figures in Greenwich Village when Dorothy Day arrived and, for some months, her boss and housemate. 

In earlier blogs, I've recounted Dell's admiration for G. K. Chesterton.

While the editor of The Friday Literary Review in Chicago, seeking to set the trajectory of American intellectual thought in the 20th Century, Dell was mentoring a number of promising novelists and poets.  In 1912, one of these was Vachel Lindsay who had not yet written anything noteworthy.  Dell sensed a lot of promise in the young poet and recommended a chanting poetry that would "throw back at America its own barbaric music."  As  a magnificent example of a chanted poem, he sent Lindsay a copy of his favorite, G. K. Chesterton's Lepanto.

Some months later, Dell received a copy of General William Booth Enters Into Heaven, a chanting poem and one of Lindsay's most acclaimed.

Compare these poems for yourself.  Here is Lepanto and here is General Booth.