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Excerpt ​

Excerpt from Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers, by Don Marquis

A wan Erotic Rotter told me that
The World could not be Saved except through Sin;
A she eugenist, sexless, flabby, fat,
With burst veins winding through unhealthy skin,
With loose, uncertain lips preached Purity;
A Preacher blasphemed just to show he dared;
A dame praised Unconventionality
In words her secretary had prepared;
A bare-legg'd painter garbed in Leopard hide
Quarreled with a Chinese lyre and scared the dogs;
A slithering Dancer slunk from side to side
In weird, ungodly, Oriental togs;
A pale, anemic, frail Divinity
Confided that she thought the great Blond Beast
Himself was Art's own true Affinity;
An Anarch gloomed; "The Mummy at the Feast
Gets all the pleasure from the festive board!"
I know not what they meant; I only wunk
Within myself, and praised the great god Bunk.
A Yogi sought the Silences and snored.

IV

But 'twas Hermione that Got the Hand!
Ah, yes, she talked! Of Purpose, and of Soul,
And how Life's parts are equal to its Whole.
And Thought -- and do the Masses Understand?
She lightly touched on Life and Love and Death,
And Cosmic Consciousness, and on Unrest,
Substance and Shadow, Solid Things and Breath,
The New Art movements her sweet voice caressed,
Philanthropy, Genetics, Social Duty,
The Mother-Teacher claimed a passing smile,
And she made clear we all must worship Beauty
And Concentrate on Things that are Worth While.
"Each night," she said, "each night ere I retire
Into the Depths I peer, and I inquire,
"Have I today some Worth-while Summit scaled?
Or have I failed to climb? Oh, have I failed?
These little talks between the Self and Soul --
Oh, don't you think? -- still help us toward the Goal;
They help us shape the Universal Laws
In sweet accordance with our glorious Cause!"
"Hermione," said I, "they do! They do!"
"Thank you," said she, "I KNEW you'd understand!"
I said to her, the while I pressed her hand,
"All, all, my interest I owe to you!"

Explanation ​

Don Marquis’s Hermione and Her Little Group of Serious Thinkers (1916) is a satirical poem that mocks the pretentiousness, hypocrisy, and empty intellectualism of early 20th-century bohemian and progressive circles. Marquis, best known for his archy and mehitabel poems, was a sharp observer of human folly, and this work skewers the self-important "serious thinkers" who spout grand ideas without substance. The excerpt you’ve provided—particularly the first stanza (III) and the fourth (IV)—contrasts a cacophony of absurd, posturing figures with the smug, self-satisfied Hermione, who embodies the hollow rhetoric of the era’s reformers and pseudo-intellectuals.

Breakdown of the Excerpt ​

The first stanza presents a rapid-fire parade of caricatures, each representing a different flavor of early 20th-century intellectual or artistic pretension. Marquis uses grotesque imagery, irony, and exaggeration to expose their hypocrisy and absurdity:

  1. "A wan Erotic Rotter" – A decadent figure who claims the world can only be "saved through Sin," parodying the decadent movement (e.g., Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray) and the idea that moral corruption is somehow enlightened.
  2. "A she eugenist, sexless, flabby, fat" – A hypocritical reformer who preaches "Purity" while embodying physical and moral decay ("burst veins," "unhealthy skin"). This mocks the eugenics movement, which often masked bigotry in scientific language.
  3. "A Preacher blasphemed just to show he dared" – A performative rebel who blasphemes not out of conviction but to shock, satirizing those who mistake provocation for depth.
  4. "A dame praised Unconventionality / In words her secretary had prepared" – A fake nonconformist who outsources her "radical" ideas, exposing the hollow performativity of progressive slogans.
  5. "A bare-legg'd painter garbed in Leopard hide" – A bohemian artist whose eccentricity (leopard print, bare legs) is more about attention than art. The "Chinese lyre" and "scared the dogs" suggest discordant, affected artistry.
  6. "A slithering Dancer" – A decadent performer in "weird, ungodly, Oriental togs," playing on Orientalist exoticism and the era’s fascination with "primitive" or "foreign" art as a marker of sophistication.
  7. "A pale, anemic, frail Divinity" – A frail aesthetic who admires the "great Blond Beast" (a reference to Nietzsche’s Übermensch or "blond beast" from Genealogy of Morals), revealing how philosophical ideas are misappropriated by weak-minded followers.
  8. "An Anarch gloomed" – A doom-and-gloom radical who cynically claims "The Mummy at the Feast / Gets all the pleasure," twisting anarchist ideals into narcissistic pessimism.
  9. "A Yogi sought the Silences and snored" – A spiritual fraud who seeks enlightenment but falls asleep, mocking the superficial adoption of Eastern mysticism.

The speaker’s response—"I know not what they meant; I only wunk / Within myself, and praised the great god Bunk"—is key. "Wunk" (a Marquis coinage, likely blending "wink" and "sunk") suggests a weary, ironic acknowledgment of their nonsense. "Bunk" (slang for nonsense) becomes a god here, elevating their empty rhetoric to religious status. The stanza is a catalog of absurdity, each line a satirical vignette exposing the gap between these figures’ self-importance and their vacuity.

Stanza IV: Hermione’s Triumph of Empty Rhetoric ​

While the first stanza mocks a chorus of poseurs, the fourth stanza zeros in on Hermione, the ultimate pseudo-intellectual. She is the ringleader of the "serious thinkers," and her speech is a masterclass in meaningless grandeur:

  1. "But 'twas Hermione that Got the Hand!" – She dominates the conversation, literally and figuratively ("got the hand" could mean she silences others or wins applause).
  2. "Of Purpose, and of Soul, / And how Life's parts are equal to its Whole" – She spouts vague, grandiose phrases that sound profound but mean nothing. This parodies transcendentalist, New Thought, or theosophical jargon popular at the time.
  3. "She lightly touched on Life and Love and Death" – Her topics are universal and weighty, but she only "touches" on them—superficially.
  4. "Cosmic Consciousness, and on Unrest, / Substance and Shadow, Solid Things and Breath" – A word salad of spiritual, philosophical, and scientific buzzwords (e.g., "Cosmic Consciousness" was a real early 20th-century movement). The contrast between "Solid Things and Breath" (material vs. ethereal) is meaningless without context.
  5. "The Mother-Teacher claimed a passing smile" – She name-drops roles ("Mother-Teacher") to assert authority, but her ideas are fleeting and insubstantial ("passing smile").
  6. "And she made clear we all must worship Beauty / And Concentrate on Things that are Worth While" – Banal moralizing dressed up as wisdom. The capitalization of "Beauty" and "Worth While" mocks how abstract concepts are treated as dogma.
  7. "Each night... I peer, and I inquire, / Have I today some Worth-while Summit scaled?" – Her self-obsessed introspection is framed as noble struggle, but it’s really narcissistic accounting. The "Summit" is a cliché of self-improvement rhetoric.
  8. "These little talks between the Self and Soul... help us shape the Universal Laws" – She inflates personal musings into cosmic significance, a satire of New Age self-help and progressive reformers who see themselves as architects of destiny.
  9. "I said to her, the while I pressed her hand, / 'All, all, my interest I owe to you!'" – The speaker’s ironic flattery exposes her vanity. She believes his praise ("I KNEW you'd understand!"), confirming her self-delusion.

Themes & Literary Devices ​

  1. Satire of Intellectual Pretension – Marquis targets progressives, bohemians, reformers, and artists who mistake jargon for wisdom. The poem is a period piece, critiquing the early 1900s fads (eugenics, theosophy, free love, anarchism, Orientalism).
  2. Hypocrisy & Performative Radicalism – Every figure preaches one thing but embodies another (the "sexless" eugenist, the blaspheming preacher, the conventional "unconventional" dame).
  3. Empty Rhetoric vs. Meaning – Hermione’s speech is all sound, no substance. Marquis uses repetition of abstract nouns ("Purpose," "Soul," "Beauty") to show how language can obscure thought.
  4. Irony & Exaggeration – The over-the-top descriptions (leopard-skin painter, "Oriental togs") highlight the absurdity of these figures. The speaker’s false agreement with Hermione is dramatic irony—we know he’s mocking her.
  5. Grotesque Imagery – The physical decay of the eugenist ("burst veins," "unhealthy skin") contrasts with her moral puritanism, emphasizing hypocrisy.
  6. Parody of Spiritual & Philosophical Movements – Hermione’s "Cosmic Consciousness" and "Universal Laws" mock New Thought, theosophy, and transcendentalism, which were often watered down into self-help platitudes.

Significance & Context ​

  • Historical Critique: The poem reflects the cultural upheavals of the 1910s—suffrage, eugenics, modern art, anarchism, and spiritualism were all in vogue, but Marquis saw a lot of posturing without depth.
  • Literary Influence: Marquis’s style prefigures later satirists like Dorothy Parker and H.L. Mencken, who also skewered intellectual frauds.
  • Relevance Today: The poem remains sharply relevant in an era of social media influencers, self-help gurus, and performative activism—figures who signal virtue without substance.

Final Interpretation ​

The excerpt is a brilliant takedown of pseudo-intellectualism. The first stanza shows a world of posers, each more ridiculous than the last, while the fourth stanza zooms in on Hermione, the queen of empty rhetoric. Her self-satisfied monologue is a masterclass in saying nothing profoundly, and the speaker’s ironic praise exposes her as a fraud.

Marquis’s genius lies in his ability to mimic the cadences of grandiosity while hollowing them out. The poem doesn’t just mock these figures—it reveals the danger of mistaking verbosity for wisdom. In the end, the only "god" worth worshipping is "Bunk"—because in a world of posturing and pretense, nonsense reigns supreme.

Would you like a deeper dive into any particular aspect, such as the historical movements Marquis is satirizing or the poetic techniques he employs?