KEATS AND CRITICISM.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1013, 31 December 1910, Page 9

KEATS AND CRITICISM.

" The writer of an excellent memoir on ;ono of the sub-minor poets of. England tho other day (writes an English critic) dropped a remark which must havo_ set many teeth' on' edge 'when he airily spoke of John Keats as the "greatest of romantic poets." Tliero are, of course, many who will agree with-him. Tennyson, it is known, used to express that opinion.in conversation. But, on the other hand; there aro many who won't, and tho casual enunciation, as if it wero axiomatic, of what seems to them -a highly controversial statement must prove irritating.' One must lay -one's count, for'one thing, with people who, have 110 appreciation of Keats at all. -Thus Thonias Carlyle thought that' lie had blown the [loot off the. table "like crumbs" when ho said "Keats wanted a world of treacle." It was not 011 such subjects that Mrs. Carlyle quarrelled.with her husband, and she is eveiv moro emphatic. Her remark on reading a volume of Koats's poetry was, "Almost any young gentleman with asweet tooth might be expccted to write such things,; 'Isabella' might have been written by'a seamstress who had taken something'too rich for supper and slept .upon her' back." Such judgments might be discounted as having been made be-, foro Keats had come into his own, but is an eminent critic of our own day not credited With having said that if Keats had lived-a little longer and led a bet-ter'life-lie might have .been one of the great poets .of England? Apart, however, from those'to whom'the magical charm of Keats is a sealed book, there aro many .who claim to recognise to the full his poetic worth who' would yet give him ; a place . among his fellows short of .the highest. Such are the Wordsworthians. Arnold was thinking of Wordsworth's "beautiful and powerful application of ideas to life" and his "nobly, plain manner" when he declared that the performance, of that poet was, after that of Shakespeare and Mil-ton,-the most considerable in our language from the Elizabethan age downward. The Swinbnrnean school, on the other hand,'would prefer Coleridgo to Keats 01V the ground that' tho note which he.introduced into English poetry .was not only the most original but also tho most poetic note of his time. Then Shelley-, too, with his lyrical fervour and his fiery prophet's heart, has his hearty worshippers who doubt if tho crown of the causeway is not his by right. The truth, however, is that so often aswe talk of the greatness .of tho Romantic poets we ought,to hark,back to tho reflection that the forces which culminat•cd'in/that great movement did not pfochic.e aiiy genius of really the first"- magnitude—any gonius in whom wisdom, knowledge,..passion, and artistic skill were harmoniously balanced as in Sophocles, or. Shakespeare,and who .took all the of" song for hisprovince. It is Arnold's contention, and'profoundly true. What it did pro.tWoo was . singers with . well-marked .limitations upon, whoso poetry damaging criticisms might be mauo.' Nevertheless each of those singers, hovrovor limited, had his own circle in which nono durst walk but he. Each in turn is ;,;greater- than _ all tho others, and everyone who wishes to keep as wide ;iis:possible an appreciation of various ■ styles of poetry ought, beforo drawing :up.., i an order of merit, to practise- the which Swinburne applied to tho .-Elizabethan dramatists, and keep very, clearly his own mind just those distinctive qualities in respect, of which .each is primus inter pares.