IS POETRY POPULAR?

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1479, 29 June 1912, Page 11

IS POETRY POPULAR?

The extraordinary interest shown in tho Browning centenary celebrations (says the London "Telegraph") raises the question whether the habit of reading poetry is growing more popular or not. We givo a representative opinion from. ono who combines exceptional powers as a critic ivitli'.commercial and technical experience of publishing to ft most uncommon degree. Mr. Arthur Waugh is renowned for his published estimates of Tennyson* and the poets of the Victorian era, and is a corrective influence on the literature of today. He is, moreover, managing director of a leading firm, Messrs. Chapman and Hall, and secretary of the Publishers' Association. On these grounds, therefore, he may fairly claim authority to discuss tho question in all it? aspects. On the point as to the output of poetry to-day, Mr. Waugh replied: "Yes, it i 3 curious, perhaps, that more poetry is printed nowadays in the papers and the magazines, and that there is less apparent interest in it so far as tho general public is concerned. What I mean is that twenty years ago it would have been impossible to conceive of a magazine leading off with twenty pages of poetry, as the 'English Review' so often does to-day. On the other hand, although the output was smaller, I believe the effect of: poetry a generation ago was deeper and more lasting than any influence it exercises now." . "Can you give an instance?" "Yes," said Mr. Waugh. "Twenty years ago the appearance of sucli a .poem as Mr. Masefield's 'Tho Everlasting Mercy' would have been hailed as a national event, but tlie only thing in these days that seems to stir the public mind is aeroplaning or a great disaster." "May we ascribe the difference to the poets as well as to their readers?" "Partly, no doubt," was the reply, "The death of Tennyson concentrated attention on his work as a whole, and gavo a., tremendous stimulus to the cultivation aiul study of poetry, which may or may not have been an artificial one, of course. As long as the Laureatehin was vacant, certainly, Viso. Street found the line was worth pursuing; . and whether the filling of the Laureateship discouraged many aspirants or not, the end of uncertainty was also an end to the enthusiasm I liave mentioned. But you must remember also that Tennyson occupied an exceptional position, in so far as he was not a poet alone, but an acknowledged scholar and thinker and statesman, and his place has never been filled." "Yet there are young poets to-day." it was urged, "who possess qualifications more suited to their age than any of their predecessors bad." ' . "We are having a remarkable revival, T. admit," said Mr." AVnii'pk "in qualify as well as amount, and Mr. Masefield and Mr. Noyes and half a dozen others would have made their own audiences in any age. But here we come up against the commercial side of the question, and I seriously doubt if there are publishers today who would think of publishing any poetry by authors outside that group, unless it was at the writer's own exnense." "Ts this the fault of tlie public?" "Not entirelv," was tlie answer. "Tho commercial difficulty of publishing poetry is increased by the fact that, there are so few booksellers alive to-dav'of the scholarly class —men like Mr. Doboll—wlio love poetry for its own sake and take the trouble to find the right customers likely to appreciate and buy it. When wo return to the system by which many a provincial bookseller took pains to sift his books and find the best, we may also hope for. a return of the sort of old-fashioned customer who would listen and value the advice thus given. But wo live too fast, and books appear at too rapid a rate. One man cannot possibly cover the field, and thore's an end of it."