POETS AND PARODIES

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1503, 27 July 1912, Page 9

POETS AND PARODIES

If you wish to be a good ■ parodist you must first bo a good critic. / In fact, there is probably no better test of your understanding the truth about the artistic method of your ability to produce an imitation, however flippant, of his style which shall . really convince. The instant-you attempt such a thing you will show whether you,have really, soaked yourself in and absorbed the man's work or whether you,have merely read what other people have written about it. The case of Swinburne, will serve as well as any ; other for an illustration. That great man'wrote in a style so conepjcnously..individual that it lends itself peculiarly to 'imitation. , For the same reason It lends itself peculiarly' to superfic;al,. misrepresentation." .: And any duo who goes for'his,views' of Swinburne, not to , a thorqugh reading of Swinburne's own work, but.to the reviews of Swinburne, attacks;upon and defences, of Swinburne, and casual references to Swinburne, which he will ftnd in periodical'literature; will receive a generalainpression (1) that Swinhurno is noted for the extreme mellifluous smoothness, and.sweetness of his'versification, and.(2) .that he makes continual uso ftf alliteration. Set him to imitate Swinburne,- and, putting these two impressions (together,, he will produce n poem consisting of smooth amMoiyiiig lines, sprinkled v.with numerous'"wbrd>''b'piriiininpr with the Mine Swinburne .about, ns- closely as Hayley's poems resemble Dryden's.For, instance, an American volume ofparodies rmbli'shed some years ago and called "The Verses of the Echo Club" contained an altenipt to parody Swinburne. The first "verse of .' it—on the whole the best—ran as follows: As a. wave : that steals' when the winds are ■stormy,, ; - • • .. _From creek-to'cove of the curving shore, UiiffeJeiJ,.blown, and*liroken before me, Scattered nud spread to it sunlit core: As a .dny« that, dins in the dark of m.aplps ••■ ". ; ■■ ■.- ■ To rip- the. sweetness of shelter and shade •...'. I kneel in thy Nimbus, 0 noon of Naples, I bathe in thy beauty, by tfceo cmbay- ; ed. ■ ■ . , . J Now that is just the sort of paro&.of Swinburne which would, quite naturally. bo written by a man who had never read Swinburne, but only magazine article* uu Jiim. I do. not say that .Hie writer had never read Swinburne, but I do say without any hesitation that when he v/rr.lo those lilies he had the magazine article and not one of Swinburne's poems in his .mind. If ho had really read the poems*, the magazine articles stood as a kind of barrier between him and them, preventing him'from remembering •vhnt thev were really like. This will be apparent at once if we pentrast the lines just quoted with nn imitation of Swinburne by a man who has lh<i critical ncmnen to seizo and the (••if.ica-l Bympathy to absorb and make part of his own make-up for the moment Hie real characteristics of Swinburne's style. Mr. Owen Sm'iran is siieh a man. Hnr? are four lilies from his imitation of Swinburne :- When erased are the records and rotten The meshes of memory's net, when the grace,.that forgives has forgotten The things it were good to forgef.,-— And.here is a whole verso of h ; s: Hushed noiv is. the bibulous bubble ,Of lithe and lascivious • throats, Long stripped and extinct is the stubble Of hoary and harvested oats: . " Froni\the ; sweets that, are sour-as the sorrel's ■ ; : ■/.. The bees havo , abortively swarmed, A."d Algernon's, earlier,-'morals Aie. fairly' reformed. ' That is what I call great parody. No one could have written it who was not.

a considerable critic as well as a. smart parodist. And the first thing you will notice-about it is that it contradicts altogether tlio ningazine-articlo gcncrulisnluiis about Swiiimirne. it is emphatically not ".smooth." If it is /musical, the music is of a strong and rugged type ,)iot usually associated with Swinburne's name in conventional criticism. The lines do iiot slip easily off the tongue: they arc even difficult tu sny. And this difficulty in saying thorn is an important factor in producing their peculiar rhythmic effect. So it is.with Swinburne's own poems, as peoplo would soon find out if they read them instead of reading articles about them. 1 have passed through tho outermost portal To the shrine where a sin is a prayer; What care, though the service be mortal, 0 our Ijady of Torture, what care! Tho wonderful rhythmic beauty, of that, quatrain depends emphatically not ' on. tlieir smoolliness,' but on'the very fact -that'tho live words "0 our Lady of Torture" cannot be said quickly without slurring.'' They have (o bo said siowly, hml it is,like tho mounting of.a wave

[ which falls with a crash on the word" "what euro." Jtr. Seaman has caught tiiis effect exactly ia two lines of hi: parody: Snake crowned on thy tresses, and beltei \Vith blossoms that coil and decay— I am sure Swinburne was sorry lie did 110 write that. , And that, alter all, is tin suprenie_ test of parody. It is, I suppose, because good parody re quires and presupposes his intimate sj*mpathy with and understanding of tho an thoi , parodied that different parodists sue ceed conspicuously with different poets Even the American parodist of whom ] have spoken, who.' fails so badly v/if r. .Swinburne, is quite at home with Brel Harto and his pathetic poem on the deatl of |onie free-shooting C'alifornian: . - And tho hearse ivns always a-waiting." . A little way from his door— is delightful. Similarly, though JUr. deaman seems to me to have oiit-dis'ance<j nil competitors in imitating Swinburne his imitation of AVnlt Whitman, th.111411 amusing, is far inferior, to Sir. Artlsii Qiiiller-C'ouch's—who, by comparison, fail, with Swinburne. This, I tMijk, is due to tho fact that Mr. Seaman, who in (he case/of Swinbiirns-has gone'straight tc the poems, has in. the case 0? Whitman gdno more by the general opi n :i. Anyhow, there is nothing in his iaiid'tion w good as Sir Arthur's: ' I am not one who goes tolectures. Letters drop around me every day, and every one of them is signed with the t . ■ Dean's name. 1 : '• ■■■■.■• ..■■ ■ The Elementary Laws never apologise; '■ Neither do I.apologise. ••'■■■ • ••••■■ So,' again/ J.O.' wrote the one-'perfecf miration of Tennyson: , ■ '',•'•. 3dwin, the • plump head-waiter at "The ■Cock,"; ' . ■ ■ '• . Grown sick of custom, spoiled of plenitude. Lacking the finer sense that says: "I ' wait, . '■ • They come; and if I make them wait, they go"; ■■.:.':■. ami .no'imitation of. Byron lias ever been written equal to that in- ".Rejected-- Adilresses." . •.'. . ' /. A .siiisloTline.will : show'whether your parodist is of tho conventional or th« really critical. order. . I rcmemler. that many rears ago a friend of mine began a parody of .William Blake. -It was never published, or, I think, even finished; but the ni'st two. lines, were. . Close by the City of-Goodwill : A little house stood under a hill." I do not.rem«nbef;;aiiy^nicu-e.0f.,it,. : 8i I l there is ,the*whqle .of -Blake : ia those'.twc iines-the: qliaiiit sirahlioity, the' -hrreiit ing siuulenness.'-nnd, ftlDpve all, the iutromiction.of. a' mysterious and- enorniou< liiiagu-.of"the City of. Goodwill,", nevei reterred to again throughout the poem As the author is a contributor to "Tlk hye-V, ltness,' - and perhaps-though. thai may not. iollow—a reader thereof, I take this opportunity of begging him to complete his work and. giyp ijftp the world ■