POETRY AND THE PUBLIC.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1557, 28 September 1912, Page 9

POETRY AND THE PUBLIC.

, It. would be interesting to know what Iho leading lights of tho .intellectual world would reply to the following two questions: (1) Why has poetry steadily lost prestige since, the death.of Words- . worth (1850), so that it_ has now generally ludicrous connotations in the mind of tho ordinary man? (2) What must our presentday poet? do. to "gain tho respect due to It?. If one refrains from gathering a symposium on the subject it is due to tho .fear that'tho ominent few are themselves tainted with' tho samo cynical views that ((ow pervade tho million, so that the majority of answers would run: (1) Because r(o great poets have appeared since that .date. (2) Write great poetry. While'believing tliat.this first statement i 3 true so far as it goes, probably thd inferences; which would be_ drawn therofrom , would be wholly ■unjustified. That since 1850 no personality has arisen M a mouthpiece of that "natural piety" . vrltich is. the common basis of our emotions, and, in a healthy state (whether Individual or social), has the ordering and guidance of our likiDgs and. aversions, is

unhappily true onough. In an age of unfaith it is difficult to find any common basis for appealing to tho emotions, since the arrogant reason is always veady to flout all sincere feeling as the mero solfindulgonco of thoso whoso intellect is not keen' enough to mark cither tho source or tho purpose of tho passions that waylay them. This is, indeed, tho ono and only theme of Mr. Shaw's plays, and is syiiipto-_ matic of an age when the lino arts liavt) become utterly divorced from life, and are no longer the handmaidens of the social Instincts, cither trivial or serious. In so far as any present-day pobtrv is allied to , social instincts, it genorally speaks with a voice of protest, dismay, or despair utterly inimicable to tho "pure religion breathing household laws" so cherishedby our grandparents. '.L'he poetry ot Wordsworth's .generation expressed tho general aspirations of a vast bulk of people, as is now .clear from a philosophic survey of that; period. Scott rendered articulate tho sentiments vaguely felt in what we now know a 9 tho "Gothio revival," the allianco'between man and tho hills that overshadow him and tho homes that shelter; in Byron tho same feeling of pious awe for nature as tho arena for heroic exploits or the stern corrector of mean ones is implicit throughout, whilo Wordsworth himself, in whoso work all this is equally inherent, lifts it to another piano by an omission, in general, of any insistence on the' purely grandiose elements in men's history (such as battles and the pomps' of kingship), insisting on the "natural piety" that creates its own transcendent world ; ffoni tho commonest elements and'the lowliest, duties. Shelley's faith in the latent possibilities of man led him„ "to;fear himself and lovo all human kind," and to hail 'Earth, Ocean, Air," as ono beloved brotnerTho'generation that succeeded Wordsworth, undermined by industrialism and evolution, added nothing to, our storo of beauty as regards any conception of our relation to tho universe in which we Jive. It added enormously in metrical accomplishment, sheer virtuosity reaching, its final apotheosis in Swinburne, where tho poet, as first holding; tho hounds of rhyme and alliteration well in leash, is. finally dragged clean off his feet by tho tugging pair. The poefiy of this period; is almost wholly the poetry of mtrospection and self-analysis varied by occasional word-painting of extreme fineness. iho self-questioning of sincere men who want to do the right'but confess they do not know it,, whose tragic lot it is to be endowed , with instincts for beauty which have outlived-their poiver of old sanctions and prohibitions p in whoso fulfilling it' was onco to be found-we have that on'.the-one-hand; and on the other is the poetry of nervous sensations, which convey a serious import only to people of tender years, often impelling them to dire lamentation or revolt over a life as yet unseen in focus. Neither category of song conduces to the ,idea pf an apostolate, in the singer, since the first insists •on 'our incurable wretchedness and the,, second" insists only;, on joys that cannot- survive a. cold in tho/head or a twinge'of neuralgia. ~ " Poetry to : win respect from the ordin-ary-man must bo by way of an affiraation: - Rightly or wrongly to the^ normal English. mind, poetry ■ stands, or falls, by its effect as a help ,or hindrance to: living, and hence by its insistence on "mans un-. conquerable mind," "But, the read»r mav object, "to appraise poetry thus is to mistake and misjudge the whole nature and meaning of aesthetio endeavour. .That may or may not be so; we merely notice the phenomenon without gratilying tho opinion.

I am the master of my fate, lam the captain of my soul. . is one of the few affirmations of "man'sl' unconquerable mind" made in our owntime that lias achieved instant and assured popularity. But an age that is seriously asking man .is a product of heredity; ".and environment,; ■ and' nisthought and- conduct .necessarily' ! conditioned by 'thesfrrrhe. can have an - unconuuerable mind" has'oftener produced poet "tired of myself and sick of asking ; or another ivho hopes' wistfully— ■ that good shall fall'.' ' At last far'off, at last^to,all And everyiwinteiv jj I agile Apology" • (though he/wins, our, popular acclaim witli his {"Prospice");, wh-p . 1 strives to*lluild d shadowy, isle of'Ajiiss ' Alidmost'"the/beating 1 of the seeking that "escap6: form lifeV only .a; modern critic could have/proffered as an excuse'fo'r 'art),' by'.re-telling, old tales that are utterly remote from .life as we know it.' , ] . ; If we recall somo-of the best-known lines of'standard English poetry and the strong and noble -affirmations lying behind them, such as those to which the following are an index: — The expanse of spirit in a waste of shame— • It is not'growing like a tree— ;• '•' • The glories of our blood and state— • When I consider how.my light is spent— The "World is too much with us— we see at once that our past poetry has enshrined.an ethical sentiment which has come honie to the hearts and bosoms of : men without descending to the tameness and obviousness of such as Ella Wheler Wilcox, who now usurp the throne and Teceive the tribute due to tho authentic singer. -Wilfrid Thorley, in the "Academy.