FREE VERSE-THE HISTORIC POSITION

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 387, 22 June 1928, Page 14

FREE VERSE-THE HISTORIC POSITION

(Written for THE SUN) In New Zealand literature we have had one outstanding example of daring originality (as apart from mere eecentrie’ty). It is no mere coincidence that this has given us our one great writer. No writer was ever great unless he was daring—which is not to say that every experimentalist is necessarily a genius. For the most part, however, our prevailing curse is not over-daring, but timidity. An idea of what constitutes classical literature has been conjured up by our great Panjandrums from somewhere —heaven knows whence. It must be from som<* popular Guide to the Literature of all Lands or Art through the Ages; it certainly cannot be from the dead masters themselves, who are not in the least like the vulgar conception of them. This distorted view of past literature causes people to judge literary tendencies of the present day in absurd fashion, without proper regard to background, and perspective. Mr. Anderson, your contributor to this column on Friday, June 15, blandly assumes that free verse is a phenomenon which suddenly sprang to life in modern France. The truth is, that like most other things intellectual, it is a product of Greece, and is so old that its origin is attributed to the mythical Arion. The dithyrambs (originally songs in honour of Bacchus) were at first strictly metrical, but later they came to have “no more metre than the rhapsodies of Walt Whitman.” Free verse of this kind is definitely known to have been cultivated by Simonides of Keos, who lived in the sixth century B.C. It was freely used by the Greeks. Apart from Seneca, I do not know of any Roman who used this mediocri sermone quasi versu. In the French literature, this free verse is at its best in the hands of La Fontaine, the fabulist of the 17th century. His command over metre is usually held to be unrivalled. The form was familiar to many of the Frenchmen of the “Great Century” (including Corneille), but it fell into disuse during the 18th and early 19th centuries—those days of evil for French poetry. Its use experienced a revival later in the 19th century, notably in the hands of Gustave Kahn, and it is a commonplace feature of French poetry to-day. In English this use of lines of irregular length with the rhymes occurring in any order (or even without rhyme at all) is so ordinary that it seems strange to find men regarding it as a spasmodic outbreak peculiar to modern times. In the days before , the awful era of standardised poetry | (the Age of Pope), we find numberless examples as in the “Stanzas Irregular” of Isaac Walton, in Vaughan, in Crashaw. John Milton, so often a rebel against the convention of his age, gives us magnificent examples in the unrhymed choruses of “Samson Agonistes.” Of course, like most “revolts,” his was only a return to a previous method, and he was guided by his knowledge of Greek. In the period of bondage, when most poets did as they were told (and consequently ceased to be poets), we find little departure from the rigid formulae. With Blake, the first of the emancipated poets, we again find in full vigour this free verse, polyphonic prose, or whatever you care to call it. Since the romantic revival, many poets, both great and small, have condescended to use this instrument so

despised by your contributor. Shelley, Southey, Coventry Patmore, Henley, Whitman, to name a few at random. From men writing to day I can recommend such things as D. H. Lawrence’s “The Snake,” Arturo Giovanitti’s “The Hanged,” Martin Armstrong’s “Before Battle,” and much of Maurice Baring (who has also translated La Fontaine). These, of course, are only a few. As for the people mentioned in the previous article, there is no room for discussion here. Myself, I have found much in the Sitwells to enjoy—though it is a stock Maoriland amusement to attack them. Of Mr. Pound’s work, I can only call to mind the fine “Ballad of Gloom,” and that great “Ballad of the Goodly Fere,” and both of these are in regular metre. But that is only by the way, for it is not possible to discuss the men fully here. lam only concerned with showing that the article is hopelessly out of focus, and shows no true acquaintance with the older poetry of which, so the writer hints, he is such an admirer. And let me repeat that the curse of our native writers lies in the want of proper originality, not in the presence of too much. We are In no danger of imitating the follies of the wilder Americans; once again to lash them is as facile as it is valueless. To write vague comminations against some “modern movement” and insinuate that it is really new, this is usually a sign of ignorance. Finally, if Mr. Anderson really prefers strict formalism (and there I am with him), let him at least concede that this is prejudice; and if he wishes to lay down the law about free verse, let him ponder a while over these few hints as to its history. R. A. K. MASON. Auckland.