CRITICISM AND LETTERS IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 237, 7 January 1944, Page 3

CRITICISM AND LETTERS IN NEW ZEALAND.

Sir,-As a critic who has complained of some modern verse that it doesn’t sing, I qualify for Mr. Fairburn’s dunce’s corner. (Both of us might ask "What do you mean by ‘sing’"?), Nevertheless, I applaud his article on criticism of New Zealand books. It confirms my conviction that he is an excellent critic as well as an excellent poet. Tennyson remarked that the poet was rare, but the critic rarer still, Mr, Fairburn’s principle is unassailable. There is only one standard of literary criticism, and it should be applied to New Zealand writing. Criticism and writing react on each other just as batting and bowling do in cricket. When wickets and batting improve the bowler has to think and work harder. When bowling improves the batsman has to take more care with his technique. Good criticism is constructive and creative. The critic’s job is difficult. He must know his subject and he must be scrupulously honest. To allow personal likes and dislikes to affect his judgment is as immoral as robbing a till. But the practical difficulties in the way of putting Mr. Fairburn’s principle into operation in this country are well known to all critics. I have reviewed hundreds of New Zealand books and I know the

temptation to let writers down easily. One very important factor that Mr. Fairburn does not mention is the smallness of our population. Generally speaking, the larger the society (given a basis of general freedom) the more elbow room for the critic. We all know how circumspect we must be socially in a small community. That opinion is a good deal freer in England than in New Zealand is due partly to tradition and partly to the size of the nation. The writing circle in New Zealand is small. Many writers are critics. They know one another, often very well. It takes some moral courage to say of a good friend, whose salt you may be eating to-morrow, that he is a damned bad poet or a regrettably inaccurate historian. This is one of the many reasons why we must have more pulation, More people means more emand for books. It also means more freedom for the critic.

VETERAN

(Wellington).