ARGUMENT OF POETRY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 655, 25 January 1952, Page 12

ARGUMENT OF POETRY

Sir-In his letter, E. Schwimmer clarifies his position and goes some way to meet the views expressed in your review. One impresSion.I get from _ his essay is that, like some other criticism and a good deal’ of contemporary poetry, it over-emphasises the philosophical, the intellectual, at the expense of the emotional. So much of the fine poetry of the world, especially the "artless" songs that Fig: from generation to generation, has no intellectual content in this sense. The question of the relationship of the local to the general is fascinating. I agree with your reviewer that. "it~ is through the immediate and local that a poet expresses what is distant and universal," but possibly reservations and explanations have to be made in _ this as in most generalisations. Perhaps the argument is more plainly _ illustrated by prose than by verse. The "universal" novelists, such: as Tolstoi, write about the society around them An analogy might be suggested between the local and general in literature, and good citizenship as the necessary basis of world order. We know the type of man ‘who works enthusiastically for . world peace, *but is difficult to» deal with in the daily affairs of life. An English publisher told us not.long ago that there was no recipe for a best-selling novel, and that the surest way to fail was to sit down determined to write one. I suggest there may be an analogy here, too. If a poet sits down deliberately to write universally, he will almost certainly fail. If, he truly absorbs what is local, and works upon that sincerely, he thay achieve something universal. Linked with this is Mr. Schwimmer’s theory, expressed in his essay, of a "myth" created about "a lonely islanddesert discovered by navigators and developed by baffled explorers, which was identified with New Zealand." He says "only a handful of literati were ever | touched by this ‘myth.’" Mr, Schwimmer is confusing myth and _ historical fact. The discovery and-development of this "lonely island-desert" is a solid fact of history, which has profoundly influenced the lives of New Zealanders. Though they may not rationalise their feelings, New Zealanders are aware of their geographical and cultural remoteness. Mentally as well as physically they look out on to long distances. It has even been suggested that you can tell a New Zealander partly by the look in his eyes-the look of a man habituated to gazing, literally and figuratively, across the unbroken orean.

ALAN

MULGAN

(Wellington).