POETRY IN NEW ZEALAND
Sir,-It is a pleasure to agree with Mr. Baxter that love is a noble theme and rightly the favourite theme of the lyric poet. But love is primarily a relationship between persons and only secondarily a biological phenomenon. The trouble with some of our poets is that in their account of love the biological element is given pride of place. And this is not only bad philosophy, it is poor art. As Jean Grutton remarks in his book The Blessed Virgin: "Even those who describe guilty love, if they set any store by artistic verecityEuripides, for instance, or Racine or Proust-must preserve a certain. chastity of expression. Here again it is true that the flesh avails nothing. A mystery is known only to the spirit. Folly or indiscretion, cynicism or a mistaken desire to return to reality, may strip the spirit of its veil, present it in stark nakedness; but the result is no return to nature, merely a bastard monstrosity of perverted spirit and uninhabited flesh."
G.H.
D.
Palmerston North).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 780, 2 July 1954, Page 5
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175POETRY IN NEW ZEALAND New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 780, 2 July 1954, Page 5
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