Unfamiliar Lyrics And A Century Of Verse

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 32, 20 January 1939, Page 16

Unfamiliar Lyrics And A Century Of Verse

Three Volumes For Poetry Lovers

HERE is a good deal of pleasure to be derived from a perusal of Mr. Ault’s pages. His Unfamiliar Lyrics are, many of them, very good. And it is quite apparent that an enormous amount of work must have been done to produce such a collection. Work alone could hardly have Been enough-a sure and sensitive literary taste has been perhaps a bigger factor. In his introduction, the compiler informs us that he has excluded every poem which appears in the two most wideiy known poetical collections, The Golden Treasury and The Oxford Book of English Verse. Discriminating The list of poems by some of the greater figures in English poetry-poems very freauently which had hitherto escaped every editor of their works-is surprisingly large, and the poems themselves extremely good. "It has heen my endeavour," gays the editor, "so toe discriminate in my choice of pieces that the great poets shall not be represented yet once more by the same old selection from their works, but wherever possible, poems as beautiful, if less familiar’-and to include "What I believe to, be poems of rare and unexpected beauty, though written by poets of little or no fame, and by much anknown anonymous work of. ex.guisite felicity." : Mr. Ault’s is probably the first ; work of this kind of any considerable scope. its chief value would appear to be in the sud- -. den and> unexpected sidelights . the reader constantly finde thrown: upon poets with whom phe has a moderate or only asi Cr hd 48 6 . Be 8

little acquaintance — "So he could do this sort of thing-and in this way" is the sort of comment that the reader is passing every few minutes as he turns the pages. In the two new "Pelicans," Mr. Roberts has, of course, had to apply a rather different criterion. Instead of his personal judgment, he has to a certain extent to take into account public favour. Trends Of Poetry But it is a fair claim to make that he has produced a really fine and representative selection which shows within its covers the trends and developments of WPnglish poetry during the period. To the younger generation it may come as a shock to find some of the names so close to ourselves in point of time: The first volume includes poetry by (among others) Hood, Leigh Hunt, Poe (there is a fair American selection) Carlyle, ‘Clough, Dobell, Longfellow, Cory, Gerard, Manley Hopkins, Meredith’ and Wilde. Among the moderns in the second volume are Stephen Spender, Edmund Blunden, Brooke, Muir, Lascelles, Abercrombie, Grenfell, and the late Professor A. BE. Housman-and the selection is an excellent one. For a shillingsworth of poetry-two _ shillingsworth in New Zealand-it could hardly be bettered.-cC.S.P. A Treasury.-of Unfamiliar Lyrics, sejected largely fram rare and for- : gotten. sources, Edited by Norman Ault. Victor Gollancz, London. Our copy: from the publisher. The Century’s Poetry, 1837-1937, -In two volumes. Compiled by Denys . -‘Kilham, Roberts. Pelican. Book. Allen Lane, London, Our copies from the