is seriously offered as a poem, there is some justification for the plain reader and orthodox critic who are frightened away from anything which may be labelled ‘modernist’ either in terms of condemnation or approbation. Who or what is Gongula? Is it a name of a person? of a town? of a musical instrument? Or is it the obsolete botanical word meaning ‘spores’? Or is it a mistake for Gongora, the Spanish poet from whom the word ‘gongorism’ is formed, meaning “an affected elegance of style, also called ‘cultism’?” And why “Papyrus”? Is the poem a fragment from a real papyrus? Or from an imaginary one? Or is it the poet’s thoughts about either a real or imaginary fragment? Or about spring too long because of the gongula of the papyrus-reeds? Rather than answer any of these questions and be driven to the shame-faced bluff of making much out of little, the common-sense reader retires to surer ground. Better, he thinks, presumably, that ten authentic poets should be left for posterity to discover than that one charlatan should be allowed to steal into the Temple of Fame. The plain reader objects to the idea of charlatanry in poetry more than he objects to the idea of stupidity, excess of learnedness, or honest inferiority: charlatanry being dishonest superiority. As the usual type of unorthodox critic is generally so superior himself that he either tolerates charlatanry because it is superior or snubs it because it is not superior enough; and as the usual type of orthodox critic is more equipped with prejudices than the plain reader, if only because his position forces him to know quantitatively more, and as he therefore has a less reliable instinct than the plain reader for determining what is genuine and what is not; the plain reader bears the full burden of challenging and unmasking charlatanry. The critic, of whatever type, is always over-cautious because his professional vanity is at stake in his judgement. The plain reader, because he is of a disorganized, unprofessional and unassisted majority, and therefore more easily imposed upon if too ingenuous, is only over-suspicious.