The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth CenturyPhelps, William Lyon
History
The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century
Phelps, William Lyon
American poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism; English poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism
His attitude toward other schools of art, even when he has nothing in
common with them, is positively affectionate. Could there be two poets
more unlike in temperament and in style than Mr. Lindsay and Mr.
Masters? Yet in the volume, _The Chinese Nightingale_, we have a
poem dedicated "to Edgar Lee Masters, with great respect." He speaks
of "the able and distinguished Amy Lowell," and of his own poems
"parodied by my good friend, Louis Untermeyer." He says, "I admire the
work of the Imagist Poets. We exchange fraternal greetings.... But
neither my few heterodox pieces nor my many struggling orthodox pieces
conform to their patterns.... The Imagists emphasize pictorial
effects, while the Higher Vaudeville exaggerates musical effects.
Imagists are apt to omit rhyme, while in my Higher Vaudeville I often
put five rhymes on a line."
Impossible to quarrel with Vachel Lindsay. His stock of genial
tolerance is inexhaustible, and makes him regard not only hostile
humans, but even destructive insects, with inquisitive affection.
I want live things in their pride to remain.
I will not kill one grasshopper vain
Though he eats a hole in my shirt like a door.
I let him out, give him one chance more.
Perhaps, while he gnaws my hat in his whim,
Grasshopper lyrics occur to him.
During his tramps, the parents who unwillingly received him
discovered, when he began to recite stories to their children, that
they had entertained an angel unawares; and I have not the slightest
doubt that on the frequent occasions when his application for food and
lodging was received with a volley of curses, he honestly admired the
noble fluency of his enemy. When he was harvesting, the singing
stacker became increasingly and distressingly pornographic; instead of
rebuking him for foulness, which would only have bewildered the
stacker, Mr. Lindsay taught him the first stanza of Swinburne's
chorus. "The next morning when my friend climbed into our barge to
ride to the field he began:
When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months, in meadow or plain,
Fills the shadows--
'Dammit, what's the rest of it? I've been trying to recite that piece
all night.' Now he has the first four stanzas. And last evening he
left for Dodge City to stay overnight and Sunday. He was resolved to
purchase _Atalanta in Calydon_ and find in the Public Library
_The Lady of Shalott_ and _The Blessed Damozel_, besides
paying the usual visit to his wife and children."
If a man cannot understand music, painting, and poetry without loving
these arts, neither can a man understand men and women and children
without loving them. This is one reason why even the cleverest
cynicism is never more than half the truth, and usually less.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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