Latest / Reviews / 049 - The Poets' Corner--III

Transcript

049 - The Poets' Corner--III · Reviews

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Section forty eight of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Reading by Robin Catter July two thousand seven, Reviews by
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde, edited by Robert Ross, Section forty eight The
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Poet's Corner three. Such a pseudonym for a poet as
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Glennessa reminds us of the good old days of the
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Della Cruscans. But it would not be fair to attribute
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Glennessa's poetry to any known school of literature, either past
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: or present. Whatever qualities it possesses are entirely its own.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Glennessa's most ambitious work, and the one that gives the
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: title to his book, is a poetic drama about the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: garden of Eden. The subject is undoubtedly interesting, but the
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: execution can hardly be said to be quite worthy of it. Devils,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: on account of their inherent wickedness, may be excused for singing.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Then will rally rally, rally, Yes, will rally rally. Oh,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: But such scenes as enter Adam, Adam excitedly eve, where
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: art thou Eve surprised, Oh, Adam in astonishment, Eve, my god,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: she's there beside that fatal tree. Or enter Adam and
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Eve Eve in astonishment. Well, is not this surprising Adam distracted?
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: It is seem to belong rather to the sphere of
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: comedy than to that of serious. Verse. Poor Glenessa, the
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: gods have not made him poetical, and we hope he
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: will abandon his wooing of the muse. He is fitted
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: not for better, but for other things. Bordigerne and Rowena
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: is a cantata about the Britons and the Danes. There
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: is a druid priestess who sings of Cynthia, an Endymion
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: and a chorus of jubilant vikings. It is charmingly printed,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: and as a libretto for music quite above the average.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: As truly religious people are resigned to everything, even to
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: mediocre poetry, there is no reason at all why Madame
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Guillon's verses should not be popular with the large section
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: of the community. Their editor, mister Dyer, has reprinted the
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: translations Cowper made for mister Bull, added some versions of
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: his own, and written a pleasing preface about this gentle
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: seventeenth century saint, whose life was her best, indeed her
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: only true poem. Mister Pierce has discovered a tenth muse
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: and writes impassioned verses to the Goddess of Chess, whom
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: he apostrophises as sublime. Cassa, Zuckertorte, and Steinitz are his heroes,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: and as he is as melodious on mates as he
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: is graceful on gambits, we are glad to say, however,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: that he has other subjects. And one of his poems,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: beginning cedar Box's deeply cut china bowls of quaint device
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: heaped with rosy leaves and spice violets in old volumes Shut,
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: is very dainty and musical. Mister Clifford Harrison is well
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: known as the most poetic of our reciters, but as
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: a writer himself of poetry, he is not so famous.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Yet his little volume in Hours of Leisure contains some
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: charming pieces, and many of the short fourteen line poems
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: are really pretty, though they are very defective in form.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Indeed a form, mister Harrison is curiously careless. Such rhymes
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: as calm and charm, baise and place jeu and new
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: are quite dreadful. While operas and stars Gautama and Afar
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: are too bad even for Steinway Hall. Those who have
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Keats's genius may borrow Keats's cockneyisms, but from minor poets
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: we have a right to expect some regard to the
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: ordinary technique of verse. However, if mister Harrison has not
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: always form, at least he has always feeling, he has
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: a wonderful command over all the egotistic emotions. Is quite
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: conscious of the artistic value of remorse, and displays a
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: sincere sympathy with his own moments of sadness, playing upon
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: his moods as a young lady plays upon the piano.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: Now and then we come across some delicate descriptive touches,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: such as the cuckoo knew its latest day had come,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: and told its name once more to all the hills.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: And Whenever mister Harrison writes about nature, he is certainly
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: pleasing and picturesque, But as a rule he is over
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: anxious about himself, and forgets that the personal expression of
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: joy or sorrow is not poetry, though it may afford
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: excellent material for a sentimental diary. The daily increasing class
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: of readers that likes unintelligible poetry should study Eonial. It
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: is in many ways a really remarkable production, very fantastic,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: very daring, crowded with strange metaphor, and clouded by monstrous imagery.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: It has a sort of turbid splendor about it, and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: should the author some day add meaning to his music,
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: he may give us a true work of art. At present,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: he hardly realizes that an artist should be articulate. Seymour's
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Inheritance is a short novel in blank verse. On the
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: whole it is very harmless, both in manner and matter.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: But we must protest against such lines as and in
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the windows of his heart the blinds of happiness had
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: been drawn down by grief. For a simile committing suicide
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: is always a depressing spectacle. Some of the other poems
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: are so simple and modest that we hope mister Ross
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: will not carry out his threat of issuing a more
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: pretentious volume. Pretentious volumes of poetry are very common and
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: very worthless. Mister Brodie's lyrics of the See are spirited
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: and manly, and show a certain freedom of rhythmical movement.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Pleasant in days of wooden verse. He is at his best, However,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: in his sonnets. Their architecture is not always of the
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: finest order, But here and there one meets with lines
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: that are graceful and felicitous, Like silver swallows on a
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: summer morn. Cutting the air with momentary wings is pretty,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: and on flowers. Mister Brodie writes quite charmingly, the only
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: thoroughly bad piece in the book is the Workman's Song.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Nothing can be said in favor of is there a
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: bit of blue boys? Is there a bit of blue
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: in Heaven's lead? In hue boys? Tis Hope's eye peeping through?
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: For optimism of this kind is far more dispiriting than
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Schoppenhauer or Hartman at their worst. Nor are there really
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: any grounds for supposing that the British workmen enjoys third
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: rate poetry. N of Section forty eight The Poet's Corner
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: three