Latest / Reviews / 023 - The Poetry of the People

Transcript

023 - The Poetry of the People · Reviews

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Section twenty two of reviews by Oscar Wilde. This is
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Reviews by Oscar Wilde, edited by Robert Ross. Section twenty two.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: The Poetry of the People Paul mal Gazette, May thirteenth,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty six. The Countess Martinengo deserves well of all poets, peasants,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: and publishers. Folklore is so often treated nowadays merely from
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the point of view of the comparative mythologist, that it
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: is really delightful to come across a book that deals
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: with the subject simply as literature. For the folk tale
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: is the father of all fiction, as the folk song
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: is the mother of all poetry. And in the games,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the tales, and the ballads of primitive people, it is
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: easy to see the germs of such perfected forms of
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: art as the drama, the novel, and the epic. It is,
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: of course true that the highest expression of life is
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: to be found not in the popular songs, however poetical
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: of any nation, but in the great masterpieces of self
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: conscious art. Yet it is pleasant sometimes to leave the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: summit of Parnassus, to look at the wild flowers in
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the valley, and to turn from the lyre of Apollo
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: to listen to the reed of pan We can still
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: listen to it to this day. The vineyard dressers of
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Calabria will mock the passer by with satirical verses, as
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: they used to do in the old pagan days, and
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: the peasants of the Olive woods of Provence answer each
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: other in ameban strains. The Sicilian shepherd has not yet
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: thrown his pipe aside, and the children of modern Greece
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: sing the swallow song through the villages in springtime, though
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Theognus is more than two thousand years dead. Nor is
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: this popular poetry merely the rhythmic expression of joy and sorrow.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: It is, in the highest degree imaginative, and taking its
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: inspiration directly from nature. It abounds in realistic metaphor, and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: in picturesque and fantastic imagery. It must of course be
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: omitted that there is a conventionality of nature, as there
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: is a conventionality of art, and that certain forms of
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: utterance are apt to become stereotyped by two constant use
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: yet on the whole it is impossible not to recognize
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: in the folk songs that the Countess Martinango has brought
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: together one strong, dominant note of fervent and flawless sincerity. Indeed,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: it is only in the more terrible dramas of the
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Elizabethan age that we can find any parallel to the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Corsican vocrie, with their shrill intensity of passion, their awful
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: frenzies of grief and hate, and yet ardent as the
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: feeling is, the form is nearly always beautiful. Now and
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: then in the poems of the extreme South, one meets
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: with a curious crudity of realism, but as a rule
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the sense of beauty prevails. Some of the folk poems
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: in this book have all the lightness and loveliness of lyrics.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: All of them have that sweet simplicity of pure song
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: by which mirth finds its own mens and mourning its
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: own music. And even where there are conceits of thought
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: and expression, they are conceits born of fancy, not of affectation.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Herric himself might have envied that wonderful love song of Provence.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: If thou wilt be the falling dew and fall on
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: me alway, then I will be the white white rose
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: on yonder thorny spray. If thou wilt be the white
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: white rose on yonder thorny spray, then I will be
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the honey bee and kiss thee all the day. If
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: thou wilt be the honey bee and kiss me all
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the day, then I will be in yonder heaven the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: star of brightest ray. If thou wilt be in yonder
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Heaven the star of brightest ray, then I will be
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the dawn, and we shall meet at break of day.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: How charming also is this lullaby by which the Corsican
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: mother sings her babe to sleep. Gold and pearls. My
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: vessel laid silk and cloth, the cargo bee. All the
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: sails are of brocade, coming from beyond the sea, and
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: the helm of finest gold made a wonder to behold
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: fast asleep in slumber, Lie sleep my child, and hush aby.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: After you were born full soon you were christened all
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: aright godmother, She was the moon godfather, the sun so
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: bright all the stars in heaven told wore their necklaces
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: of gold. Fast awhile in slumber, lie sleep my child,
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and hush aby. Or this from Romania. Sleep my daughter,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: sleep an hour, Mother's darling, gilliflower, Mother rocks thee standing near.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: She will wash thee in the clear waters that from
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: fountains run to protect thee from the sun. Sleep, my darling,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: sleep an hour. Grow thou as the gilliflower, as a
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: tear drop, Be thou white as a willow, tall and slight,
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: gentle as the ring doves are, and be lovely as
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: a star. We hardly know what poems are sung to
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: English babies, but we hope they are as beautiful as
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: these two blake might have written them. The Countess Martinengo
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: has certainly given us a most fascinating book. In a
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: volume of moderate dimensions, not too long to be tiresome,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: nor too brief to be disappointing, she has collected together
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: the best examples of modern folk songs. And with her
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: as a guide, the lazy reader lounging in his arm
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: chair may wander from the melancholy pine forests of the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: North to Sicily's orange groves and the pomegranate gardens of Armenia,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: and listen to the singing of those to whom poetry
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: is a passion, not a profession. And whose art coming
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: from inspiration and not from schools. If it has the limitations,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: at least has also the loveliness of its origin, and
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: is one with blowing grasses and the flowers of the field.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Essays in the Study of Folk Songs by the Countess
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Evelyn Martinango Cicerisco Redway, end of section twenty two ye