United States or Cabo Verde ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Minor verse-writers may fairly be consigned, without disrespect, to the region of the literature of taste; and criticism of their work takes the shape of a discussion of stray graces, of new turns, of little variations of shade and colour, of their conformity to the accepted rules that constitute the technique of poetry.
Sandro Botticelli was not a great painter in the same sense as Andrea Mantegna. But he was a true poet within the limits of a certain sphere. We have to seek his parallel among the verse-writers rather than the artists of his day.
Put this standard of judgment to the verse-writers of the day, and where would they be? The English Laureate is no seer: he is a mere relater of pretty stories. Algernon Charles Swinburne has more fire in him, and more wealth of expression, but he does not prophesy; he has a clever way of combining Biblical similes with Provengal passion et voila tout!
At other times, literary or artistic themes, the newest poem, novel, picture, concert, came up for discussion; and as these ladies were verse-writers, essayists, critics, and lovers of beauty in all forms, the conversations called out the rich genius and complex tendencies and aptitudes of Dr. Dewey in stimulating suggestions, which were refreshing as spring breezes.
"Se ti riduci a mente Qual fosti meco, e quale io teco fui, Ancor fia grave il memorar presente." I am one that notes When Love inspires; and what he speaks I tell In his own way, embodying but his thoughts. Jacopo da Lentino, called the Notary, and Fra Guittone of Arezzo, were celebrated verse-writers of the day. The latter, in a sonnet given by Mr.
Having thousands of graceful verse-writers, we have no great poet; in a torrent of skilful fiction, we have no great novelist; with many charming painters, who hardly seem to have a fault, we have no great artist; with mises-en-scène, make-up costumes, and accessories for our plays such as the world never saw before, we have no great actor; and with ten thousand thoughtful writers, we have not a single genius of the first rank.
The favorite poet-heroes, Aeschylus, Michael Angelo, Tasso, Dante, Marlowe, Shakespeare, Milton, Chatterton, Keats, Byron, are all characterized as proud. The last-named has been especially kept in the foreground by following verse-writers, as a precedent for their arrogance. Shelley's characterization of Byron in Julian and Maddalo,
The comic verse-writers and the cartoonists took hold of it with screaming laughter, and in the personal columns of society weeklies jokes were perpetrated on it to the effect that Charley Frensham told Archie Jennings, in confidence, that five lines of "Ephemera" would drive a man to beat a cripple, and that ten lines would send him to the bottom of the river.
Repudiation by verse-writers of poetry's highest claims we have been accustomed to dismiss, until recently, as betrayal of a streak of commonness in the speaker's nature, of a disposition to value the clay of life more highly than the fire.
But this was by no means the only predisposing cause, though perhaps most of the others were, in this way or that, connected with it. There were no great poets: and even verse-writers were rarely grand: but there was a greater diffusion of competent writing faculty than had been seen before or perhaps for all the time, talk, trouble, and money spent on "education," has been since.
Word Of The Day