WRITERS' CLUB.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 12

WRITERS' CLUB.

At tho Writers' Club afternoon meeting Mrs. Crump gave a talk on the British poets from earliest times to 1832. Starting with a graphic description of the surroundings in which the bards recited their poems, she gave an outline of the first tales from which the poems took form. Later rhyme and metre were introduced from France. Contemporary history played an important part in poetry. Chaucer was the first to write of the people for the people. He was followed by the ballad period, and after that play-writing was the following phase until Shakespeare. The speaker touched upon various outstanding poets and their lives, and the later school of criticism which arose, which laid down set rules for literature. Then came Scott, who started another new era. With Burns, poems upon Nature alone, and not merely as a background to the human interest, were written. The Frcnch revolution again influenced many poets, and poems based on the new ideas of the equality of man were written, but the reign of terror caused the pendulum to swing back to Nature, which brought us up to modern times. Extracts from the poets were written by Mrs. Wilson, Mrs. Spier 3, Miss Johnson, Mrs. Fisher, Mrs. ScottYoung, Mrs. Gilbert, Mrs. Burke and Mrs. Doust.