OUR STREPITOUS POETS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 57, 30 November 1907, Page 13

OUR STREPITOUS POETS.

A writer in tho Contributors' Club of tho "Atlantic Monthly" notes the nppearnnce of a new school of poets. "Instead of loafiing and inviting their souls," ho says, "these gentlomeir ily to the uttermost parts of tho oarth in search of verbal monstrosities, and return with hordes of barbaric captives. Not satisfied with this,',they seize and torture bovond recognition rcspectablo nativo citizens of the language. Borrowing from ono of their own 'number, wo might call thorn tho 'strepitous' school. ... in four short and harmless-looking, alboit apparently serious compositions, I discovered tho . following words; 'Dunch,' 'planished,' 'skclloch,' 'heveril,' 'strepitous,' 'riffling,' besides the more familiar 'wastrel,' 'guidon,' and, of course, 'redo' and 'sib.' Wo have no doubt that an equally curious collection, could bo brought up by a dredger in any month's magazine poetry. From words which regularly belong to poetry, but which everybody' understands; like "doff," "tyrst," "gyves," "con," and "mart," we pass by imperceptible degrees to noble and surprising words which nobody understands.. Somo aro gradually making their way into the conventional circles of poesy. Thus "sib" is progressing. We. doubt if many everyday readers know what it mennt till Kipling used •it half a dozen -tikes over in "Tomlinsoh." Now it is a mark of strictly up-to-date culture. Some others, like thd use of "ruin'' ai an intransitive' verb in a lino to which the "Atlantic" writer points with horror, "Phaethon headlong ruining down the sky," can lay claim to Tennysoniafn parentage. 1 "Ruining along tho iiiimitablo inane,'' is the fortieth line'of "Lucretius." But after all deductions have been made -for error and- over-severe Standards, there still remains': a singular phenomenon in this eruption of the. unusual words.

It would seem; in fact, as if a good proportion of our rhymesters, in and out of the periodicals, had taken seriously tho advice given by Hilaire Belloc in "Caliban's Guide to Letters," where he discusses the "prattling" and the "obscure" styles of poetry, "the only two styles possible in manufactured verse." In the course of his instructions for the former he says;

It is at this point that I must introduce you to a most perfect principlo. It is called the Mutation of Adjectives—it is almost the whole art of Occ. verse. This principle consists in pulling out one's first obvious adjective, and replaciug-. it by another of similar length, chosen-.because it is peculiar. You must-not put in an adjectivo that could.not possibly apply; for instance, you must not speak of the "Ponderous Rabbit" or .the "Murky Beasts" ; •'your adjective must Mie applicable, but it must be startling, as "The Tolerant Cow," "The Stammering Minister, or "Tho Greasy Hill"—all-quite true an.l most unexepectod. Dr. Caliban's strictures on the young poets who "have imagined that tho mere use 6f strange words made up tho obscure stylo ; have been less heeded.

How far we have passed beyond the stage when Lewis Carroll could namo "wild"' "lonely," "weird, 1 ' , and "strange" as t-ha "adjectives that suit .with' every wprd"! Those are the very adjectives to bo avoided now, as "bromides" of Versification. As the foregoing; facts show, wo are develoning in their place a now set of general utility vocables, incjuding not only adjectives, but nouns, vecbs, and all the dther parts cf speech with the possible oxceptioiis of articles and pronouns. Theso adorn tile most commonplaco subject matter, turn literalism into fancy; and finally enable the reader to distinguish prose from poetry even moro quickly and certainly than by the length of the lilies.- : But the really tremondous fact about this innovation is the almost limitjess possibility of its extension.' Admit at'onco the odd and unfamiliar word to an honoured place in letter.?. Repeal ;the old .regulations of the rhctoricijfiis 'b|s.roess v 'aiidjjiifr plicity, : midf f i'P opened up. What most commentators fail t) realise, though the bare facts are commonplaces of the toxtbooks,- is the almost inethaustible' stock' of "WOrds"that arc ready to be used. Talk about ivells of English undeliled! The young poet who is not afraid to bore—wo intend no offence by Jjio word —into now strata of languago can tap a veritable Texas "gusher." /

We open the volumes of tlio Century dictionary at .three places, practically at random, and are rewarded by "sblcouth," "sold," "pegme," "pegomancy," ."pejority," "pel," "goliard," ■ golion," "gomcrelj" besides a number of other words which equally worthy in respect to sound and senso, are oither worn out'by age, or of shady'reputation. Any 0110 may use these who pleases. In fact, we should offer them formally to. the jioets who may be numbered among our readers but for the fact that any 0110 of them who owns a dictionary may help himself to others as good or bettor. It would bo as presumptuous to proffer these: particular words as for a man to' offer apples to any casual stranger standing in an orchard tliat belonged to neither one of them. !

The world is running out of many important commodities. The good lumber is likely to be used up before the and of this generation, the pctroloupi before the end of tho next contury, tho coal and iron and copper Somewhat furtfcgr ahead. it is safo to predict that every one of them will bo exhausted before the writer who uses the English language, at leafit, will lack for novel and astonishing words,. And so long as such words arc to be had, we shall still enjoy an adequate supply of a product which, whon printed with a capital. letter at tho beginning of each line and occasional rhymes ,at tlio end, will at least look like poetry.—New York "Post.""