W.E.A. LITERATURE CLASS

Evening Star, Issue 19328, 14 August 1926, Page 10

W.E.A. LITERATURE CLASS

RUPERT BRBDKE , Last Tuesday evening, la tho languages room of the University, there was again a large attendance at this very popular class, when Miss M. H. M. King delivered tho second lecture on Rupert Brooke and his work as a poet. The lecturer began by asking what was the nature and value of that which produced in us a high and keen appreciation of the. true poets’ work. It was a pleasure, certainly. But from whence did it come? It_ had three sources. And these wore in the suggestion to the mind of beautiful pictures (tho pleasure being accentuated when wo recognised the pictures as real and when there was evolved from our mind a response to a great thought), also the recognition of the sheer musical quality in the composition of tho poem. The highest form of tins last was where tho music corresponded to thought or picture. Some poetry ought only to be read aloud, as tho greatest pleasure was got in hearing it. Modern poetry in all three aspects had a very distinct quality. Nineteenth century poetry, taking Tennyson as an example, dwells almost exclusively on the graceful and romantic. Modern poetry, on the other hand, tends more and more to look around and to record whatever it sees with strength of expression. Rupert Brooke, with his keen and lively sensibility to things surrounding him, shows no hesitation in recording the ugly as well as tho beautiful. Masefield was another poet of modern times who noticed the ugly. At this stage tho lecturer suggested as a question for the class to discuss: “Is it good art to record the ugly realities of things, and is it worth the poet’s energy to do sop” In Brooke’s work was to bo noticed a tendency to catalogue: the poem ‘ A Great Lover ’ showed this. In this poem there was a touch hero and there of the magic of poetry. Ho was also to be noted as displaying a subtle precision in observing and marking a fact of Nature. In poetry a subtle enchantment was conveyed far more than in set speech, and the effects produced by poetry were out of all proportion with the length of sentences or lines. Rupert Brooke, in common with the greatest of poets, was capable of striking a high note of felicity, which awakened the corresponding note in the imagination of his readers. At this stage the lecturer read a poem called ‘ Jealousy,’ not a very agreeable one, which showed that Brooke had undoubted strength in recording tho objectionable. Two other poems of this class, ‘ Wagner ’ and ‘ A Channel Passage, 1 woro referred to, and ‘ Dawn ’ was a poem which the class was asked to compare with tho work of Wordsworth and Tennyson on such or a similar title. It was an example of intolerable ennui produced by travelling in company with a somewhat swinish traveller. ‘ Granchestcr,’ on the other hand, was an example of description of beautiful things. In one of tho two poems on fish there was to bo noted tho wonderful manner in which tho metro slips into tho glide of the stream. Brooke was guilty of coining words, and some of these took some searching for in their meanings and derivations. The poems on tho fish were truly remarkable for description, Put not for thought. In the ‘ Memories of Heaven ’ one feels touches of Tennyson. The lecturer hero dwelt for a little on tho emotional and thought content of poetry. Modern poetry has the quality of recording moods or emotions in the form of pictures. It is full of unrelated snapshots and gleams of things not intended to convey any great thought, A comparison was here made between Die simplicity of Milton’s ‘ L’Allegro ’ and some modern poets in describing their moods. Tho expression of a great spiritual thought was tho highest work of poetry. Modern poetry was full of intellectual activity and not yet clear. We wero to compare it with Shakespeare in a great thought dearly and simply expressed, Cerebration was a marked feature in modern poetry. This was seen in Masefield. Brooke’s poetry could not lie said to be of the simple kind. He was not likely to be carried away by emotion, but rather exhibited a holding back from it. This was shown in his love poems, which harked back to the cavalier style. Ho recognised that the fervor of passion is a playful thing. ‘ One Before the Last ’ was here quoted as a proof of this attitude. Brooke had no presentiment of an early death. Tho reading of ‘Dust’ might have caused some to believe that he had. He seems to have not understood death, there was such an intense feeling of young life about him The poems ‘Death’ and ‘The Life Beyond,’ also ‘Failure’ (tho last being an attempt to record very complex thoughts in language), were read to the .lass.

The conclusion of the lecture was brought about by a consideration of the 1914 sonnets, which were written under tho stress of war. One must read these with a considerable sense of pathos. There is an expression of high patriotic fooling tinged with disappointment of hopes not realised; things remaining much as they were; promises that were made not being kept, but ruthlessly broken. Brooke’s poetry showed occasional perfect felicity of phrase, striking an individual note distinctly his. Much in his poetry will live, for ho had a most vivid emotionalism and a keen zest for the best of life.

At tho close of the lecture an interesting conversation took place, in which a number of tho students took part.

The subject for next Tuesday evening will be ‘ The Irish Renaissance ’ and James Stephens’s ‘ Crock of Gold.’