PASSING NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22356, 1 September 1934, Page 6

PASSING NOTES

Once again the Bible-in-schools controversy is with us. In the name of heaven, an extraordinary controversy is this, which debates with formal gravity whether the sacred book of the race shall continue to lie ignominiously in an educational “ index expurgatorius,” among the unseemly outcasts of the dangerous and pernicious, the subversive and the obscene. And whether a piece of English literature which permeates, nay, interlines, the prose and poetry of modern times shall be regarded as dead or alive. Has not the time come when secular education, itself should take a hand in the debate? And then, maybe, from this lower plane the matter will automatically rise into a higher. Were the Bible reclothcd in a modern dress, taken out of its robe of sombre and decorous black, printed and arranged as an historical and literary text book — what mediaeval or modern story could hold its own with it? Prescribed as “ the history of Palestine from earliest times down to the capture of Jerusalem by Titus.” it might well form part of the normal historical work of any school. To any intelligent and well-read man, in any walk of life where man has to use tongue or pen, or take an intelligent part in intelligent society, a knowledge of biblical facts and characters is of more value than an acquaintance with the Plantagcnets and Tudors—or even with the plays of Shakespeare. Hardcrusted' men there are among us who, realising too late the error of their early ways and training, have taken to reading the Bible from cover to cover, finding it as full of quotations as the old lady found Hamlet, and of greater fascination than Gibbon or Macaulay. In it they find English prose at its highest point, eloquence surpassing that of Burke, narrative more vivid than that of Scott or Dickens or Conrad. Even Conrad has no better description of a storm at sea than that given by St. Paul, of which each verse, in its stern but picturesque simplicity, has won the admiration of all ages. How often have critics of note quoted the verse: Then fearing lest we should have fallen upon rocks, they cast four anchors out of the stern, and wished for the day?

Unpardonable ignorance of biblical facts crops up in unexpected places. No need is there to say hard things of the youths emerging from our schools who know not why or for whom the fatted calf was killed —incredible, but a fact—to whom the Balm of Gilead is a mere haphazard trade name for a face lotion, who see no symbolic meaning in a reference to David and Jonathan, or to Jacob’s voice and Esau’s bands, who find no meaning in “the still small voice,” or in the inevitability of failure from an instability as of water. Such deficiencies in desirable knowledge are not uncommon —and by no means exaggerated. But what are we to say when they appear in respectable novels and In reviews of high standing? In Percy Westcrman’s “ Captain Cain,” published by Nisbet in the omnibus form, appears the following: Poor Devil! He chose an apt name when he adopted that of Cain; every man’s band against his.

And in the high-brow “New Statesman and Nation ":

_ Well every policeman feels rather like Esau — every man’s hand is against him.

Had they never heard of Ishmael, sou of Abraham by Hagar, to whom the angel said at the fountain in the wilderness, u Behold thou shalt bear a son . . . and ho will be a wild man: his hand shall be against every man. and every man’s hand against him’’'? Teachers’ institutes and educational associations of every grade should rise up in revolt. But alas, teachers are—well, read the following extract from a London weekly:

Mr E. J. Kenny, a London headmaster, at the conference of the Association for Adult Religious Education at Hayward’s Heath, said that many teachers who gave Scripture lessons had no enthusiasm for the subject. “ A young arithmetic master of my acquaintance,” he said, “was in the habit of devoting part of his Scripture hour to arithmetic. One day he was thus engaged when the headmaster entered. At that moment one of the pupils, answering a mental arithmetic question, gave the reply, ‘Three.’ The master, with great presence of mind, said to the boy, ‘That is right—three: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.’ ”

The poets of the “New Poetry,” and of the “ Very New Poetry ” —for it >s getting newer every day—have much to contend with. They are seeking a new synthesis in a chaotic world. They present the spectacle of youth writhing among realities, expressing their notes of bitterness, frustration and prisonescape. The reality most immediate to them is the scarcity of open doors to public notice and appreciation. They complain that the masses, of all classes, have captured the means of access to the public. They “cherish bombs for masquerades.” Theirs is the poetry of the sub-conscious, diving its roots down, says T. S. Eliot, to draw from all human experience. They take psychological snapshots of Nature, recording not so much things seen as the mood in which they are seen, and looking on life with a certain intensity of gaze at once sad and rebellious. Writes Peter Neagoe:

The various revolts are revolts against old forms. The European young felt the pall of old breath on them, the stagnant exhalation _ from unburied dead. Europe was in the clutches of the aged, the aged middleclass mentality. The European young shook the fetlerg in every domain of art. For the old they had only harsh words, and nothing else to say —words that should shake the ossified brain to dust. They could not endure the middle-class—that smug, turgid-minded creature, mostly

stomach and guts. All which is quite understandable. But why call it “ new ” ? The postNapoleonic era had its new romanticist poets, poets of revolt, poets of despair, poets singing of disillusionment, of noncomprehension, of non-recognition, railing at a world that held no place for them. And the critics of the Old Guard mocked their brackish pessimism, their satirical clowning, the tortuosity of their diction, and called them “ cheerless sparrows.” Yet the “ new ” romanticists of those days produced poetry of superlative quality and gave new life to the old literature. And poetry of the subconscious is not now, but two or three generations old.

Supremely poetical, therefore, arc the matter and sentiment of the “New Poetry.” But the manner! What leaves the world agape and aghast is the tremendous “ non sequitur ” between the matter and the manner, between the ideals and the form, between the sublimity of the message and the mountebank clowning of its expression. For clowning it is to have a worthy message and deliberately to devise an unintelligible form in which to give it Utterance. An example —quoted in a Cambridge University sermon: In a poem of 1C linos, of which

two consist each of a single word

two of part of a word, and one of the single letter “I,” I find within the short space of 7 linos the following devices:—(l) A word of 6 letters all separated by hyphens, the first five letters and hyphens forming one line of the poem, and the last letter having the whole of the next line to itself in solitary glory. (21 A word of 7 letters in which the first and last letters are printed in capitals and detached from the middle.

(3) A word of two syllables, of which the first syllable, not the whole word, is enclosed within brackets. (4) A word of two syllables, which is cut in half, the first syllable being attached without any space or hyphen to the end of the preceding word, and the second syllable similarly joined to the beginning of the word which follows. And another, quoted exactly as given, letter by letter, line by line: — It Is It is It is it is. It it and as If it, it it or as If It, if it is as if it, and it is as if it and as if it. Or as if it. More as if it, As more - As more as if it. And if it. And for and as if it. If it was to be a prize a surprise it it was to be a surprise to realise, if it was to be if it were to be, was it to be. What was It to be. It was to bo what It was. And it was. So it was. As it was. As it is. As it as it is. It Is and as it is and as it is. And so and so as It was. Keep it in sight alright. Perhaps it is with this movement as with past poetical movements —the work of the leaders is being mined by their half-boiled imitators. “Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee.”

Further on the subject of emphasis in biblical reading: Dear “ Civis,” — Among the faults of emphasis of which many, and especially clergymen, are guilty in the reading of the Bible, one has always struck me as particularly grievous, and it offends both sense and feeling. What word or words should be emphasised in “ And the Lord said. Let there be light, and there was light.” In most eases the emphasis is laid on “ was.” Should it not be on the last wo.rd, “light.” —I am, etc., Pew.

And there was “light.” My correspondent “ Pew ” surely has the right of it. Emphasis on “ was ” lowers the tone of a great passage, and detracts from its pictorial effect. The musician hero comes to our aid. In that short chorus in his “ Creation,” Haydn has the words “ and there was ” marked p, and the word “ light,” on a higher note, is marked, ff. Occurring almost immediately before is the bass recitative “ And darkness was upon the face of the deep.” The opposition, therefore, is between “darkness” and “light.” Foreigner though he was, Haydn had a right conception of emphasis, imposing it both by note and by stress. “ Emphasis ” —derived from the Greek “ emphaino ” (I make clear) —implies not merely weight or stress —its crudest form-—but inflection, phrasing, pausing and every other means suggested by the imagination. Emphasis also varies in strength. Said Spurgeon; “ Hit the nail on the head, but don’t do it with such force as to split the board. Sometimes a tap suffices.” From Central Otago: Dear “ Civis,” — I have read with interest your views on metre in poetry. A little knowledge is dangerous, so that I am about to tread a dangerous path. I am emboldened by a personal conviction that your own belief does no more obey the demands of artistry and technique than does the strict treatment of metre which you condemn. . , . Metre in poetry, as time in music, is the foundation of its rhythm, and therefore cannot, as you say, be ignored and subordinated, but must be preserved and made plastic. Time or metre is essential to rhythm, while rhythm in turn is essential to both music' and poetry. . . . You have shown, by quoting “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears,” an argument apparently upholding your belief. _ But why did you not quote something in the nature of “ The Bells ” of E. A. Poe, or Kipling’s “Boots”? . . . Rhythm is the pulse of poetry, animated metre; it may creep, it may plod, it may trip, it may march through the lines; at times it may for a moment pause or halt, but it must go on again, and keep going to the last. — l am, etc., Rhythm,

The point at issue is the right part that should be played by the regular metrical accent in the reading of verse, , and the relation between this accent and | the emotional accent. Metrical accent , is, of course, the basis of English poetry. But when the printed line passes into 1 speech, this metrical accent at once takes a secondary place and becomes merely subconscious, and the emotional or sense accent takes precedence. On the relation between these two accents in spoken English verse much has been written in the endeavour to fix a basis for both. Metrical accent is not essen- ; tial to all poetry. English and German 1 and other Teutonic tongues have it, | since in these languages there is a strong syllabic accent. When syllabic accent is absent, as in the vast majority of languages, regular metrical accent is equally non-existent. French poetry has none of it. And the French, artistic formalists though they are, derive all the charm they want from poetry read with an accent purely emotional, irregular, varying in position, and with no other constant or regular factor but a fixed number of syllables. Rhythm loses nothing by being irregular. The rhythm of prose is an undeniable fact; it is irregular and cannot be reduced to rule; yet because of it many author! ties place prose, in the hierarchy of the Fine Arts, above poetry, because its rhythm is more elusive, finer and more delicate. My correspondent throws Kipling’s “Boots” at me, and Poe's “ Bells.” But these are special produc- 1 tions in which the emotional accent, for | a particular purpose, is made to coin- | cide with the metrical. However dif | ferent our theories may be, I am con ; vinecd that the practice of my corre- j spondent and my own are in thorough I agreement. In the following famous example ho would emphasise the words I should emphasise:

The man who knows not that lie knows not aught, He is a fool; no light shajtl ever reach him. Who knows ho knows not and would fain be taught, He is but simple; take thou him and teach him. But whoso knowing, knows not that ho knows, Ho is asleep; go thou to him and wake him. The truly wise both knows and knows he knows, Cleave thou to him, and never more forsake him. „ CIVIB.