POETRY AND UGLINESS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23044, 21 November 1936, Page 25

POETRY AND UGLINESS

“ One cannot help suspecting the unintelligibility of much modern poetry to be a device to conceal lack of sensibility," writes Mr Dallas Kenmare in the Poetry Review “ Here, also, individualism has run riot, but since the essentials in human nature are common to all, and only individual reactions different, surely there should be an intelligible way of conveying these reactions, otherwise the value of _ the poet’s experience becomes questionable. ■' For some reason which has yet to be explained, this present age,’ more than any age in history, is deluding artists of all types into the belief that contemporary conditions are of paramount importance, and also, it would seem, that the uglier the conditions the richer they are in value But it has yet to be proved that a machine age is an age of great spiritual development, and if it is not, the artist should refrain from concerning himself with machines. “The cult of ugliness needs much explanation. Ugliness is not new. nor beauty old-fashioned, and both can give birth only to their own kind What is to become of the world if an is to reveal, through ugliness evil? "Thirty years ago a much-neglecteu Gaelic poet and critic. William Sharp asserted that ' Only a renaissance of belief in the beautiful can save modern nations from further spiritual degradation.’ Surely notf the time for that renaissance is ripe? ”