"An Italian Visit"
Sit,—It has frequently been observed that Mr. C. Day Lewis is the only poet-to hold the Chair of Poetry at-Oxford since Matthew Arnold. Mr. Garrod's review of his successor's 'new long poem, An Italian Visit, suggests that' the practice - might well be increased. He seems- niirabile dictu—So be under the strange delusion -that English verse is dependent on metre; and implies.- with blithe naivety, that if Pro- fessor Day Lewis had consulted his Clough he would have written better hexameters. There is no such thing as an English hexameter in the true sense of the word. Metre entails every vowel-sound having a 'fixed quantity; and every attempt to provide a native equivalent has merely resulted in the grotesque straining of natural stress-rhythms--a fact, which was pointed out by C. S. Calverley at the end of the list century, and therefore probably available to Mr. Garrod had he chosen to look for it. Professor Day Lewis is far too good a poet to attempt the impossible; and the nature of the line he largely employs in An Italian Visit he has already expounded in his prefaces to translations of The Georgics and The -Aeneid.
When one further finds Mr. Garrod complaining testily of rhymes which are no rhymes at all, but normal assonance, it may not be uncharitable to guess that his retention of the initials W.H.A. and D.T., when discussing Professor Lewis's parodies, is prompted not so much by space-saving as ignorance of the poets concerned. After all, they have only been writing for twenty years or so. And it is only poetic justice that the passage Mr. Garrod chose to ridicule by printing as-prose should have been singled out for especial praise by a more judicious critic'in another nationalweekly. Professor Day Lewis is no more entitled to praise. than- any. other -poet; but as a major writer he at least deserves competent and responsible criticism.—Yours faithfully,
Cambridge.
PETER GREEN.
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