Criticism ex Cathedra

The Profession of Poetry ; and Other Lectures. By H. W. Oarrod. (Oxford University Press. 12s. tid.)

THERE is a vein of acidity in Professor Garrod's criticism. These lectures were written from an elevation--the elevation of the Chair of Poetry at Oxford University ; and we feel, as we read them, that even the best of poets might well shrink a little in presenting his credentials before this austere Seat of

Judgment. Professor Garrod has been delivered from enthu- siasm : in its place he has achieved much subtlety of intelli,

gence, much clarity and honesty of taste. There is no doubt that he possesses a style of approach and an outlook of his own ; and in consequence he is always refreshing to read.

We shall not be overstating the dryness of Professor Garrod's

manner if we call it " tart." " I do not say that from malice," he remarks on one occasion ; " though, if I wanted to be

quietly malicious, I do not see why I should not." Indeed, Professor Garrod does not deny himself malice, as we shall see later ; and the freedom he takes seems, in our polite times, something rare and surprising. More frequently, however, his acidity shows itself in a clear consciousness of small faults and an effort not to be pleased without reason. This trait bringS with it a limitation : _ when men have trained themselves in negative criticism, they sometimes leave themselves without the ability to make their praises ring true.

Thus Professor Garrod seems often unable to rise to the.'" height of his subject ; he seems to be lacking in the warmth and simplicity of affection. When he is speaking, for example, of the art of poetry and the function of the poet, many of the things he says arc just and penetrating : he is well equipped in the gift of making distinctions of the central faculty of criticism ; yet his expressions of the high office of poetry fail to be convincing " It redeems us," he says, " out of life into ourselves ; out of all that seems not to matter into a world vital, organic, pulsating." The three adjectives immediately strike us as insufficient, commonplace, and tawdry. Is it an accident that the sentence is also self-contradictory ? Can we be redeemed out of life into something more vital ? Pro-

fessor Garrod's acknowledgment of the power of poetry is too perfunctory to be felt as sincere.

A not unnatural consequence follows from this lack of spontaneous warmth. As a compensation Professor Garrod heightens the demands he makes of poets. Let us continue the quotation :—

" That is why, in the phrase of a great writer whom I have already quoted, the world is always waiting for its poet.' But not for any poet, but for one bardic, daemonic, possessed : posse,sed, in the purity of his senses, by that colour and rhythm of life. which our mean vision misses, which escapes common hearing, which, only through him, our dull hearts catch at all. No wonder, when so high the office, so fine the endowment of character, and requiring so long and so subtle a discipline of heart--no wonder if ' dm world is always waiting for its poet'."

In this passage we see the sadness of the Olympian Seat. The dispirited and all-too-wise Judge, having lost his own enthu- siasm, demands that all candidates for his interest shall be superhumanly bright and magnificent. The poet for whom he waits is no ordinary, no civil, no moderate poet, golden in mediocrity. He must be moved by the frenzy of inspiration : he must be daemonic : he must be the Absolute Romantic Poet. No wonder if " the world is always waiting."

In one lecture the malice which so agreeably runs as an

-iinder:tukrent • in-Professor' Garrod's- style comes fully to the

. . _ surface. It took a kind of courage to speak of Mr. Humbert Wolfe, before the University of Oxford, in a way which might so obviously, be taken as ill-donditioned. In this lecture Professor Garrod claiMa the privilege of friendship and admira- tion to indulge in a delicate and long-continued sneer—or, shall we more charitably call it, " ragging." The manner of

it may be seen from- the following passage - - - " Mr. Humbert Wolfe is not yet, dead, though he was born in 1884 and educated at Bradford. I give you the date, because you will not find it in Who-'s Who. Mr. Wolfe has irk this matter something of the sensitiveness of celebrated actresses, and would wish it believed that he was made and not born. However, he was, in fact, born forty-three years ago—where, I know not ; but he was, as I say, educated at Bradford. Being possessed of an essentially climbing disposition, he passed from Bradford to Wadham " College. The golden age of Wadham poetry he just missed ;" he was just tee late, that is, to know Lord Birkenhead, Mr. C.- B. Fry, Sir John Simon. But unlike any Oxford poet I know, he took a first in Greats. Before- I call him a living poet, I should like to see a little more of him."

Perhaps literary criticism has been for too long innocuous and

" free from personalities " ; but even Professor Garrod fails to attain a perfect ease and cunning in this genre. He permits himself, for the sake of effect, to make remarks which seem really to conflict with his eritieal outlook. "I do not know that I like that the less,". he sayS of one poetri; " either for knowing where some of it comes from, or for not knowing what much of it means." If Professor Garrod does not like it the less

for these two reasons, he is a less-rigorous critic than we have believed.

It would have been valuable to read an open.and hostile criticism of Mr. Wolfe's poetry, a judgment by the most exacting standards ; especially since Mr. Wolfe was long left without the honour of such areekoning. But Professor Garrod, in fact, avoids coming to a judgment : he insinuates dispraise

as if he were leaving Mr.- Wolfe's reputation untouched. The substance of Professor Garrod's criticism is not so well founded that we can feel easy at its nianner. He asserts, for'bxainple, that Mi. Wolfe uses false ihyrries not as a technical device, not even through a fault of taste, but because he is incapable

of rhYming truly. Mr. Wolfe's ObVious virtuosity makes this a most iinprobable charge.

In his lectures on our older poets Professor Garrod shows more penetration and certainty of touch ; and here his keen- ness in detecting faults can be genuinely revealing.. " The grand failure of Coleridge," he remarks, " was the failure to be completely honest." A sentence on Byron is equally illu- minating " Superstition shadows all his thinking." And,

after all, Professor Garrod himself, in his essay on Hazlitt, writes his own best defence " It is a good thing not to be a dull writer ; I care little how it is managed, it is a good thing