Oscar Williams is to blame. My first acquaintance with E.A. Robinson (1869-1935) and A.E. Housman (1859-1936) likely occurred in one of his anthologies. The inverted initials confused me, and to this day I link the American poet with the Englishman. To muddle things further, throw in the minor Irish writer George William Russell (1867-1935), who adopted the pen name Æ (or AE, or A.E.). He shows up as a fictional character in the “Scylla and Charybdis” episode of Ulysses. And then there’s the wonderful American poet and translator A.E. Stallings (b. 1968).
Uncollected Poems and Prose of Edwin Arlington
Robinson
(Colby College Press, 1975) is an unruly grab bag of remnants edited by Richard
Cary (not Cory). A section titled “Briefs” brings together excerpts from letters,
interviews and other prose sources, and highlights Robinson’s witty, aphoristic,
sometimes acerbic conversational manner. In an interview he gave Joyce Kilmer
in 1916, Robinson says:
“Within his
limits, I believe A.E. Housman is the most authentic poet now writing in
England. But, of course, his limits are very sharply drawn. I don’t think that
any one who knows anything about poetry will ever think of questioning the
inspiration of A Shropshire Lad
[1896].”
He goes on
to praise the work of Kipling and John Masefield, and adds, “But I do not think
that either of these poets gives the impression of finality that A.E. Housman
gives.” By “finality” I think Robinson means inevitability, the sense that Housman’s
lines, his rhythms and word choices, could not have been otherwise crafted. We
read them and can’t imagine them otherwise.
I’ve always
admired Robinson’s Yankee common sense, hard-headedness and lack of ostentation – in life and in
verse. My judgment of Housman is similar – another no-nonsense fellow.
According to one scholar, Housman was familiar with Robinson’s but not
impressed: He told a correspondent he “got more enjoyment from Edna St. Vincent
Millay than from either Robinson or Frost.” De
gustibus . . .
Kingsley Amis
often said Housman was his favorite poet, and in his review of A.E. Housman: Collected Poems and Selected
Prose (ed. Christopher Ricks, Penguin Press, 1988) review he writes:
“No poet
could have turned his back more comprehensively on the modern world or (what
has come to be part of the same thing) written in a way less cut out for study
in modern universities, where the standing of poets seems nowadays to be
determined. From such places he looks a disagreeable figure, elitist,
embittered, pessimistic and utterly unsuitable for appearing on television.”
He might have been talking about Robinson.
3 comments:
This conversation took place on an episode of "The Dick Van Dyke Show" sometime in the early 1960s between Laura and Millie:
Millie (proudly): "Laura, Jerry [her husband] said that I look just like Joyce Kilmer."
Laura: "Millie, Joyce Kilmer was a man."
That's the kind of literary joke that couldn't be done today, considering how fractured the culture is and how increasingly illiterate many of today's young people are, not to mention people generally.
I remember John Gielgud appearing on the Dick Cavett Show once and reciting Housman's "Bredon Hill" from memory. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard, and I'll never forget it till the day I die, though it was 40 years ago or more.
To some extent, Oscar Williams may be held to blame for Geoffrey Hill's poetry as well. Years ago, GH lamented the fact he had lost his little hardback of WW's Pocket Book of Modern Verse which he carried with him everywhere. I was very pleased to have found him another copy.
Post a Comment