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Page 27 text:
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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW —ь “ЗЕ have no hesitation in ranking Alfred Noyes 3 among the first, ifnotthe | first, of living poets; for in this we are guided not aw alone by our own lim- 9) ited judgement, but b the advice of the sound- est critics on both sides of the Atlantic. On account of his high status in the literary world, we who aspire to the ' credit of culture should seek to know more about Noyes, ud xd to be able thereby to appreciate him the better. To Canadians in particular he should be of special interest at the present time, because only a few months ago he made an extensive tour of Canada and lectured on jon in all the important cities; he made the tour with the motive of wri- ting about Canada when he returned to England. But there is a third reason why Alfred Noyes should be of interest to us, and this perhaps more than any- thing else ought to make him dear to us. A few weeks previous to his departure from England for Canada, he was con- verted to the Catholic Faith. He is only one of a number of prominent writers who have embraced Catholicity in the last few years, and he is a treas- ured acquisition which the Church will find good reason to cherish. Francis Thompson, in his essay on Shelley, sorrowfully said: “Тһе Church, which was once the mother of poets no less than of saints, during the last two centuries has relinquished to aliens the chief glories of poetry, if the chief lories of holiness she has preserved for er own. Не had hopes, however, that the great god Pan would one day return to his true home. Men like Alfred Noyes are the ones who will Alfred Noyes: An Appreciation bring the wanderer home. Again, Francis Thompson expressed the true Catholic feeling, which should not be wanting today, when he said: ‘Ме ask, therefore, for a larger interest, not in purely Catholic poetry, but in poetry generally, poetry in its widest sense. The fact that Noyes, previous to his conversion, had written Боне poetry is testified by the inclusion of some of his work in Thomas Walsh's recent Catholic Anthology, in the section given to Catholic poetry written by non-Catholic poets. Apparently when the book had gone to print, Mr. Walsh had not yet learned of Noyes' conver- sion. Noyes is a distinctly modern poet, but not modern in the 'ultra-modern | sense with which we speak of the work of E. E. Cummings et al, but rather, modern in the sense that he keeps abreast of the age in which he lives, and finds genuine poetry in the realities character- istic of the twentieth century. There are still those who hold that all the great poetry has been written, and that nothing produced by our modern literary artists bears the stamp of immortality. One critic has even gone so far as to remark that “‘poetry has practically expired since the modern world no longer inspires the emotions which are proper to poetry. Among a certain class this has been the cry of every age; but litterateurs have lon ago dispelled such a doubt with regar to contemporary literature, and have unquestionably demonstrated the falsity of such a view. The present writer be- lieves that no greater proof of the falsity of such a doctrine could be advanced than a study of the poetry of Alfred Noyes. - rk
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Page 28 text:
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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW ب 4 Mr. Хоуев has a broad perspective of life, coupled with an amazingly versa- tile mind, which is readily discernible from a glance through his many volumes of poems. Besides this, he is a tech- nician who has few contemporary rivals. It has been said of him that “по living poet has made a more general EE or written with a wider range of subject and style. Dr. Henry Seidal Canby has said that Noyes ''is the most effec- tive among the literary champions in English, of beauty, nobility, and ro- mance.” We have said that he is modern. But he is more than merely modern, for he has treated of the themes that are eternal—the ones that are forever old and yet forever new. Мог is he a poet who could be accused of overmuch nationalism, although he has made his native land the subject of many of his most glowing tributes. His is that broader patriotism which embraces the human aeri in its entirety, and he expresses what Newman says is ''сот- mon to the whole гасе of тап,” but which only genuine artists are able to express. here are few great poets who have lived to see their work adequately ap- preciated. For this reason, poets have rarely been among those who, “‘pillowed in silk and scented down,’ drank froma golden goblet the bittersweet of life; rather, the luxury and ease of the majority of poets who have lived on the returns from their poetry, have been only of the imagination. They lived in an illusory kingdom from which they were to be occasionally tugged away b the stern realities of a prosaic world. But art should not always have to be time-tested. There are as many literary artists today of genuine merit as there have been—I am not committing my- self—in other similar periods, and the st-war renascence of poetry has Brought a goodly number of these to the surface. Among a cultured people, there should be no reason why such phenom- ena as professional poets do not exist. The tendency of the times is towards biography and, of course, fiction, and artists who would rank as poets of the first class unwillingly relinquish their forte (for indeed life is very real) and turn out to be second class biographers or third class novelists. Not so with Alfred Noyes. He has remained within the dimensions of his own sphere, and his work is his nomination for a place among its specialists. Noyes is an ex- ception in another sense also, because he is among the few living poets whose work is saleable. Poetry has always seemed to defy definition, for even among the masters of the art we find nothing but a be- wildering diversity of opinion. Noyes believes that for the definition of poetry we should be guided by the pronounce- ments of the greatest artisans in the craft. Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, Tennyson, Browning, he says, agreed upon one essential of poetry—its music —its rhythm. In believing this, Noyes suits the action to the word, for the most notable characteristic of his poetry is the song element contained therein. In acquiring this trait, it is probable that Swinburne was the chief influence on Noyes. Watts-Dunton, the English novelist and poet, whose contribution on poetry in the Encyclopedia Britannica is regarded as one of the most authorita- tive in the language and who believed that the singing quality was the essence of poetry, wrote, after the death of Swinburne, that Alfred Noyes was “right away the first of our living poets now that Swinburne is dead. Swin- burne himself, who very rarely praised any of the younger poets, described Noyes as “а gifted painter, skilled in his craft.” But besides Noyes’ singing quality, his flowing rhythm, there is another Е characteristic which quali- es all his work. It is the sheer beauty, the measured richness and luxuriance of his language; and the severest criticism i6rk
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