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The English Association

Pamphlet No. 25

THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH POETRY

by

EDMUND GOSSE, C.B.

June, 1913






A copy of this pamphlet is supplied to all full members of the
Association. They can obtain further copies (price 1_s._) on application
to the Secretary, Mr. A. V. Houghton, Imperial College Union, South
Kensington, London, S.W.




The English Association

Pamphlet No. 25

THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH POETRY

by

EDMUND GOSSE, C.B.

June, 1913




THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH POETRY

  J'ai vu le cheval rose ouvrir ses ailes d'or,
  Et, flairant le laurier que je tenais encor,
  Verdoyant a jamais, hier comme aujourd'hui,
  Se cabrer vers le Jour et ruer vers la Nuit.

                                       HENRI DE REGNIER.


In venturing this afternoon to address an audience accustomed to listen to
those whose positive authority is universally recognized, and in taking
for my theme a subject not, like theirs, distinct in its definitions or
consecrated by tradition and history, I am aware that I perform what you
may, if you choose, call an act of blameworthy audacity. My subject is
chimerical, vague, and founded on conjectures which you may well believe
yourselves at least as well fitted as I am to propound. Nevertheless, and
in no rash or paradoxical spirit, I invite you to join with me in some
reflections on what is the probable course of English poetry during, let
us say, the next hundred years. If I happen to be right, I hope some of
the youngest persons present will say, when I am long turned to dust, what
an illuminating prophet I was. If I happen to be wrong, why, no one will
remember anything at all about the matter. In any case we may possibly be
rewarded this afternoon by some agreeable hopes and by the contemplation
of some pleasant analogies.

Our title takes for granted that English poetry[1] will continue, with
whatever fluctuations, to be a living and abiding thing. This I must
suppose that you all accede to, and that you do not look upon poetry as an
art which is finished, or the harvest of classic verse as one which is
fully reaped and garnered. That has been believed at one time and another,
in various parts of the globe. I will mention one instance in the history
of our own time: a quarter of a century ago, the practice of writing verse
was deliberately abandoned in the literatures of the three Scandinavian
countries, but particularly in that of Norway, where no poetry, in our
sense, was written from about 1873 to 1885. It almost died out here in
England in the middle of the fifteenth century; it ran very low in France
at the end of the Middle Ages. But all these instances, whether ancient or
modern, of the attempt to prove prose a sufficing medium for all
expression of human thought have hitherto failed, and it is now almost
certain that they will more and more languidly be revived, and with less
and less conviction.

     [1] I here use the word 'Poetry' (as Wordsworth did) as opposed to
     the word 'Prose', and synonymous with metrical composition.

It was at one of the deadliest moments in the life of the art in England
that George Gascoigne remarked, in his 'Epistle to the Reverend Divines'
(1574) that 'It seemeth unto me that in all ages Poetry hath been not only
permitted, but also it hath been thought a right good thing'. Poetry has
occupied the purest and the fieriest minds in all ages, and you will
remember that Plato, who excluded the poets from his philosophical Utopia,
was nevertheless an exquisite writer of lyrical verse himself. So, to come
down to our own day, Ibsen, who drove