Abstract
MR. TREVELYAN has written a careful and penetrating study of the present position of poetry, and of its possible —he is too hesitant to justify the word probable—development in the future. Superficially, the prospect is not hopeful. The dissociation of poetry from music and intonation, and the fact that poetry uttered to-day is spoken, not sung, coupled with the further fact that it is usually not uttered at all but silently read, cannot but have the effect of impairing the force of its emotional and purely sensuous appeal. The growth of the scientific habit of mind, expressing itself in prose as its appropriate medium, and the competition of the cinemas and broadcasting, are further influences tending to the supersession of poetry as the normal method of emotional communication between man and man.
Thamyris: or, Is there a Future for Poetry?
By R. C. Trevelyan. (To-day and To-morrow Series.) Pp. v + 89. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd.; New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., n.d.) 2s. 6d.
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Thamyris: or, Is there a Future for Poetry? . Nature 116, 604 (1925). https://doi.org/10.1038/116604a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/116604a0