The Yellowstone journal. [volume] (Miles City, Mont.) 1893-1901, 1893-01-29
WOMEN AS POETS.
Good Writer. They Way H.. but They
Sever iia.- I:erone Artists.

Good Writer. They Way H.. Bu, They
Sever Have s:erome Artists.
Mr.. Edmund tiu~-e delivered al,
address III the hail OF Nevnliam col
lasse. Cambridge. On The Poetry OF
Women" taking as his particular
text the POEMS of Christina Ro.,etti
No sound crltlc will pretend that
woma has added anvibin. Ia :l,g,
sum of male attainment IN these IVA
Jor branches uf ART. Ihe sc:..o,. =
apparently thai the artistic nature i
not strongly developed III her. S'iia
has energy. imagination. >tTI;imr.!t.
invention. but she has MOI the arti@
tie impulse. The cousllulaiate l4uar.
of the world have been glrat artists
In Shakespeare. C~Oineiilt, Goethe.
Pope and Keats we SO. the artist
above all else. above the E..si! .,s -
tellect or vision In much lower
rank of poets we find the vision or
the ethlca! bias preponn!eiatiug In
the greatest men the art is para
mount
But women. II the main entrances
seem to be denied them. ascend into
the house of poetry by other doors
Lyrical verse owes SO much to them
that we may easily forgive their
limited succes in other directions.
The lyric. which is Il spontaneous jet
OF music. an ejaculation forced from
the heart by an excess of feeling, de
mandS less art than any other form
OF poetry. 1t is perhaps the oni,
species OF poetry which can be ex
cellent in its kind and yet wholly
artIess. The border ballads have no
art. and yet are exquisite; and the
h history of poetry Is adorned by Ger
tain femai" names which will always
preserve their freshness. and which
yet ERE entirely innocent of art.
Such are Emily Bronte III England
and Marceline Desbordes Naim6e III
France. We do not know whether.
with extended opportunities. ONE
Will continue To show themselves in
sensible tn ~ incapable. of the high
est literary art. Hitherto they
tainly have been one OF the other.
Any one whose privilege il has
been to enjoy the friendship nf sue
cessfu' wolltn Of letters knows how
much more hey III always occupied
with literature ASA profession than as
an art how little they are able tocon
ceive the doing of work for its own
sake. not torl its result. how .oll~ci
entiols. industrious and persistent
they ere. and how little they are
troubled with the sclrlplcs and the
iassitude Of the artist. Il is their
lyric gift. their cry from the heights
or the depths of feeling that has Won
them that place upon P~arnassu, from
which no DE Quincy nor thy lie
Manpassant can eject them.
have denied poetic art To women
mainly that | may give myself the
luxury of attributing ii to Miss Chris
tina Rossetti. To 1ee myself from
the charge ci extravaganza | will
say at once that | think the muin III
terest of the position Of this writer
in the history of poetry is the fac.
that she individually possesses thi,
quality which Is denied to many mt
of genius and TO almost ali
Mrs Browning was IL force in litera
ture-a persoilagc demanding uni
versai recognition for her intellectual
power. her majestic imagination and
her independence of other literary
influences. but she was not an artist.
That title applied to George Sand or
George Eliot would be equally "A mis-
homer. What Lord Tennyson was.
what Flaulert was. it is surely plain
that these great wolmen could not he.
But precisely this. in IA restricted
measure, 1t seems to me that Miss
.0sse.tti is. and that isolation Of hers.
" apparently the solitary woman
of the Anglo-S Saxon race who
poetry As II Of the fine
arts. gives the study of her verse All
especial interest. St. James Ga
nofto