The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-08-02
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phrensy, elasticity, sulphur. Prof. Shaw
says: Modern society has acquired a
smooth varnish of civilized propriety, and
the satire of Byron like concentrated
acid, burned off and ate away this super
fetal polish, showing the weak and
cracked places concealed beneath" This
able writer thinks the poem "a complete
expression of Byron's life and genius; ca
PRECIOUS, varied, ranging from cynlc mock
cry to the deepest tenderness" and adds,
that sit is also a perfect type OF the
age which produced it''-(after 1920 an
age at once sceptical and believing, bold
and effeminate, shameless and hypocritlcaL
coldly calculating and mildly imaginative"
Byron was not a great Grtist perhaps as
many other poets, but he had a great con-
tIol over the imagination, the passions.
the emotions.
The able critic Tame holds that Don
Juan" is Byron's masterpiece. "All here
was new, form and foundation; for he had
entered into a new world" He says tbs
british poet had seen the overthrow Of
all English morality, conjugal infidelty
established as rule, amorous fidelity
raised to duty" This remember was
after 1915. 1t is a bad, wicked poem, saw
age and merciless in exposure, rich in
beauty, aggressive and torturiug. Read
what Taine says of Don JUAN and of
its author. 1t is the ablest and most i'm
pressive of critical papers upon the great
poet He thinks there is "a arrangement
of mind and heart in the style of Don
Juan as in Swift. When a man jests
ii l. t,. l,a..
poisoned imagination" Byron's excess
shortened his days. At thirty-six he closed
his career at Missolongki Greece and d
great intellect was forever quenched in
the night of the grave. His country has
produced less than a half dozen men OF
genius his equal.
l would not commend Don Juan to read
ers unless in an eXpurgated edition. There
is probably a third of the great poem that
is very desirable reading because of its
fine genius and superb poetry, much of 1t
among the best productions of his prolific
pen Obscnty, ribaldry, debauchery pros
titutes and mars perhaps two-thlrds OF
the long poem. 1t was never completed,
and contains over $4,000 lines. He died
on 10Th April, 1924. His body was taken
to England but sepulture In Westminster
Abbey was refused, and in July he was
buried in the village of Hucknall, near
Newstead Abbey. His last words spoken
were in Greek-translated, II must go to
sleep now" From it he never awoke. Ia
January 22nd 1924, was his last anniver-
sary-his seth. He wrote on that occa-
sion a very pathetic poem. He had gone
to Greece to help in the liberation of the
oppressed Greeks. The las. two stanzas--
so we'll known-read:
If thou regrettst thy youth. why live?
The land of honorable death.
Is here:-up to the field, and give
Away the breath!
Seek out-less often sought than found
A soldiers grave for thee the best;
Then look around, and choose thy ground,
And take thy rest"
Whatever the defects of Byron morally,
artistically, he has produced much that
will live because it richly deserves to live.
You may not admire the man, and you
may condemn and regret much that be
has left as unworthy, but there Is at least
good duodecimo. Of 500 pages that Is
rich in thought, splendid IN expression,
magnificent and descriptive, and not
immoral and these pages have upon them
the unfading stamp OF perpetuity. Prof.
G. Z. Woodberry, of Columbia College,
New York city, who is one of the ablest
and safest of living American critics, in
his fine volume he calls the Makers of
Literature" devotes some fourteen
RACES to "Byron's Centenary" The ar
ticle as a whole is decidedly depreciatory
but at its close he says his poems are not
''in true sense classic, as a whole, but
lie is pleased to concede, that there are
qualities that make Childe Harold and
Don Juan great, and preserve here and
there passages in other poems that
| confer Immortality" Three years age
| two splendid editions of Byron's works ap-
/ peared in England, and many critics wrote
/ in 1audation of him. There was something
of a Byronic revival, and it should con-
tinue Even that great writer. Walter
Savage Landor, who hated Byron, was
compelled to concede that he had power
He wrote: Say what you will. once
whispered friend of mine, there are
things in him strong as poison and origin
al as sim
THEODORE BRYANT KINGSBURY.
Wilmington, N. c., Aug. ], 1903