The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-27


 He began his talk with a general discussion of poetry and advised the students of poetry who hoped to derive the greatest benefit from the study of it. not to criticise it, but to let 1t criticise them. He also spoke a little of Wordsworth's character in explana- ton of some of the lines in the Ode.
 He was a selfish man and 1t re- quired great self-mastery to set him. self aside.' he said.
 In connection with his remarks on poetry. he said that the poets province was not preachment. but that he should concern himself with visions of beauty.
 Realizing that he was talking to a youthful audience, he commended a. certain amount of conceit in youth upon the ground that 1t was necessary in order to get. through the period ot apprenticeship thout becoming hope lessly discouraged, and that while their ideas were decorative and roman tic. they were not real.
 When he addressed himself specific ally to the ode to Duty" Professor Guthrie declared that in that poem Wordsworth, who did not like to say no to himself. had come to a realiza- tion of his own relation to himself out of the experience of his own life. and had come to know that he could not trust his own impulses or affections as lights to guide his life. because they were intermittent. And this realiza- ton was not because of any remorse he had for wrong doing. because Wordsworth's life was clean, and sweet. and wholesome. but because he had come to a calm perception of the beauty of obedience. Professor Guth- rie read the Ode line by line, ex- plaining and enlarging upon the mean ing of each, not only what the author meant. but reading from each thought a set of ethical facts that were the out-cropping of the critics own knowl- edge of the living truths of life. Ta- king the choicest lines from the poem on Duty. he made wonderfully impress sive lessons from them.
 JOHN KEATS, IS PROFEs-
 sOR GUTHRIE's THEME.
 There is an erroneous belief among 8 certain class of thinkers that poetry happens. Poetry doesn't happen. Poe try is the result of careful. patnstak- ing preparation"
 With these words. Professor Guthrie began the second of series of three lectures yesterday afternoon In the auditorium of the Girls High School. His subject was John Keats. but he prepared his hearers for fuller ap- preciation of the poems themselves by
  tences as to what poetry was and a good deal specifically as to the kind of a poet Keats was and how he came to be what he was.
 He said that Keats was the poets poet, and that the genuine poetry in his entire works, few as they were in quantity, was as much as the genuine poetry of any other poet regardless of his production. He spoke of the high proportion of his success. and of the advance that each step made, on- ward and upward, until the closing months' of his life, when illness had enfeebled him. He designated Keats as the prophet of beauty" and said the character of his work represented formal beauty and sensuous enchant- ment. of which the former was the higher achievement growing out of the latter, a transhguration as 1t were. He called attention to the fact that Keats had become classic within a century, and had been discerned as such, but of the second heart of his own people. He declared that when English was a dead language. schol- ars would study 1t In order to read Keats in the original just as scholars now learn Latin and Greek to read the classics of those dead languages.
 He traced the sources of influence that developed Keats into the great poet he was. and went into few in- teresting generalities, concerning the humbleness of his origin, and declar- ing that in the fact of the class dis functions of England. and the few years of Keats's life. that the num- Der of notable friends he had made was remarkable.
 In tracing the influences that had aided him in the preparation for his life work there must first be men, toned the inspiration derived from a study of the Italian classics. Next was the influence of Marlow, who was Byron, a Keats and @ Shelly in one. Keats's association with Leigh Hunt had been of inestimable benefit to him, as had his friendship with Charles Clark. who first gave him a copy of Spencer and introduced him to Ho- mer's works.
 Keats saw things Helliec with an Elizabethian spirit" He owed much, too. to Thompson's Seasons" and Castle of Incidence"
 He was possibly more indebted to Benjamin Haden. the painter and