The rhythm annoys them
(little wonder, since they usually read it as prose), the rhyme
seems needless, the inversions, the compressions perplex their
minds to no valuable end. Speaking honestly, they do not like
poetry. And if their reason is the old one,
I do not like you, Dr. Fell;
The reason why I cannot tell,
it is none the less effective.
But the positive answers are no more reassuring. Here in America
especially, when we like poetry, we like it none too good. The
"old favorites" are almost all platitudinous in thought and
monotonous in rhythm. We prefer sentiment, and have a weakness for
slush. Pathos seems to us better than tragedy, anecdote than wit.
Longfellow was and is, except in metropolitan centres, our
favorite "classical" poet; the poetical corner and the daily poem
of the newspapers represent what most of us like when we do go in
for verse. The truth is that many of the intelligent in our
population skip poetry in their reading just because it _is_
poetry. They read no poetry, or they read bad poetry occasionally,
or they read good poetry badly.
This sorry state of affairs does not trouble the literary critic.
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