| Note: | Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries. See http://www.archive.org/details/futureofenglishp00gossuoft |
A copy of this pamphlet is supplied to all full members of theAssociation. They can obtain further copies (price 1s.) on applicationto the Secretary, Mr. A. V. Houghton, Imperial College Union, SouthKensington, London, S.W.
| J’ai vu le cheval rose ouvrir ses ailes d’or, Et, flairant le laurier que je tenais encor, Verdoyant à jamais, hier comme aujourd’hui, Se cabrer vers le Jour et ruer vers la Nuit. Henri de Régnier. |
In venturing this afternoon to address an audience accustomed to listen tothose whose positive authority is universally recognized, and in takingfor my theme a subject not, like theirs, distinct in its definitions orconsecrated by tradition and history, I am aware that I perform what youmay, if you choose, call an act of blameworthy audacity. My subject ischimerical, vague, and founded on conjectures which you may well believeyourselves at least as well fitted as I am to propound. Nevertheless, andin no rash or paradoxical spirit, I invite you to join with me in somereflections on what is the probable course of English poetry during, letus say, the next hundred years. If I happen to be right, I hope some ofthe youngest persons present will say, when I am long turned to dust, whatan illuminating prophet I was. If I happen to be wrong, why, no one willremember anything at all about the matter. In any case we may possibly berewarded this afternoon by some agreeable hopes and by the contemplationof some pleasant analogies.
Our title takes for granted that English poetry[1] will continue, withwhatever fluctuations, to be a living and abiding thing. This I mustsuppose that you all accede to, and that you do not look upon poetry as anart which is finished, or the harvest of classic verse as one which isfully reaped and garnered. That has been believed at one time and another,in various parts of the globe. I will mention one instance in the historyof our own time: a quarter of a century ago, the practice of writing versewas deliberately abandoned in the literatures of the three Scandinaviancountries, but particul