Word: rhythm
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Dates: during 1900-1909
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...poetry as a social institution; it has for its aim, to quote from the opening chapter, "the recording, the classifying and the comparing of the poetic product at large." This involves an analysis of poetry with the view of determining its essential characteristic, which, the author decides, is rhythm. As will be seen, the strictness of the above conclusion bars out all so-called "poetic prose," such as the nobler passages in the Old Testament of the Bible. Indeed this result is necessary to the coherence of the idea which runs throughout the work, that poetry is the outward sign...
...thought, but throughout the first poems runs a note of artificiality that often hides altogether the idea of the author. This perhaps is responsible for the bewilderment of the reader who looks seriously for a purpose in the verses, for something more than an outre style of phrase or rhythm. In "The Twilight of the Race," for example, the elaborate simplicity in many places approaches the absurd, for it seems studied, not natural. The best work in the book is at the end, in the "Lyrics of a Life." Some of these are not unmusical, and they show fewer signs...
...impressive, in wording dignified and strong. "The Song of the Brook," on the contrary, has neither marked originality nor beauty of phrasing to recommend it. Through the "Requiem"-on the death of President McKinley-runs sincerity of though, but, unfortunately, it is incorporated into a curious jogging, jingling rhythm mor eappropriate to a description of a sleigh-ride, for instance, than to a poem on a serious and dignified subject. "English Light Verse of the Nineteenth Century," by H. L. Warner, is the longest article in the number. The writer begins by defining "light verse" as verse "pitched...
...vivid piece of poetical description, marked by simplicity and no little beauty. "Sunlight," another poem,--unsigned--is well and pleasingly phrased. "Summer Songs," by A. D. Ficke, seems rather carelessly put together, and the effect of a number of good lines is offset by commonplace phrasing and halting rhythm; as a whole it is not up to the usual standard of the writer's work. A sonnet by W. Bynner is almost unintelligible to the average mind; perhaps the author understands...
...Chin Wee," a poem, also unsigned, is a clever bit of versification -- nothing more. "The Eagle," by Roy Pier, is pleasing in conception and imagery, but halting in its rhythm. "On Lafayette Square," a prose article by R. Inglis, which concludes the number, is a good attempt at a difficult character sketch...