Private View: [essays]. With an introduction by Lord David Cecil

Walter DE LA MARE

Verlag: London: Faber & Faber, 1953

Beschreibung

Spine slightly darkened and rubbed, free endpapers embrowned. With the ownership inscription of Lord David Cecil, 1953, his marginal pencillings in the text and his manuscript notes on the rear pastedown - "D.L.M. cant transport me as Yeats does; he hasn't the poetic genius . . ." &c. But he is generous in his introductory praise of these critical essays. "Mr. de la Mare does not see life and art as separate," he writes. "To him the world of imagination is just as 'real' as the world he sees round him in the street. Hamlet as much a living man in his eyes as are his friends, the Forest of Arden as actual a place as is the New Forest . . . Mr. de la Mare reminds us of an important truth; namely, that the first essential purpose in literature is to delight us. His example teaches us another lesson too. By concentrating always on the individual author and not wasting his time in vague, high-sounding generalizations on the nature of art, he directs our eye to the fact that every genuine work of literature is of its nature unique, and must be judged as such. Most critics forget this. They erect iron laws of what is good and bad which involves them in condemning one artist for no better reason than that he is unlike another. How few critics, for example, seem able to admire both Donne and Bridges; for they judge Bridges's poetry by a standard acquired by reading Donne's, or vice versa. In this book Mr. de la Mare shows us it is possible to enjoy both authors wholeheartedly. Incidentally, he also shows us how to enjoy Mr. de la Mare." David Cecil was a devotee of Walter de la Mare, and long an advocate for him; he gave his presidential address for the English Association on the writer in 1973. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers DC100080

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Private View: [essays]. With an introduction...

Verlag: London: Faber & Faber

Erscheinungsdatum: 1953

Einband: Hardcover

Zustand: Very Good

Auflage: 1st Edition