Salt Lake Times | 1891-01-30 | Page 3 | The Faultless Work of Great Poets

The Faultless Work of Great Poets. It Is usually said, in hasty generalization, generaliza-tion, that the poetry of the present age is unique in the extreme refinement of its exterior mechanism. Those who say this are not aware that the great poets whoso virile simplicity and robust carelessness care-lessness of detail they applaud have almost al-most without exception been scrupulously scrupu-lously attentive to form. No modern writer has been so learned in rhythm as Milton, so faultless in rhyme arrange- j ment as Spenser. But what is true is that a care for form and a considerable j skill in the technical art of verse have j been acquired by writers of a lower or- j ; der, and that this sort of perfection is no longer the ball mark of a great mas- j ter. I ; We may expect it, therefore, to at-j at-j tract less attention in the future, and ; although assuredly the jargon of Walt Whitman will not be accepted, technical technic-al perfection will more and more be j taken as a matter of course, as a portion ; if the poets training which shall be as indispensable and as little worthy of notice as that a musician should read his notes correctly. Edmund Gosse in Forum. j