Enthusiasms

Yesterday I finished Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled, and a jolly good read it was. I think the first part of the book dealing with prosody is the most effective and sees him at his best, but there are sound judgements made throughout and the sheer enthusiasm of Fry towards all sorts of verse is infectious. It was heartening that this enthusiasm extended towards a good deal of modern poetry - some felicitous comments on Ted Hughes were particularly striking. I think Hughes's reputation is going to grow considerably in the next half century based on his accessibility, helped along by non-academic enthusiasts for poetry like Mr Fry.

In fact, that's where the future of poetry (and I believe it will have one) will lie - outside the Lit departments. With regard to most forms of art I long ago came to the conclusion that criticism as such was generally worse than useless. What counts then? Two things: the enthusiasm of the audience and an audience that actually practises art in terms of trying to make the thing. (Then they realise how difficult it all actually is, as well as quite enjoying the process of finding this out. The salutary effect of all this is to make you that bit more charitable as a responder, and a good deal more perspicacious.)

We can safely leave it to generations to come to discriminate between what was good and what wasn't. In the meantime it's best to simply get stuck into the stuff, with gusto.