The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century by William Lyon Phelps

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The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century by William Lyon Phelps
Book, page 121 / 248

Helen's beauty, that every man has desired, nor in the wisdom and
endurance of Odysseus that has been the desire of every woman that has
come into the world, but in what somebody would describe, perhaps, as
'the inevitable contest,' arising out of economic causes, between the
country-places and small towns on the one hand, and, upon the other,
the great city of Troy, representing one knows not what 'tendency to
centralization.'"

In other words, if I understand him correctly, Mr. Yeats believes that
in writing pure rather than applied poetry, he is not turning his back
on great issues to do filigree work, but is merely turning aside from
questions of temporary import to that which is fixed and eternal, life
itself.

John Millington Synge was born near Dublin on the sixteenth of April,
1871, and died in Dublin on the twenty-fourth of March, 1909. It is a
curious thing that the three great Irishmen of the Celtic
renaissance--the only men who were truly inspired by
genius--originally studied another form of art than literature. Mr.
Yeats studied painting for years; A. E. is a painter of distinction;
Synge an accomplished musician before he became a of letters. There is
not the slightest doubt the effect of these sister arts upon the
literary work of the Great Three is pervasive and powerful. The books
of Mr. Yeats and Mr. Russell are full of word-pictures; and the rhythm
of Synge's strange prose, which Mr. Ernest Boyd ingeniously compares
with Dr. Hyde's translations, is full of harmonies.

Dr. Hyde has not only witnessed a new and wonderful literary revival
in his country, but he has the satisfaction of knowing that he is
vitally connected with its birth and bloom.

Synge had the greatest mental endowment of all the Irish writers of
his time. He had an amazingly powerful mind. At Trinity College he
took prizes in Hebrew and in Irish, and at the same time gained a
scholarship in harmony and counterpoint at the Royal Irish Academy of
Music. As a boy, "he knew the note and plumage of every bird, and when
and where they were to be found." As a man, he could easily have
mastered the note of every human being, as in addition to his
knowledge of ancient languages, he seems to have become proficient in
German, French, and Italian with singular speed and ease. He was an

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