Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1888 — Poets and Modern Ideas. [ARTICLE]

Poets and Modern Ideas.

• Mr. Sam Foaa. one of the most prominent “Tom Hoods* in America, says in a recent issue of the Yankee Blade: Homer was the great poet of his day, because he wrote of matters that were interesting to his contemporaries. He doscribed the single combats of worriers; he enlarged on the exciting details of chariot races; his poetry is full of minnte descriptions of armor, clothing, weapons, and all the warlike trappings of his time. He wrote of things that people were interested iu. His song was as full of current interest as the current newspapers of to-day. The same can be said of David, the great poet of the Hebrew race. He wrote of flocks and shepherds; of green pastures and still waters; he embodied in his song the popular conception of the theology of his time, and appealed directly to the sentiments of the people of his generation. All great poets have done the same —Dante and Shakspeare and Chaucer. Those poets have been honored most by posterity who have been most in sympathy with their contemporaries. But though Homer was a great poet in his day is no reason he should be copied and imitated indefinitely. But this is just what our poets are doing to-day. They are far better Greeks than Yankees. Fauns and driads, sylphs and naiads, mermaids and Olympian gods and goddesses are their political stock in trade. This outworn Greek mythology, despite its great original beauty, in the. hands of so many long generations of poets is growing a tritie tiresome. We long for a New York, a Denver, a San Francisco bard, and are yawning drearily over such a dead monotony of Athenian poets. Who can doubt that there are just as true poetical souls living in Boston or Omaha, or in our American farmhouses, or on our cattle ranches, as ever lived in Attica or Asia Minor. The world is not vitally interested to-day in hamadryads and wood-nymphs; but it is pretty thorougly absorbed in railroads and ocean steamers, in electric lights and telegraphs. If the war-horse was a theme full of wonder and poetry for Job and Homer, why should not the locomotive, striding like an angry demon, breathing smoke and fire across the continent, be a worthy theme for the Jobs and Homers of to-day. The old bards sang of Mercury, the messenger of the gods. The people were interested in Mercury in those times; he was a topic of current gossip, so to speak. But there is no excitement in regard to Mercury at the present day. But we have a swifter message-bearer of tbe gods than he in the telegraph. Why should not, then, the bards of the modern idea sing the telegraph and let Mercury die? Why should poets waste their gifts in dilating on the old outworn heathen mythologies when the great topic of evolution, the mightiest theme of modern thought, is waiting to be embodied poetically. There are unwritten epics in that subject. There are themes infinitely more poetical in this age of steam and lightning than in Homer’s age of horses. That poets of the modem are appreciated is evidenced by the popularity of such writers as Will Caiieton and Bret Harte. “Oh,” the shocked critic exclaims, “but Will Carleton and Bret Harte are not great poets.” But seriously, scandalized critic, is not the great poet always the one who speaks the word the people wait to hear? These men write of modern themes on subjects dear to the modern heart. They dwell among their own contemporaries and treat their readers as neighbors.

That a poet who sings of modern themes is appreciated is attested, too, by the iroyal reception given the other day to James Whitcomb Riley at the author’s reading in New York. This Hoosier poet takes very little interest in how Virgil or Milton wrote, and has never in his life attempted to imitate Keats or Tennyson. He simply tells the plain peopie.of to-day just what they are thinking about. He is content with being the voice of his dumb contemporary fellow-citizens, and of interpreting the homespun thoughts of hiß neighbors, who are not dowered, like himself, with the gift of tongues. Such men as these are- an indication that there is a distinctive American literature growing np —a literature that will not bow to the domination of Greek ideas or Greek standards of beauty. When American poets are simply content with being American poets, and not also Hebrew poets, Greek poets, or Latin poets, then we shall build up an American literature commensurate with our material advancement, and with our industrial greatness.