Beschreibung:

BINYON LAURENCE: (1869-1943) English Poet whose most famous work, For the Fallen, is used in Remembrance Sunday Services. A fine A.L.S., Laurence Binyon, three pages, 8vo, London, 4th October 1932, to Mr. Lapage, on the attractive printed stationery of the British Museum. Binyon acknowledges receipt of his correspondent's book and states 'I see no reason why you should despond about your poems, though one may well be made to despond by the reception the world gives to poetry', continuing 'I feel myself that if what most reviewers say about my verse is true then I don't want to go on writing'. Binyon further offers his correspondent his opinion of their work, along with some constructive criticism, 'There is plenty of technical accomplishment in your book, and force of feeling coming through it. The blank verse is vigorous & alive. You ask me to write candidly about 'faults'….I rather fancy that your poems have too much 'reason' in them, I mean that they seem to belong too much to the plane of the self-conscious reasoning mind which observes, argues & concludes; resulting sometimes in a rather prosaic cast of phrase. Of course that is all right in the satiric vein which you open up now & then….I suppose there may be wanting to your poems a certain newness & difference of voice which is what fixes attention: at least not sufficiently marked to impose itself. Many people try to get this by tricks & stunts so as to be thought original; but the only originality is the release of one's uniqueness. I think perhaps you accept phrases - possibly thoughts also - that come too easily & not from your own depths. I'm afraid I express myself very badly, & dislike criticising anyhow'. Binyon also informs his correspondent that he has recently been translating Dante '& have found it a marvellous discipline' and concludes by hoping that his remarks have not been unhelpful. A letter of good content, written in the poet's typically elegant hand. A couple of very light, extremely minor stains only very slightly affect a few words of text to the second page, which remain perfectly legible. Otherwise EX Geoffrey Lapage (1888-1971) English Parasitologist and Writer, lecturer in Zoology at the University of Manchester. Binyon had been employed at the British Museum following his graduation in 1893 and at the time of the present letter was Keeper of the Prints and Drawing Department. He retired in 1933 and over the next decade published his acclaimed translation of Dante's Divine Comedy, which had been completed with some editorial assistance from his friend Ezra Pound.