"As
for 'Marjory Darrow,' it's damn fine,—but
don't do it again," Charles G.D. Roberts
told Bliss Carman on September 26, 1892:
It
is the sort of thing that, done once supremely
well, as you have done it ..., is enchanting.
But more in a similar line would seem like mannerism,
and weaken the effect ... I wonder if I make
my feeling clear in the matter! There is, however,
one verbal blemish on the poem, which I think
a serious one. It is in the second line. I don't
like Marjory's "perfect cheek." How
would "consummate gall" do instead?
... I know this is most exasperating criticism,—but
that line is just the one that the Philistines
would delight to worry! There is no use giving
them occasion to make merry, as the line does
not seem to me in any way one of your inevitable
ones! (154)
Roberts
was right to worry about the reception of "Marjory
Darrow": after it was published in The
Independent (New York) on September 1, 1892,
it was reprinted in The Week (Toronto)
on September 30, 1892 amid a small storm of controversy
that probably accounts for the fact that Carman
shied away from including it in any volume or
collection of his poems. Prominent among the features
of the poem that irked readers of the day were
its obscure narrative and varying refrain. Largely
ignored were its large debts to the poetry of
the Pre-Raphaelites, especially William Morris,
and to Walt Whitman, particularly "When Lilacs
Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" (and, hence
or in tandem to the American nature writer John
Burroughs). A discussion of the controversy and
its implications can be found in D.M.R. Bentley,
The Confederation Group of Canadian Poets,
1880-1897 (2004).
The
present text of "Marjory Darrow" is
taken from The Independent (September
1, 1892).
Works
Cited in the Introduction
Bentley,
D.M.R. The Confederation Group of Canadian
Poets, 1880-1897. Toronto: U of Toronto P,
2004.
Roberts,
Charles G.D. Collected Letters. Ed. Laurel
Boone. Fredericton: Goose Lane, 1989.
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