"Poetry," declared
Shelley, "is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest
and best minds," and it is time that the working men and women of England
were made partakers in this inheritance of wealth and joy.
It maybe argued that it should be the aim of our schools and universities
to educate the working classes to appreciate what is best in standard
English poetry. I do not deny that much maybe done in this way, but let
us not forget that something more will be needed than a course of
instruction in poetic diction and metrical rhythm. Our great poets depict
a world which is only to a very small extent that of the working man. It
is a world of courts and drawingrooms and General Headquarters, a world of
clubs and academies. The working man or woman finds a place in this
charmed world only if his occupation is that of a shepherd, and even then
he must be a shepherd of the Golden Age and answer to the name of
Corydon. Poets, we are solemnly assured by Pope, must not describe
shepherds as they really are, "but as they may be conceived to have been
when the best of men followed the employment of shepherd.
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