I shared this piece with my Mum, who was 91 on Wednesday. She learnt a lot of poetry by heart as a child, often from Palgrave, and can still quote reams of it. (She also, as a student, shared a stage at the Playhouse with Maggie Smith!). Mum says: Yes, I did enjoy this piece! I must say, the young Palgrave sounds a bit of a prig. it is very cheering that people still enjoy poetry in this tediously prosaic world.
Ah! Very glad she enjoyed it. 'Priggish' is exactly the word that the Dictionary of National Biography uses to describe the young Palgrave's tendency to rub people up the wrong way. It is, to me, one of those intriguing terms that had real pejorative force for an older generation, but which I've pretty much only encountered in books. What would be the modern equivalent? Snooty / snotty / up-himself?
According to the magnificent @Jonathon GREEN, ‘prig’ — meaning ‘carping know-all’ in Standard English — may have similar roots to ‘prig’ in slang usage (meaning a vagabond / petty thief / fop / cheat). Alternatively, however, it ‘may be based on the divine Richard Baxter (1615–91), who in 1684 associated it with the initial letters of proud ignorance’! https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/fgb6v7a
Reading William Carlos Williams' semi-autobiography 'I wanted to write a poem' I noted how much he said he was influenced as a young poet by Palgrave. "The books that influenced me were my own discoveries. I knew Palgrave's Golden Treasury by heart." and then a few pages further on "The poems in this period, short, lyrical, were more or less influenced by my meeting with Pound, but even more by Palgrave's Golden Treasury. I was budding, had no real confidence in my power, but I wanted to make a poetry of my own and it began to come." Williams apparently conceptualises Palgrave as a whole, as he does Keats or Whitman - Palgrave is not portrayed as an anthology containing many different poets and approaches, but rather as a single poet with a style of his own.
Thanks for a most interesting piece about a work one is so used to seeing referred to in terms which are, at best, condescending. And fascinating to learn about the care taken over the physical form of the book. What a handsome example of mid-Victorian typography and binding design it is (notwithstanding the rather fey drawing of Pan), far above the general standard of the period.
Shouldn't we take a generous view of people who think poetry 'ought to' rhyme, acknowledging that they are on to something, namely the visual and (more important) sound patterning that distinguishes poetry from prose. Most of the poetry which engages me enough to want to return to it does rhyme, internally.
Thanks, Steven -- glad you enjoyed it. As someone trying to write a book about rhyme, I'm all in favour of a generous view! But it did strike me that perhaps that "ought to" sentiment came from the alignment of Palgrave with poetry as encountered at school, which I think unfortunately narrows many people's sense of what poetry might be (blank verse, free verse, prose poems, all of it...)
Thanks for your reply. I was being a little cheeky. Interesting that you're writing a book about rhyme. What I was driving at is something like this: in a poetic landscape dominated by blank/free verse the ability to manage internal rhyme (usually half-rhyme) as something generative of meaning, is a sure sign of talent. All the best.
Yes -- when the winner of the National Poetry Competition this year was being disparaged by journalists, they all missed the subtle way it employed this kind of rhyme. And one of my favourite poets, R.F. Langley, was a master of it.
When Alfred and Emily Tennyson moved to Twickenham in 1851, Francis Palgrave was unwise enough to call unannounced. Tennyson greeted him with the distinctly unfriendly words ‘So, you have found me out’, before Emily (as usual) smoothed things over. Palgrave must have been a very patient friend.
I didn't know this! Palgrave seems to have been quite a *persistent* type (thinking of Tennyson's 'bee in a bottle' remark, a friend messaged me this afternoon to say that there was a fly stuck in his office, and each time it hit the window the frustrated buzzing did sound a bit like 'Tennyson...')
Great post Jeremy. I’m currently writing about Rowena Cade and The Minack Theatre. My research took me to the wonderful Morrab Library in Penzance, recently praised in a post by Jane Brocket (yarnstorm).
There I found an old Ward Lock guide book to West Cornwall with the following about the cliff walk from Logan Rock to Porthcurno, where Rowena built her theatre on the cliffs at Minack:
'While in this neighbourhood it is interesting to recall its connection with The Golden Treasury, that classic which so many have loved, and which still has its ardent lovers. The work had, as may be remembered, a romantic, almost heroic origin. It we had been here on a certain day in 1860 we might have seen five men, men obviously of mark and might, "traversing the wild scenery of Treryn Dinas" and talking as they stride along. At first all talk together. Then from time to time a hand shoots up. They have made a rule that whoever wants the ear of the company shall hold up his hand. By and by three break off. They are Holman Hunt, Woolner and Val Prinsep.
The other two are Alfred Tennyson and Francis Palgrave. As they finish their journey, Palgrave mentions an idea which has come to him of making an anthology of the best songs and lyrical poems in the English language. Tennyson blessed the scheme, and to him, as all know, the volume was dedicated in a memorable preface.’
Thanks, John — I was wondering where the Cornish walking tour took them, so this is perfect! Funny they had that rule about holding one’s hand up… I wonder if it came in after quarrels over everyone talking at once. Or because Tennyson was desperate for some peace and quiet in which to compose?
It's fascinating that your mother's poem is kept within the Palgrave. It's so different from the poems within, yet it is a lyric poem and shows that writerly debt we have to the poetry of the past. Those are lovely resonant end lines she has written.
Yes — it’s a striking contrast, and makes me suspect that once upon a time the Palgrave was kept next to The Mersey Sound, which is the other anthology I have with her name in the front. The style of the poem is much more Adrian Henri or Brian Patten (and she grew up on Merseyside, so had a particular fondness for those poets).
Palgrave was at all the schools I went to. In India, Sussex, Berkshire, Switzerland. No doubt there was a copy in the library at Reading University but I didn't search.
I shared this piece with my Mum, who was 91 on Wednesday. She learnt a lot of poetry by heart as a child, often from Palgrave, and can still quote reams of it. (She also, as a student, shared a stage at the Playhouse with Maggie Smith!). Mum says: Yes, I did enjoy this piece! I must say, the young Palgrave sounds a bit of a prig. it is very cheering that people still enjoy poetry in this tediously prosaic world.
Ah! Very glad she enjoyed it. 'Priggish' is exactly the word that the Dictionary of National Biography uses to describe the young Palgrave's tendency to rub people up the wrong way. It is, to me, one of those intriguing terms that had real pejorative force for an older generation, but which I've pretty much only encountered in books. What would be the modern equivalent? Snooty / snotty / up-himself?
Just looked it Merriam Webster who give a good recent American example of ‘prig’ - though probably in an English context.
Even girls, against the advice of monks and prigs, were taught to read and write.—Claudia Roth Pierpont, The New Yorker, 19 Feb. 2024
Yes — curious to know what the context was! The influential monks suggests a medieval world, but prigs surely only post-Renaissance…
Yes, I think those, with also some tones of ascetic, disdainful, over-pure. I've not looked it up, but wonder if it is related to prim?
According to the magnificent @Jonathon GREEN, ‘prig’ — meaning ‘carping know-all’ in Standard English — may have similar roots to ‘prig’ in slang usage (meaning a vagabond / petty thief / fop / cheat). Alternatively, however, it ‘may be based on the divine Richard Baxter (1615–91), who in 1684 associated it with the initial letters of proud ignorance’! https://greensdictofslang.com/entry/fgb6v7a
Reading William Carlos Williams' semi-autobiography 'I wanted to write a poem' I noted how much he said he was influenced as a young poet by Palgrave. "The books that influenced me were my own discoveries. I knew Palgrave's Golden Treasury by heart." and then a few pages further on "The poems in this period, short, lyrical, were more or less influenced by my meeting with Pound, but even more by Palgrave's Golden Treasury. I was budding, had no real confidence in my power, but I wanted to make a poetry of my own and it began to come." Williams apparently conceptualises Palgrave as a whole, as he does Keats or Whitman - Palgrave is not portrayed as an anthology containing many different poets and approaches, but rather as a single poet with a style of his own.
Thanks for a most interesting piece about a work one is so used to seeing referred to in terms which are, at best, condescending. And fascinating to learn about the care taken over the physical form of the book. What a handsome example of mid-Victorian typography and binding design it is (notwithstanding the rather fey drawing of Pan), far above the general standard of the period.
Shouldn't we take a generous view of people who think poetry 'ought to' rhyme, acknowledging that they are on to something, namely the visual and (more important) sound patterning that distinguishes poetry from prose. Most of the poetry which engages me enough to want to return to it does rhyme, internally.
Thanks, Steven -- glad you enjoyed it. As someone trying to write a book about rhyme, I'm all in favour of a generous view! But it did strike me that perhaps that "ought to" sentiment came from the alignment of Palgrave with poetry as encountered at school, which I think unfortunately narrows many people's sense of what poetry might be (blank verse, free verse, prose poems, all of it...)
Thanks for your reply. I was being a little cheeky. Interesting that you're writing a book about rhyme. What I was driving at is something like this: in a poetic landscape dominated by blank/free verse the ability to manage internal rhyme (usually half-rhyme) as something generative of meaning, is a sure sign of talent. All the best.
Yes -- when the winner of the National Poetry Competition this year was being disparaged by journalists, they all missed the subtle way it employed this kind of rhyme. And one of my favourite poets, R.F. Langley, was a master of it.
When Alfred and Emily Tennyson moved to Twickenham in 1851, Francis Palgrave was unwise enough to call unannounced. Tennyson greeted him with the distinctly unfriendly words ‘So, you have found me out’, before Emily (as usual) smoothed things over. Palgrave must have been a very patient friend.
I didn't know this! Palgrave seems to have been quite a *persistent* type (thinking of Tennyson's 'bee in a bottle' remark, a friend messaged me this afternoon to say that there was a fly stuck in his office, and each time it hit the window the frustrated buzzing did sound a bit like 'Tennyson...')
Great post Jeremy. I’m currently writing about Rowena Cade and The Minack Theatre. My research took me to the wonderful Morrab Library in Penzance, recently praised in a post by Jane Brocket (yarnstorm).
There I found an old Ward Lock guide book to West Cornwall with the following about the cliff walk from Logan Rock to Porthcurno, where Rowena built her theatre on the cliffs at Minack:
'While in this neighbourhood it is interesting to recall its connection with The Golden Treasury, that classic which so many have loved, and which still has its ardent lovers. The work had, as may be remembered, a romantic, almost heroic origin. It we had been here on a certain day in 1860 we might have seen five men, men obviously of mark and might, "traversing the wild scenery of Treryn Dinas" and talking as they stride along. At first all talk together. Then from time to time a hand shoots up. They have made a rule that whoever wants the ear of the company shall hold up his hand. By and by three break off. They are Holman Hunt, Woolner and Val Prinsep.
The other two are Alfred Tennyson and Francis Palgrave. As they finish their journey, Palgrave mentions an idea which has come to him of making an anthology of the best songs and lyrical poems in the English language. Tennyson blessed the scheme, and to him, as all know, the volume was dedicated in a memorable preface.’
Thanks, John — I was wondering where the Cornish walking tour took them, so this is perfect! Funny they had that rule about holding one’s hand up… I wonder if it came in after quarrels over everyone talking at once. Or because Tennyson was desperate for some peace and quiet in which to compose?
It's fascinating that your mother's poem is kept within the Palgrave. It's so different from the poems within, yet it is a lyric poem and shows that writerly debt we have to the poetry of the past. Those are lovely resonant end lines she has written.
Reading aloud! It's still basically the test.
Yes — it’s a striking contrast, and makes me suspect that once upon a time the Palgrave was kept next to The Mersey Sound, which is the other anthology I have with her name in the front. The style of the poem is much more Adrian Henri or Brian Patten (and she grew up on Merseyside, so had a particular fondness for those poets).
Palgrave was at all the schools I went to. In India, Sussex, Berkshire, Switzerland. No doubt there was a copy in the library at Reading University but I didn't search.
It was the Eng Lit equivalent of the Bible in the hotel bedside drawer!