Social Satirist

Mr Richards is an able fabulist, even in some degree a philosopher – in what degree he is also a complete poet is the problem for his readers. The two best fables in this book, ‘Go Back, Lazarus!’ and ‘Angler’s End’, describe respectively the reactions of a business man’s relatives and acquaintances to his apparent death and resurrection, and the surrealist fate of a suburban couple who buy a great many gadgets on the hire-purchase system.

I could not agree more with Mr Richards that a death must always seem an unincluded monstrous personal happening in a society dominated by stupidity and emotional numbness. I agree also that the hire-purchase system is a deeply immoral and destructive form of legal exploitation which has gained a stranglehold on many householders and their teen-age offspring, and which indirectly has gone a long way to destroying the strength of the unions, since a man who is up to the eyes in debt cannot afford to go on strike for any reason whatever. These are the social preoccupations which rise to the surface of my mind when I read Mr Richard’s verse – and no doubt the author intends that it should be so. I agree with Mr Richards; I am glad that so pointed a satirist and fabulist has come among us. But if I did not agree I would not like his verse much.

That is the problem. One does not have to agree with the theories of reincarnation and cyclic repetition in history in order to respond fully to page 101 the poems of W.B. Yeats – Yeats is a poet before he is a philosopher or social commentator – thus his poems would endure even if his philosophy were discredited. Mr Richards is a social satirist before he is a poet. The small voice of the poet can be heard, it is true, from time to time –

I have heard a long cry
Fade across empty plain,
Dwindle to the sand’s whisper;
I have seen a flag fly,
Wave on a rampart bravely
And droop in a tired hand
Defiant shout? Banner of pride?
Distress? Despairing gesture?
Who can tell – and soon
Sign and shouting die . . . .

In this quotation the first six lines are the beginning of poetry; the next four are the language of abstract comment. If Mr Richards can be severe enough with himself to shear away the ubiquitous comment, he will be entirely a poet.

1966 (393)