A Song of the Open Road, and Other Verses

A Song of the Open Road, and Other Verses

Though I have now known my friend Louis McQuilland for well over a dozen years I am only just beginning to understand him. It may be that he is only just beginning to understand himself. But I am not so sure; for he is an Irishman, and the Irish have, as compared with us, a remarkable capacity both for knowing themselves and for keeping to themselves what they know. For what it is worth, my own interpretation of the earlier and the later McQuillandthey afford in some ways a startling contrastis something like this. I conceive a young man, an Ulsterman of the Catholic Nationalist minority, the fiercest section of the Fighting Race, coming to London and finding himself among an alien people whose eyes were so different from his own, and, with the quick observation and adaptability of his people, saying to himself, I must not talk about my country; for that is treason. I must not talk about my religion; for that is medival bigotry. Let us talk about Art. It is fair to Mr. McQuilland to say that he not only talked about Art but produced it. How well he did the sort of work that English poets were then trying to do, you may see in many poems of this volume, in The House of the Strange Woman, for instance. But even in playing with the Decadence there was always a sharp Irish edge to his execution. Read, for example, the little poem called Fleet Street. It is a novel of George Gissings in twelve lines. To the{10} same period, though to a different mood, belongs, I think, the really very beautiful poem called The Joyous Comrade. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 60716
Author: McQuilland, Louis J.
Release Date: Nov 17, 2019
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Illustrator: Wilson, David