Newspaper cuttings with reviews, most sent to Trevelyan by Durrant's Press Cuttings Agency from: the Daily Herald; Birmingham Post; Scotsman; Observer [by J. C. Squire, also reviewing a book on poetry by Lascelles Abercrombie]; Glasgow Herald; Daily Express; North Eastern Daily Gazette; Daily Telegraph; Cambria Daily Leader; Nation and Athenaeum [by Vita Sackville-West]; Daily News; Saturday Review; Nottingham Guardian; Spectator [also reviewing Trevelyan's translations of Theocritus and Sophocles' Antigone and mentioning a republication of works on poetry by Samuel Daniel and Thomas Campion; see 26/12/1-2 for correspondence about this review]; Manchester Guardian; Times Literary Supplement [also discussion of works by Daniel, Campion and Sonnenschein]; Poetry Review [by Arthur Hood]; Outlook; Calendar; Adelphi; Clarion [by Thomas Moult]; Western Daily Press; Christian Science Monitor; Nation; Time and Tide [by Thomas Moult]; Nature; New Statesman [also discussing essays on poetry by Edith Sitwell and Robert Graves, by 'Affable Hawk' - Desmond MacCarthy, as is noted in an annotation]; Saturday Review of Literature; New Leader [by C. Henry Warren, also discussing works by Sitwell, Graves, and Abercrombie]; Fortnightly Review [by Robert Graves, on The Future of English Poetry]; Women's Leader & Common Cause; Glasgow Herald [re Graves' 'interesting reply to Mr Robert Trevelyan...']; Nottingham Guardian [also on the debate between Graves and Trevelyan]; New Age; and Richmond and Twickenham Times.
Sends a 'brief Postscript' to his letter to Bessie to thank Bob for "Windfalls", "From the Shiffolds", and his translation of the "Eclogues and Georgics". Has told Bessie what he thinks of "Windfalls", which is 'much the same as what [his son] John says of them'; jokigly criticises Bob for using 'different to'. Asks him to write another volume of literary criticism: Bob is so 'right & just... here, & how interesting!' with 'living racy slants' on those he loves or hates; "Solitariness" is a 'masterpiece'. Was 'amazed at [Bob's] youthful vigour' on a long day climbing on the Untersberg [in 1935], and has the 'same feeling' about "Windfalls" and how 'fresh & fit' Bob's mind must be. In the Christmas carols ["From the Shiffolds"], he got a 'savage satisfaction' from "Rabbits and Foxes"; also thinks "Helen", in the metre of "Rose-cheeked Laura" is 'masterly', asks whether the metre is the invention of [Thomas] Campion or classical. Would love to read an essay by Bob on Campion - or on Fulke Greville, Herrick, Marvell, Donne, Gogarty, Ford or Waller: 'Everything almost'. Also much more to say about Milton; asks Bob to write more on Shelley as he has read 'nothing so fine about him as "The Poetry of Ecstasy" since Mrs Campbell's book ["Shelley and the Unromantics" by Olwen Ward Campbell?]. Bob must also have 'thousands of things to say' about the Greek poets.
Trevelyan's address c/o G[ordon] Bottomley, The Sheiling, Silverdale, near Carnforth. - Strachey's article in last week's "Spectator" [see 26/12/5] gave Trevelyan much pleasure: it is a 'rare experience to be appreciated at once so generously and so understandingly'. Was very glad Strachey quoted the chorus on Man from the "Antigone", as he thinks his own 'somewhat dangerous experiment of trying to reproduce the Greek metre comes nearest to success' there. What Strachey says about his translation of Theocritus is also 'very gratifying': Trevelyan had worried that the 'expectations and the absence of rhyme in that metre would prove a stumbling block'. Expected that few people would agree with his comment about [Theocritus's] "Sorceress" being the 'greatest of love poems": perhaps he 'went too far', but did not intend to compare it with dramas, short lyrics and sonnets; even among long poems he admits Chaucer's "Troilus [and Criseyde]" and Marlowe's "Hero and Leander" could be argued to be 'greater'. Hoped to 'provoke dissent' but so far Strachey is the only critic to have challenged his assertion. Very pleased to find someone who understands and generally agrees with what he says about metre in "Thamyris"; thinks he could have been more convincing with more space for illustrations, and would also have liked to have given some examples of 'good and bad poetic rhetoric'. Has always thought Campion's ' "Rose-cheeked Laura" was a 'very remarkable invention"; Strachey may have noticed that he translated several Theocritean epigrams into it. Is himself 'no enemy of rhyme' but thinks there are 'great possibilities in unrhymed lyrical verse in English' which modern vers libre writers have not explored fully.