Item 55 - Letter from Dadie Rylands to R. C. Trevelyan

1 item: typed with autograph annotations and signature

King's College, Cambridge. - Read Trevelyan's essay on poetry, "Thamyris", last night; thinks it is 'delightfully written', particularly the opening and first chapter. Generally agrees with the second chapter on spoken verse, but thinks it needs 'strengthening, further investigation and evidence'. Disagrees from Trevelyan on some points such as the speed at which the 'Miltonic monosyllabic line' reads. The chapter on 'Duple and Triple time baffles and bewilders' him: does not understand the terms in a poetic context and wants 'much more definition and example'; advises Trevelyan to look again at [George] Saintsbury's 'axioms in... "the Short History of Prosody"', which he himself finds 'very helpful'. Shows how his scansion of a line from [Shakespeare's] "Troilus and Cressida" differs from Trevelyan's. Thanks Trevelyan for letting him see the essay; may not have done it justice as yesterday he had two supervisions, an hour and a half's meeting with the Town Planning authority, and an audit of college silver, as well as 'hearing a young man's choral and orchestral setting of the "Prometheus" (done for George Thomson) played on a piano' and 'meeting a black emperor [Haile Selassie?] and his prime minister at dinner'.