Item 102 - Letter from Gilbert Murray to R. C. Trevelyan

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Barford, Churt, Farnham. - Bertie Russell has written to him about Trevelyan's tragedy ["Cecilia Gonzaga"], which he 'evidently enjoyed', saying that he quoted Murray as 'saying that blank verse was "played out"''; if someone had told Murray this when he had just finished a poem in blank verse, it 'would stick in [him] like a thorn!'. Is therefore writing quickly to say that all he meant was that he currently has a feeling that he does 'not know how blank verse ought to be written', and cannot write it himself without suspecting he is 'imitating some particular style - Tennysonian, Elizabethan, Swinburnian, Browningist'. Does not feel quite the same about heroic couplets, which 'after being ridden almost to death, has [sic] had a long time of neglect in which to get fresh again'. Blank verse is 'clearly best for a play'; sends best wishes to Trevelyan.