Árdís - 01.01.1947, Page 36

E. PAULINE JOHNSON
*
By Vordís Friðfinnsson, B. A.
When Mrs. Olafsson wrote to me this spring she asked me to give a
talk of at least half an hour’s duration on any subject I chose. I wish to
thank her for holding so high an opinion of me as to imagine that any
audience could bear up under the strain of listening to me for half an
an hour or more. While I feel a little guilty in not complying completely
with her request, I am happy to assure you that though the pain will be
severe while it lasts it will not last half an hour.
I was also asked to speak in Icelandic but am not doing so because
of the nature of the topic I have chosen—which is the Canadian poetess
E. Pauline Johnson. I feel that I can best deal with this topic by quot-
ing liberally from her poetry, which is written in English.
The fact is often brought forth that Canada is a country where
poetry does not flourish well, and where poets are not honored and pat-
ronized. This is perhaps partly because Canadians as yet are occupied
greatly with material concerns and do not rank poetry high in their scale
of values. As a result those who dabble in poetry are often regarded as
beings who are wasting their time away on idle pleasures instead of
following other more useful pursuits.
While material wants need to be satisfíed it is also true that man
does not live on bread alone. He needs to gratify his soul with love of
beautiful things, he needs to share his thoughts and feelings with others,
to be appreciated and understood, and to appreciate and understand.
In our modem world we are becoming increasingly aware that we
cannot live in isolation. What happens to other people is very important
to us because society has become so closely tied together that what
happens to one part of it indirectly influences tlie other parts.
Since this is so it is important that people understand how other
people think and feel and they may enlarge their own thoughts and
feelings expressed by poets in their poetry. Therefore it seems that there
is truth in what the great critics of the past have always maintained—
that the function of poetry is not only to please but also to instmct.
This is true of poetry that expresses personal feelings and thoughts
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