The titles of his poetic tragedies and dramas clearly indicate that, with one exception, his subjects were derivative and his treatment traditional. With the exception of his Daulac he took his subjects from Arthurian legend and European romantic history. He was considerably under the influence of Tennyson. Though he gave us an interesting and arresting poetic drama with his Daulac, it is specially notable as a drama which is Canadian in subject, character, and setting. He was not so successful with it as with his poetic drama based on Arthurian legend and romantic history. The reason is that in a large degree he possessed an ‘Old World,’ a Keltic imagination, and his imagination was deeply impressed and moved by the romance of mediaeval heroic exploits:—
Old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago.
The heroism of Daulac, his combats and other heroic exploits were so near in time to the age of Campbell himself that they could not affect the poet’s imagination so pervasively and compellingly as do the older mediaeval romances of heroic exploits. Campbell did not feel the Daulac story as he had felt the Arthurian or romantic legends of Europe. He, therefore, did not, because he could not, put into his Daulac the same power of imagination and dramatic characterization and reality that he put into his other dramas. But Daulac, notwithstanding, is a noble poetic drama; and since it is Canadian through and through, in subject, in setting, and in authorship, we may estimate it as the first native poetic drama of genuine art and power in the creative literature of Canada.
The quotations from Wilfred Campbell’s work in this chapter are from The Poetical Works of Wilfred Campbell (Hodder & Stoughton, Limited: Toronto).
CHAPTER XII
Pauline Johnson
HER ANCESTRY AND ITS INFLUENCES—LITERARY AND MUSICAL QUALITIES OF WORK—STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT IN SPIRITUAL VISION—PICTURESQUE COLOR VERSE.
The name, life, and poetry of Pauline Johnson affect the heart and imagination with the arresting pathos which attaches to the imperishable memory of a belated and beautiful spirit who came singing new and winning music of earth, and man, and love. She was the most elementally human of all Canadian poets. In some respects Pauline Johnson was the most original and engaging singer in the company of the Canadian lyrists who were born in 1860, 1861, and 1862—Roberts, Carman, Lampman, Campbell, and Duncan Campbell Scott.