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these Cynan belongs, it is not yet possible to say. It is clear that, as yet, he has not found a home. There is a shortage of houses in the intellectual, as well as in the social, life of Wales. But, as I have said, most of this is irrelevant here except as a net against the mosquitoes. For the moment, I am only concerned with "Y Tan- nau Coll," which I must frankly say has dis- appointed me. My main quarrel with it is that artistically it is incoherent. The conception of the poem is highly ingenious and, probably, it was this very ingenuity of conception that led the poet into some of his pitfalls. He set himself the task of relating, poetically, how a man and a woman, neither of whom, as he pictures them, is devoid of fineness in texture of soul, lost, in the course of the most common and usual human intimacies, and under the influence of the most universal human motives, first faith, then love, and, last of all, hope. The theme is a truly tragic one, and at the end of a story so conceived one ought to have stood stunned and aghast at the mysterious tragedy of these two lives, as one does at the close of the Medea, that other great tragedy of the end of romance :­ "Great treasure halls hath Zeus in heaven, From whence to man strange dooms be given, Past hope or fear." One does not. Cynan has exactly assessed the intensity of his own climax in his last two lines "Gwae fi, mi rown yn awr fy mywyd oil, Am glywed etto'r gan, hen gan y tannau coll." This is nothing more than the false emotional climax of lachrymose melodrama, and it is as different from poetry as false rhetoric can ever be. The truth is that Cynan in this poem never real- ised the content of his theme or the magnitude of the task he had set himself. For his purpose something much less elemental would have sufficed, and the man who only wants to make a pot, should not pretend to be fashioning an idol. But in addition to abusing his theme, he has played some havoc with his method. Professor W. J. Gruffydd has severely censured the poet for what might be called his plot-the common- est sexual misfortune in human life. As to this, I would make two comments firstly, funda- mentally, the poet had every right to choose any story for his purpose. That this one might have served him well, and that it could have been vested not only with power but also with tragic dignity, could be proved by scores of instances from the world's literature. Freud is not a co- petent witness in this case. Secondly, I would venture to suggest that Cynan's plot is subtler and, perhaps, profounder than Professor Gruffydd's curt precis of it in the "Lienor." Cynan, at any rate, succeeds in doing what every tragic poet must do. He derives his villainies from innocent, or almost innocent, human motives. The first catastrophe, the intellectual betrayal, arises from a fiercely honest conviction and the second and the third catastrophes-the moral and spiritual ones-from the most natural and inbred human instincts. But there my apolo- gia ends, and afterwards Professor Gruffyd has it all his own way. Probably the very nature of the chosen story made realistic treatment inevitable, though I am not certain of this. In any case, the author chose it, and the very first requisite of tragic realism is inevitability of issue, based on a ruthlessly scientific analysis of character and circumstances. Thomas Hardy in "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" makes his reader, without shedding a tear, lock ever door in the prison of Tess's own nature, ex- cept the one that leads to the bleak courtyard in which the gallows stands. So do all the great tragedians. Rhetoric, gush, sentiment, "tears." are all anathema to the tragic realist. Cynan's poem, although tragic in motive and realistic in form, does in fact reek of sentimentalism and ooze with tears. The realist can never afford for one moment to allow the emotion to depose the reason. In "Y Tannau Coll" the emotion is as thick as fungus on an old beech, and the rea- son as thin as a stepmother's butter on bread. That is the reason why Professor Gwynn Jones, with his usual astuteness, declared that the poem did not untie its own knot. That remark puts my whole criticism in a sentence. Methods and forms in poetry are like razors. If one does not fully understand their purposes, their capacities, and their dangers, then one must look to the safety of one's throat. All this. however, does not imply that "Y Tan- nau Coll" does not contain fine poetry. It does, as these lines will show "Ffydd, murmurai'r afon dawel Byddet gennyt ffydd yn Nuw, Gwelais Ef yn porthi'r wylan, Gwelais Ef yn porthi'r dryw, Gwelais Ef yn cau y moroedd Ac yn cau y llygaid dydd Disgwyl yr holl ddaear wrth Byddet gennyt tithau ffydd." Or these "Yn ei chan mae serch y bryniau. a holl ofid maith y ser, Yn ei chan y mae cyfrinach blodau llawer gwinllan ber; Yn ei chan mae can yr hedydd gollwyd yn y wawrddydd dlos, Fel y collir y wenynen dreuddia i fynwes rudd y rhos." Scores of other lines, equal and better, could be quoted, and they justify us in saying that Cynan is no ordinary poet. That is why we think he should realise that every effort of his will be judged according to the highest and strictest standards. Some have declared him to be a dis- ciple of Masefield; others have seen him walking in the footsteps of Blake, obviously the very dis- tinctive and unique lyricism of the Welsh hymnolo- gists is a very vital part of his nature. He must be careful not to be influenced too much by the author of "Mab y Bwthyn," for of the two we believe Cynan to be the greater.