Review:Masefield:Right Royal (Fairley)

Review:Raven:Christian Socialism 1848-1854 (J.A.D.)

Review:Masefield:Right Royal (Fairley) written by Margaret Fairley

Review:Walpole:The Captives (S.H.H.)

In The Canadian Forum, January 1921, p. 120

Right Royal, by John Masefield (Macmillan, Canada). Right Royal is the narrative of a steeple-chase, intensely realized. There is little generalization and, for Mr. Masefield, very little reflection or moralizing. It is perhaps the most consistently concrete of all his poems, and our experience in reading it is precise in every particular. The events are held together better than in any of Mr. Masefield 's earlier poems. The well-worn literary device of the prophetic dream [p.122] gives us a clue to the whole, and the events, as they succeed one another, are not pictures so much as experiences, because of the insight we have from the start into the minds of the only two characters which count, Charles and his horse. Right Royal. We see and feel the whole thing as Charles saw and felt it. To make this plausible, Charles is made to ride almost the whole race well behind the rest of the racers, so we get not only his own "glory of going", but also his view of the adventures of the rest. Here is the start:

"And then in a flash, more felt than seen,

The flag shot down and the course showed green,

And the line surged forwards and all that glory

Of speed was sweeping to make a story".

It is not long before a mishap throws him thirty lengths behind, and now the poem can move more slowly, for he refrains from driving his horse, and waits for his chance to come later. This slower movement is perhaps the most beautiful in the peom^(sic!). Charles is saving his own and his horse's strength and it is natural for him to notice something of the world around him, and to recall some of his earlier rides with Right Royal. Mr. Masefield makes admirable use of this opportunity. Charles is sympathetic to all life and motion.

"But last though he was, all his blood was on fire

With the rush of the wind and the gleam of the mire,

And the leap of his heart to the skylarks in quire,

And the feel of his horse going onward, on, on,

Under sky with white banners and bright sun that shone".

It is in this slower section of the poem that Mr. Masefield likes to prolong his rhymes to a third, and occasionally to a fourth line at the beginning of his stanzas.

Almost all the similes in the poem are suggested by motion, usually rapid motion, and almost all are such as might have presented themselves to Charles as he rode. But these similes, rich and beautiful as they are, are never more than the fringe; the main stream of intense experience is the feel of the horse; the now distant, now nearing, view of the racers; and the swiftly passing panorama at each side of the course.

"All the crowd flickered past, like a film on a reel,

Like a ribbon, whirled past him, all painted with eyes.

All the real, as he rode, was the horse at his thighs,

And he thought, 'They'll come back, if I've luck, if I’m wise’"

Mr. Masefield has given us a worthy sequel to Reynard the Fox, enjoyable and exciting from cover to cover, and incidentally we may be grateful to him for steering almost entirely clear of race-course technicalities, swearing and jargon.

M. A. F.