by

Aleister Crowley

This critical assessment of the English poet Alfred Noyes was originally published in "The International: A Review of Two Worlds" 10:12 (New York: December 1916), 361-2. Much of Crowley's earlier output as a free-lance journalist in New York during the Great War consists of reviews and literary criticism of this type: magazine writing which was fashionably clever and (seemingly) irreverent. Having first taken care to endear himself to editor George Viereck with the submission of an enthusiastic review of Viereck's own volume "Songs of Armageddon and Other Poems," Crowley rapidly sold articles on many contemporary literary figures, including Oscar Wilde, Rabindranath Tagore, Samuel Butler, and John Cowper Powys -- this article on Noyes also belongs to the series. (Only afterwards did Crowley branch out with submissions of short stories, magical studies, poetry, and eventually texts like Liber XV and instructions to the A.·. A.·.) Alfred Noyes (1880-1958) enjoyed success as a poet by appealing to the more backward-looking readership of the early twentieth century, and most of his verse now seems hopelessly shallow and ordinary. He became a fervent Roman Catholic convert and also produced essays as an "anti-modernist" literary critic. Noyes is still remembered for a few ballads such as "The Highwayman" - staples of the vulgar tradition of Great English Poems - or for his book-length "verse" biographies of British explorers and scientists, such as "Drake" (1906-8). Crowley, although often criticised for the competitive spirit with which he referes to fellow practitioners of the poetic craft, was nevertheless able to clearly assess the lesser talents of many of his own "crapulous contemporaries."

I was sitting upon the terrace of the Cafe de la Paix one summer evening some years ago before the war, when my attention was attracted to a procession of young exquisites. It was not an ordinary procession. It appeared to partake of the nature of an advertisment. All the members of the party were apparently male. At least they were dressed in the extreme masculine fashion. They were apparently from the stage of some theatre, for they were painted and powdered excessively. Their gait was mincing; each carried an elegant cane held to the face rather like a lorgnette, and each held in the other hand a copy of the first volume of Mr Alfred Noyes. The Cafe de la Paix must have been very full that evening; at least they shortly re-emerged, followed by some rapid remarks from the maitre d'hotel.

The second time I heard of Mr Noyes was in London. I had been slumming, and had dug down to the office of the "New Age," where I discovered an individual bearing the savory name of Oliver Onions. This gentleman proved to be full of Mr Noyes, and informed me that it was the boast of that individual that he had made a living out of poetry ever since he left Oxford. "Interesting indeed," said I, "whose poetry?" I was then reminded that Mr Noyes was himself a poet, and indeed, on investigation, it appeares that this Mr Noyes is the most determined poet that ever lived. It seems that he set the career of Tennyson before him from the very start. He intended to become Poet Laureate, and nothing should stop him. I do not think anything will stop him.

The evidence of his campaign is to be seen in his career. The very fact of seizing upon the canons of Oxford is evidence. But as soon as he left Oxford he perceived that he must pick up with the bigger traditions of popularity. He therefore took the big English traditions: the sea, and King Arthur, and the May-Queen, and tied them up with Swinburne and Kipling. One can see traces of the style of all of these. Here is a passage of so-called blank verse of the most wooden Tennysonian model: