As for my own private poems, I do not even see the criticisms on them,
and am far above the plane where they could possibly reach me;
but this poem is NOT mine, it is to represent the people,
and the people have a right that it should please them."
In this letter Lanier anticipates the criticism that was sure
to come upon the poem when printed without the music.
It was at once received with ridicule in all parts of the country.
The leading critical journal of America exclaimed: "It reads
like a communication from the spirit of Nat Lee, rendered through
a bedlamite medium, failing in all the ordinary laws of sense and sound,
melody and prosody." It urged the commissioners to "save American letters
from the humiliation of presenting to the assembled world such a farrago
as this." For several weeks Lanier could not pick up a newspaper
without seeing his name held up to ridicule, the Southern papers alone,
out of purely sectional pride and with "no understanding
of the PRINCIPLES involved," coming to his rescue. The spirit in which
he received this criticism may be seen in a letter written to his brother: --
This is the sixth letter I've written since nine o'clock to-night,
and it is like saying one's prayers before going to bed,
to have a quiet word with you.
Your letter came to-day, and I see that you have been annoyed
by the howling of the critics over the Cantata. I was greatly so at first,
before I had recovered from my amazement at finding a work of art
received in this way, sufficiently to think, but now the whole matter
is quite plain to me and gives me no more thought, at all.
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