ON THE DIALECTAL WORDS IN EDMUND BLUNDEN'S POEMS[3]

[Footnote 3: _The Waggoner and other Poems_, by Edmund Blunden, pp. 70.
Sidgwick and Jackson. London, 1920.]


In the original prospectus of the S.P.E., reprinted in Tract I, and
again in III, p. 9, one of the objects of the Society is stated to be
the 'enrichment and what is called regeneration of the language from the
picturesque vocabularies of local vernaculars'. Since a young poet, Mr.
Edmund Blunden, has lately published a volume in which this particular
element of dialectal and obsolescent words is very prominent, it will be
suitable to our general purpose to consider it as a practical experiment
and examine the results. The poetic diction and high standard of his
best work give sufficient importance to this procedure; and though he
may seem to be somewhat extravagant in his predilection for unusual
terms, yet his poetry cannot be imagined without them, and the strength
and beauty of the effects must be estimated in his successes and not in
his failures.

In the following remarks no appreciation of the poetry will be
attempted: our undertaking is merely to tabulate the 'new' words,
and examine their fitness for their employment. The bracketed numbers
following the quotations give the page of the book where they occur.
The initials _O.E.D._ and _E.D.D._ stand for the _Oxford English
Dictionary_ and the _English Dialect Dictionary_ (Wright).

1. 'And churning owls and goistering daws'. (1)