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When the poet
is too proud to complain of his own wrongs at the hands of the public,
it is easy for him to strike in defense of another. As the last century
wore on, this vicarious indignation more and more took the place of a
personal outcry. Comparatively little has been said by poets since the
romantic period about their own persecutions.[Footnote: See, however,
Joaquin Miller, _I Shall Remember_, and _Vale_; Francis Ledwidge, _The
Visitation of Peace_.]
Occasionally a poet endeavors to placate the public by assuming a pose
of equality. The tradition of Chaucer, fostered by the _Canterbury
Tales_, is that by carefully hiding his genius, he succeeded in
keeping on excellent terms with his contemporaries. Percy Mackaye, in
the _Canterbury Pilgrims_, shows him obeying St. Paul's injunction
so literally that the parson takes him for a brother of the cloth, the
plowman is surprised that he can read, and so on, through the whole
social gamut of the Pilgrims. But in the nineteenth century this
friendly attitude seldom works out so well.


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