" Mr. Kittredge's entire passage on the
matter is worth quoting. He first says--"The traditional ballad
appears to be inimitable by any person of literary cultivation," "the
efforts of poets and poetasters" end in "invariable failure."
I do not think that they need end in failure except for one reason.
The poet or poetaster cannot, now, except by flat lying and laborious
forgery of old papers, produce any documentary evidence to prove the
AUTHENTICITY of his attempt at imitation. Without documentary evidence
of antiquity, no critic can approach the imitation except in a spirit
of determined scepticism. He knows, certainly, that the ballad is
modern, and, knowing that, he easily finds proofs of modernism even
where they do not really exist. I am convinced that to imitate a
ballad that would, except for the lack of documentary evidence, beguile
the expert, is perfectly feasible. I even venture to offer examples of
my own manufacture at the close of this volume. I can find nothing
suspicious in them, except the deliberate insertion of formulae which
occur in genuine ballads.
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