The Poetic Pattern

Abstract

In order to make any adequate judgment on Sill as a poet, one must examine, at least briefly, his relation to the general pattern of poetry in his time. It has already become clear that he was largely isolated from any poetic schools or literary circles. Even during his middle years in California when he was deeply concerned with the development of literature in the West, he remained individual and apart from the poetic groupings of the region. Although he contributed to the first series of the Overland Monthly and became such an invaluable supporter of its later revival that the editor herself remarked, “The Overland Monthly owes its revival to him; and in all ways open to him he has been its nearest friend and best counselor,”¹ his general attitude toward poetry was universal, transcending the parochialisms of nationalism or regionalism.² He had stayed aloof from Bret Harte and his circle; he found the later cult of Bohemianism distasteful, commenting satirically on the “trite but slightly objectionable” activities of the Bohemian Club;³ and though he used the California scene imaginatively and accurately, he winced at what seemed to him the absurdity of exploiting local color for its own sake.⁴