Cirrus@Austlit

H. M. Green's A History of Australian Literature: Pure and Applied (1961): 168-169 comments: 'The Godolphin Arabian represents an aspect of Stephen's talent that does not appear in Convict Once, but is his most characteristic aspect....It is an interesting, sometimes exciting story, pathetic at times and always amusing, told in an ottava rima and something in the manner of Don Juan, though with a strong admixture of Hood; nevertheless the result is altogether Stephens. The poem does not aim at the heights or depths, but it achieves precisely what it does aim at: picturesque, adventurous incident and swift action, clear-cut character-sketching and vivid description, all in a vein of humorous and sometimes witty fantasy that is yet simple and credible....There is undoubtedly a bookish air about this poem also, but it accords well with the fantastic style and conception: it resembles an account of something real and remarkable, given by a humorous and discerning man of letters, who, though scarcely himself an expert on his subject, yet thoroughly appreciates what he has to tell and is able to make it extremely vivid to his listeners. It is amazing that Australian sportsmen at least have not managed to disinter this poem, which may well owe its origin not merely to a tale by Sue but to a fight between two stallions on a station in South Queensland. As in Convict Once there may be traced the influence of Swinburne, Poe, and, more often, Tennyson, so in Stephen's lighter verse, including The Godolphin Arabian, there are visible affinities with and influences from not only Byron and Hood, but also Praed and Calverley and even Bret Harte...'

Barbara Garlick (64) notes that 'Stephens was not to make his name as a poetic champion of the turf, howver, for the times dictated, for various reasons, that there was no great market for a single-volume long poem, particularly a broadly comic and satirical one that smacked of European sophistication. Even though The Godolphin Arabian was republished after twenty-one years, it never reached a wide reading public, partly due to cost, partly to its style and partly to its topic becoming unacceptable in the new wave of evangelical rigor which greeted the new century.' (Barbara Garlick 'Colonial Canons: The Case of James Brunton Stephens'. Victorian Poetry 40.1 (2002): 64).