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The Study Of Poetry, Part I.
The Study Of Poetry, Part I.
[Footnote 1: Published in 1880 as the General Introduction to `The English
Poets,` edited by T. H. Ward.]
The future of poetry is immense, because in poetry, where it is worthy of
its high destinies, our race, as time goes on, will find an ever surer and
surer stay. There is not a creed which is not shaken, not an accredited dogma
which is not shown to be questionable, not a received tradition which does not
threaten to dissolve. Our religion has materialised itself in the fact, in the
supposed fact; it has attached its emotion to the fact, and now the fact is
failing it. But for poetry the idea is everything; the rest is a world of
illusion, of divine illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to the idea; the
idea is the fact. The strongest part of our religion to - day is its
unconscious poetry.`
Let me be permitted to quote these words of my own, as uttering the
thought which should, in my opinion, go with us and govern us in all our study
of poetry. In the present work it is the course of one great contributory
stream to the world - river of poetry that we are invited to follow. We are
here invited to trace the stream of English poetry. But whether we set
ourselves, as here, to follow only one of the several streams that make the
mighty river of poetry, or whether we seek to know them all, our governing
thought should be the same. We should conceive of poetry worthily, and more
highly than it has been the custom to conceive of it. We should conceive of it
as capable of higher uses, and called to higher destinies, than those which in
general men have assigned to it hitherto. More and more mankind will discover
that we have to turn to poetry to interpret life for us, to console us, to
sustain us. Without poetry, our science will appear incomplete; and most of
what now passes with us for religion and philosophy will be replaced by
poetry. Science, I say, will appear incomplete without it. For finely and
truly does Wordsworth call poetry `the impassioned expression which is in the
countenance of all science`; and what is a countenance without its expression?
Again, Wordsworth finely and truly calls poetry `the breath and finer spirit
of all knowledge`; our religion, parading evidences such as those on which the
popular mind relies now; our philosophy, pluming itself on its reasonings
about causation and finite and infinite being; what are they but the shadows
and dreams and false shows of knowledge? The day will come when we shall
wonder at ourselves for having trusted to them, for having taken them
seriously; and the more we perceive their hollowness, the more we shall prize
`the breath and finer spirit of knowledge` offered to us by poetry.
But if we conceive thus highly of the destinies of poetry, we must also
set our standard for poetry high, since poetry, to be capable of fulfilling
such high destinies, must be poetry of a high order of excellence. We must
accustom ourselves to a high standard and to a strict judgment. Sainte - Beuve
relates that Napoleon one day said, when somebody was spoken of in his
presence as a charlatan: `Charlatan as much as you please; but where is there
not charlatanism?` - `Yes` answers Sainte - Beuve, `in politics, in the art of
governing mankind, that is perhaps true. But in the order of thought, in art,
the glory, the eternal honour is that charlatanism shall find no entrance;
herein lies the inviolableness of that noble portion of man`s being.` It is
admirably said, and let us hold fast to it. In poetry, which is thought and
art in one, it is the glory, the eternal honour, that charlatanism shall find
no entrance; that this noble sphere be kept inviolate and inviolable.
Charlatanism is for confusing or obliterating the distinctions between
excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only half - sound, true and
untrue or only half - true. It is charlatanism, conscious or unconscious,
whenever we confuse or obliterate these. And in poetry, more than anywhere
else, it is unpermissible to confuse or obliterate them. For in poetry the
distinction between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound or only half -
sound, true and untrue or only half - true, is of paramount importance. It is
of paramount importance because of the high destinies of poetry. In poetry, as
in criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such a criticism by the
laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty, the spirit of our race will find, we
have said, as time goes on and as other helps fail, its consolation and stay.
But the consolation and stay will be of power in proportion to the power of
the criticism of life. And the criticism of life will be of power in
proportion as the poetry conveying it is excellent rather than inferior, sound
rather than unsound or half - sound, true rather than untrue on half - true.
The best poetry is what we want; the best poetry will be found to have a
power of forming, sustaining, and delighting us, as nothing else can. A
clearer, deeper sense of the best in poetry, and of the strength and joy to be
drawn from it, is the most precious benefit which we can gather from a
poetical collection such as the present. And yet in the very nature and
conduct of such a collection there is inevitably something which tends to
obscure in us the consciousness of what our benefit should be, and to distract
us from the pursuit of it. We should therefore steadily set it before our
minds at the outset, and should compel ourselves to revert constantly to the
thought of it as we proceed.
Yes; constantly in reading poetry, a sense for the best, the really
excellent, and of the strength and joy to be drawn from it, should be present
in our minds and should govern our estimate of what we read. But this real
estimate, the only true one, is liable to be superseded, if we are not
watchful, by two other kinds of estimate, the historic estimate and the
personal estimate, both of which are fallacious. A poet or a poem may count to
us historically, they may count to us on grounds personal to ourselves, and
they may count to us really. They may count to us historically. The course of
development of a nation`s language, thought, and poetry, is profoundly
interesting; and by regarding a poet`s work as a stage in this course of
development we may easily bring ourselves to make it of more importance as
poetry than in itself it really is, we may come to use a language of quite
exaggerated praise in criticising it; in short, to overrate it. So arises in
our poetic judgments the fallacy caused by the estimate which we may call
historic. Then, again, a poet or poem may count to us on grounds personal to
ourselves. Our personal affinities, likings and circumstances, have great
power to sway our estimate of this or that poet`s work, and to make us attach
more importance to it as poetry than in itself it really possesses, because to
us it is, or has been, of high importance. Here also we overrate the object of
our interest, and apply to it a language of praise which is quite exaggerated.
And thus we get the source of a second fallacy in our poetic judgments - the
fallacy caused by an estimate which we may call personal.
Both fallacies are natural. It is evident how naturally the study of the
history and development of poetry may incline a man to pause over reputations
and works once conspicuous but now obscure, and to quarrel with a careless
public for skipping, in obedience to mere tradition and habit, from one famous
name or work in its national poetry to another, ignorant of what it misses,
and of the reason for keeping what it keeps, and of the whole process of
growth in its poetry. The French have become diligent students of their own
early poetry, which they long neglected; the study makes many of them
dissatisfied with their so - called classical poetry, the court - tragedy of
the seventeenth century, a poetry which Pellisson long ago reproached with its
want of the true poetic stamp, with its politesse sterile et rampante, but
which nevertheless has reigned in France as absolutely as if it had been the
perfection of classical poetry indeed. The dissatisfaction is natural; yet a
lively and accomplished critic, M. Charles d`Hericault, the editor of Clement
Marot, goes too far when he says that `the cloud of glory playing round a
classic is a mist as dangerous to the future of a literature as it is
intolerable for the purposes of history.` `It hinders,` he goes on, `it
hinders us from seeing more than one single point, the culminating and
exceptional point; the summary, fictitious and arbitrary, of a thought and of
a work. It substitutes a halo for a physiognomy, it puts a statue where there
was once a man, and hiding from us all trace of the labour, the attempts, the
weaknesses, the failures, it claims not study but veneration; it does not show
us how the thing is done, it imposes upon us a model. Above all, for the
historian this creation of classic personages is inadmissible; for it
withdraws the poet from his time, from his proper life, it breaks historical
relationships, it blinds criticism by conventional admiration, and renders the
investigation of literary origins unacceptable. It gives us a human personage
no longer but a God seated immovable amidst His perfect work, like Jupiter on
Olympus; and hardly will it be possible for the young student to whom such
work is exhibited at such a distance from him, to believe that it did not
issue ready - made from that divine head.`
All this is brilliantly and tellingly said, but we must plead for a
distinction. Everything depends on the reality of a poet`s classic character.
If he is a dubious classic, let us sift him; if he is a false classic, let us
explode him. But if he is a real classic, if his work belongs to the class of
the very best (for this is the true and right meaning of the word classic,
classical), then the great thing for us is to feel and enjoy his work as
deeply as ever we can, and to appreciate the wide difference between it and
all work which has not the same high character. This is what is salutary, this
is what is formative; this is the great benefit to be got from the study of
poetry. Everything which interferes with it, which hinders it, is injurious.
True, we must read our classic with open eyes, and not with eyes blinded with
superstition; we must perceive when his work comes short, when it drops out of
the class of the very best, and we must rate it, in such cases, at its proper
value. But the use of this negative criticism is not in itself, it is entirely
in its enabling us to have a clearer sense and a deeper enjoyment of what is
truly excellent. To trace the labour, the attempts, the weaknesses, the
failures of a genuine classic, to acquaint oneself with his time and his life
and his historical relationships, is mere literary dilettantism unless it has
that clear sense and deeper enjoyment for its end. It may be said that the
more we know about a classic the better we shall enjoy him; and, if we lived
as long as Methuselah and had all of us heads of perfect clearness and wills
of perfect steadfastness, this might be true in fact as it is plausible in
theory. But the case here is much the same as the case with the Greek and
Latin studies of our schoolboys. The elaborate philological groundwork which
we require them to lay is in theory an admirable preparation for appreciating
the Greek and Latin authors worthily. The more thoroughly we lay the
groundwork, the better we shall be able, it may be said, to enjoy the authors.
True, if time were not so short, and schoolboys` wits not so soon tired and
their power of attention exhausted; only, as it is, the elaborate philological
preparation goes on, but the authors are little known and less enjoyed. So
with the investigator of `historic origins` in poetry. He ought to enjoy the
true classic all the better for his investigations; he often is distracted
from the enjoyment of the best, and with the less good he overbusies himself,
and is prone to overrate it in proportion to the trouble which it has cost
him.
The idea of tracing historic origins and historical relationships cannot
be absent from a compilation like the present. And naturally the poets to be
exhibited in it will be assigned to those persons for exhibition who are known
to prize them highly, rather than to those who have no special inclination
towards them. Moreover, the very occupation with an author, and the business
of exhibiting him, disposes us to affirm and amplify his importance. In the
present work, therefore, we are sure of frequent temptation to adopt the
historic estimate, or the personal estimate, and to forget the real estimate;
which latter, nevertheless, we must employ if we are to make poetry yield us
its full benefit. So high is that benefit, the benefit of clearly feeling and
of deeply enjoying the really excellent, the truly classic in poetry, that we
do well, I say, to set it fixedly before our minds as our object in studying
poets and poetry, and to make the desire of attaining it the one principle to
which, as the Imitation says, whatever we may read or come to know, we always
return, Cum multa legeris et cognoveris, ad unum semper oportet redire
principium.
The historic estimate is likely in especial to affect our judgment and
our language when we are dealing with ancient poets; the personal estimate
when we are dealing with poets our contemporaries, or at any rate modern. The
exaggerations due to the historic estimate are not in themselves, perhaps, of
very much gravity. Their report hardly enters the general ear; probably they
do not always impose even on the literary men who adopt them. But they lead to
a dangerous abuse of language. So we hear Caedmon, amongst our own poets,
compared to Milton. I have already noticed the enthusiasm of one accomplished
French critic for `historic origins.` Another eminent French critic, M. Vitet,
comments upon that famous document of the early poetry of his nation, the
Chanson de Roland. It is indeed a most interesting document. The joculator or
jongleur Taillefer, who was with William the Conqueror`s army at Hastings,
marched before the Norman troops, so said the tradition, singing `of
Charlemagne and of Roland and of Oliver, and of the vassals who died at
Roncevaux`; and it is suggested that in the Chanson de Roland by one Turoldus
or Theroulde, a poem preserved in a manuscript of the twelfth century in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford, we have certainly the matter, perhaps even some of
the words, of the chant which Taillefer sang. The poem has vigour and
freshness; it is not without pathos. But M. Vitet is not satisfied with seeing
in it a document of some poetic value, and of very high historic and
linguistic value; he sees in it a grand and beautiful work, a monument of epic
genius. In its general design he finds the grandiose conception, in its
details he finds the constant union of simplicity with greatness, which are
the marks, he truly says, of the genuine epic, and distinguish it from the
artificial epic of literary ages. One thinks of Homer; this is the sort of
praise which is given to Homer, and justly given. Higher praise there cannot
well be, and it is the praise due to epic poetry of the highest order only,
and to no other. Let us try, then, the Chanson de Roland at its best. Roland,
mortally wounded, lay himself down under a pine - tree, with his face turned
towards Spain and the enemy -
`De plusurs choses a remember li prist,
De tantes teres cume li bers cunquist,
De dulce France, des humes de sun lign,
De Carlemagne sun seignor ki l`nurrit.`^2
[Footnote 2: Then began he to call many things to remembrance, - all the lands
which his valour conquered, and pleasant France, and the men of his lineage,
and Charlemagne his liege lord who nourished him.` - `Chanson de Roland,` iii.
939 - 942.]
That is primitive work, I repeat, with an undeniable poetic quality of
its own. It deserves such praise, and such praise is sufficient for it. But
now turn to Homer -
`So said she; they long since in Earth`s soft arms were reposing,
There, in their own dear land, their fatherland, Lacedaemon.`
- `Iliad,` iii. 243, 244 (translated by Dr. Hawtrey).
We are here in another world, another order of poetry altogether; here is
rightly due such supreme praise as that which M. Vitet gives to the Chanson
de Roland. If our words are to have any meaning, if our judgments are to have
any solidity, we must not heap that supreme praise upon poetry of an order
immeasurably inferior.
Indeed there can be no more useful help for discovering what poetry
belongs to the class of the truly excellent, and can therefore do us most
good, than to have always in one`s mind lines and expressions of the great
masters, and to apply them as a touchstone to other poetry. Of course we are
not to require this other poetry to resemble them; it may be very dissimilar.
But if we have any tact we shall find them, when we have lodged them well in
our minds, infallible touchstone for detecting the presence or absence of high
poetic quality, and also the degree oft his quality, in all other poetry which
we may place beside them. Short passages, even single lines, will serve our
turn quite sufficiently. Take the two lines which I have just quoted from
Homer, the poet`s comment on Helen`s mention of her brothers; - or take his
`Ah, unhappy pair, why gave we you to King Peleus, to a mortal? but ye are
without old age, and immortal. Was it that with men born to misery ye might
have sorrow?` - `Iliad,` xvii. 443-445.
the address of Zeus to the horses of Peleus; - or take finally his
`Nay, and thou too, old man, in former days wast, as we hear, happy.` -
`Iliad,` xxiv. 543.
the words of Achilles to Priam, a suppliant before him. Take that incomparable
line and a half of Dante, Ugolino`s tremendous words -
`Io no piangeva; si dentro impietrai.
Piangevan elli . . .`^3
[Footnote 3: `I wailed not, so of stone grew I within; - they wailed.` -
`Inferno,` xxxiii. 39, 40.]
take the lovely words of Beatrice to Virgil -
`Io son fatta da Dio, sua merce, tale,
Che la vostra miseria non mi tange,
Ne fiamma d`esto incendio non m`assale . . .`^4
[Footnote 4: `Of such sort hath God, thanked be His mercy, made me, that your
misery toucheth me not, neither doth the flame of this fire strike me.` -
`Inferno,` ii. 91-93.]
take the simple, but perfect, single line -
`In la sua volontade e nostra pace.`^5
[Footnote 5: `In His will is our peace.` - `Paradiso,` iii. 85.]
Take of Shakespeare a line or two of Henry the Fourth`s expostulation with
sleep -
`Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
Seal up the ship - boy`s eyes, and rock his brains
In cradle of the rude imperious surge . . .`
and take, as well, Hamlet`s dying request to Horatio -
`If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story . . .`
Take of Milton that Miltonic passage:
`Darken`d so, yet shone
Above them all the archangel; but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrench`d, and care
Sat on his faded cheek . . .`
add two such lines as -
`And courage never to submit or yield
And what is else not to be overcome . . .`
and finish with the exquisite close to the loss of Proserpine, the loss
` . . . which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world.`
These few lines, if we have tact and can use them, are enough even of
themselves to keep clear and sound our judgments about poetry, to save us from
fallacious estimates of it, to conduct us to a real estimate.
The specimens I have quoted differ widely from one another, but they have
in common this: the possession of the very highest poetical quality. If we are
thoroughly penetrated by their power, we shall find that we have acquired a
sense enabling us, whatever poetry may be laid before us, to feel the degree
in which a high poetical quality is present or wanting there. Critics give
themselves great labour to draw out what in the abstract constitutes the
characters of a high quality of poetry. It is much better simply to have
recourse to concrete examples; - to take specimens of poetry of the high, the
very highest quality, and to say: The characters of a high quality of poetry
are what is expressed there. They are far better recognised by being felt in
the verse of the master, than by being perused in the prose of the critic.
Nevertheless if we are urgently pressed to give some critical account of them,
we may safely, perhaps, venture on laying down, not indeed how and why the
characters arise, but where and in what they arise. They are in the matter and
substance of the poetry, and they are in its manner and style. Both of these,
the substance and matter on the one hand, the style and manner on the other,
have a mark, an accent, of high beauty, worth, and power. But if we are asked
to define this mark and accent in the abstract, our answer must be: No, for we
should thereby be darkening the question, not clearing it. The mark and accent
are as given by the substance and matter of that poetry, by the style and
manner of that poetry, and of all other poetry which is akin to it in quality.
Only one thing we may add as to the substance and matter of poetry,
guiding ourselves by Aristotle`s profound observation that the superiority of
poetry over history consists in its possessing a higher truth and a higher
seriousness (QlxoboQwtepov kai Qnoudalorepov). Let us add, therefore, to what
we have said, this: that the substances and matter of the best poetry acquire
their special character from possessing, in an eminent degree, truth and
seriousness. We may add yet further, what is in itself evident, that to the
style and manner of the best poetry their special character, their accent, is
given by their diction, and, even yet more, by their movement. And though we
distinguish between the two characters, the two accents, of superiority, yet
they are nevertheless vitally connected one with the other. The superior
character of truth and seriousness, in the matter and substance of the best
poetry, is inseparable from the superiority of diction and movement marking
its style and manner. The two superiorities are closely related, and are in
steadfast proportion one to the other. So far as high poetic truth and
seriousness are wanting to a poet`s matter and substance, so far also, we may
be sure, will a high poetic stamp of diction and movement be wanting to his
style and manner. In proportion as this high stamp of diction and movement,
again, is absent from a poet`s style and manner, we shall find, also, that
high poetic truth and seriousness are absent from his substance and matter.
So stated, these are but dry generalities; their whole force lies in
their application. And I could wish every student of poetry to make the
application of them for himself. Made by himself, the application would
impress itself upon his mind far more deeply than made by me. Neither will my
limits allow me to make any full application of the generalities above
propounded; but in the hope of bringing out, at any rate, some significance in
them, and of establishing an important principle more firmly by their means, I
will, in the space which remains to me, follow rapidly from the commencement
the course of our English poetry with them in my view.
Once more I return to the early poetry of France, with which our own
poetry, in its origins, is indissolubly connected. In the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries, that seedtime of all modern language and literature, the
poetry of France had a clear predominance in Europe. Of the two divisions of
that poetry, its productions in the langue d`oil and its productions in the
langue d`oc, the poetry of the langue d`oc, of southern France, of the
troubadours, is of importance because of its effect on Italian literature; -
the first literature of modern Europe to strike the true and grand note, and
to bring forth, as in Dante and Petrarch it brought forth, classics. But the
predominance of French poetry in Europe, during the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, is due to its poetry of the langue d`oil, the poetry of northern
France and of the tongue which is now the French language. In the twelfth
century the bloom of this romance - poetry was earlier and stronger in
England, at the court of our Anglo - Norman kings, than in France itself. But
it was a bloom of French poetry; and as our native poetry formed itself, it
formed itself out of this. The romance - poems which took possession of the
heart and imagination of Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are
French; `they are,` as Southey justly says, `the pride of French literature,
nor have we anything which can be placed in competition with them.` Themes
were supplied from all quarters; but the romance - setting which was common to
them all, and which gained the ear of Europe, was French. This constituted for
the French poetry, literature, and language, at the height of the Middle Age,
an unchallenged predominance. The Italian Brunetto Latini, the master of
Dante, wrote his Treasure in French because, he says, `la parleure en est plus
delitable et plus commune a toutes gens.` In the same century, the thirteenth,
the French romance - writer, Christian of Troyes, formulates the claims, in
chivalry and letters, of France, his native country, as follows: -
`Or vous ert par ce livre apris,
Que Gresse ot de chevalerie
Le premier los et de clergie;
Puis vint chevalerie a Rome,
Et de la clergie la some,
Qui ore est en France venue.
Diex doinst qu`ele i soit retenue,
Et que li lius li abelisse
Tant que de France n`isse
L`onor qui s`i est arestee!`
`Now by this book you will learn that first Greece had the renown for chivalry
and letters: then chivalry and the primacy in letters passed to Rome, and now
it is come to France. God grant it may be kept there; and that the place may
please it so well, that the honour which has come to make stay in France may
never depart thence!`
Yet it is now all gone, this French romance - poetry of which the weight
of substance and the power of style are not unfairly represented by this
extract from Christian of Troyes. Only by means of the historic estimate can
we persuade ourselves not to think that any of it is of poetical importance.
But in the fourteenth century there comes an Englishman nourished on this
poetry, taught his trade by this poetry, getting words, rhyme, metre from this
poetry; for even of that stanza which the Italians used, and which Chaucer
derived immediately from the Italians, the basis and suggestion was probably
given in France. Chaucer (I have already named him) fascinated his
contemporaries, but so too did Christian of Troyes and Wolfram of Eschenbach.
Chaucer`s power of fascination, however, is enduring; his poetical importance
does not need the assistance of the historic estimate; it is real. He is a
genuine source of joy and strength, which is flowing still for us and will
flow always. He will be read, as time goes on, far more generally than he is
read now. His language is a cause of difficulty for us; but so also, and I
think in quite as great a degree, is the language of Burns. In Chaucer`s case,
as in that of Burns, it is a difficulty to be unhesitatingly accepted and
overcome.
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