[From _The Westminster Review_, January, 1831]
_Poems, chiefly Lyrical._ By ALFRED TENNYSON. Wilson, 12 mo. 1830.
It would be a pity that poetry should be an exception to the great law
of progression that obtains in human affairs; and it is not. The
machinery of a poem is not less susceptible of improvement than the
machinery of a cotton mill; nor is there any better reason why the one
should retrograde from the days of Milton, than the other from those of
Arkwright....
The old epics will probably never be surpassed, any more than the old
coats of mail; and for the same reason; nobody wants the article; its
object is accomplished by other means; they are become mere
curiosities....
Poetry, like charity, begins at home. Poetry, like morality, is founded
in the precept, know thyself. Poetry, like happiness, is in the human
heart. Its inspiration is of that which is in man, and it will never
fail because there are changes in costume and grouping. What is the
vitality of the Iliad? Character; nothing else. All the rest is only
read out of antiquarianism or of affectation. Why is Shakespeare the
greatest of poets? Because he was one of the greatest of philosophers.
We reason on the conduct of his characters with as little hesitation as
if they were real living human beings. Extent of observation, accuracy
of thought, and depth of reflection, were the qualities which won the
prize of sovereignty for his imagination, and the effect of these
qualities was practically to anticipate, so far as was needful for his
purposes, the mental philosophy of a future age. Metaphysics must be the
stem of poetry for the plant to thrive; but if the stem flourishes we
are not likely to be at a loss for leaves, flowers, and fruit. Now,
whatever theories may have come into fashion and gone out of fashion,
the real science of mind advances with the progress of society like all
other sciences. The poetry of the last forty years already shows
symptoms of life in exact proportion as it is imbued with this science.
There is least of it in the exotic legends of Southey, and the feudal
romances of Scott. More of it, though in different ways, in Byron and
Campbell. In Shelley there would have been more still, had he not
devoted himself to unsound and mystical theories. Most of all in
Coleridge and Wordsworth. They are all going or gone; but here is a
little book as thoroughly and unitedly metaphysical and poetical in its
spirit as any of them; and sorely shall we be disappointed in its author
if it be not the precursor of a series of productions which shall
beautifully illustrate our speculations, and convincingly prove their
soundness.
Do not let our readers be alarmed. These poems are anything but heavy;
anything but stiff and pedantic, except in one particular, which shall
be noticed before we conclude; anything but cold and logical. They are
graceful, very graceful; they are animated, touching, and impassioned.
And they are so, precisely because they are philosophical; because they
are not made up of metrical cant and conventional phraseology; because
there is sincerity where the author writes from experience, and accuracy
whether he writes from experience or observation; and he only writes
from experience and observation, because he has felt and thought, and
learned to analyse thought and feeling; because his own mind is rich in
poetical associations, and he has wisely been content with its riches;
and because, in his composition, he has not sought to construct an
elaborate and artificial harmony, but only to pour forth his thoughts in
those expressive and simple melodies whose meaning, truth, and power,
are the soonest recognised, and the quickest felt....
Mr. Tennyson seems to obtain entrance into a mind as he would make his
way into a landscape; he climbs the pineal gland as if it were a hill in
the centre of the scene; looks around on all objects with their
varieties of form, their movements, their shades of colour, and their
mutual relations and influences, and forthwith produces as graphic a
delineation in the one case as Wilson or Gainsborough could have done in
the other, to the great enrichment of our gallery of intellectual
scenery....
Our author has the secret of the transmigration of the soul. He can cast
his own spirit into any living thing, real or imaginary....
"Mariana" is, we are disposed to think, although there are several poems
which rise up reproachfully in our recollection as we say so,
altogether, the most perfect composition in the volume. The whole of
this poem, of eighty-four lines, is generated by the legitimate process
of poetical creation, as that process is conducted in a philosophical
mind, from a half sentence in Shakespeare. There is no mere
samplification; it is all production, and production from that single
germ. That must be a rich intellect, in which thoughts thus take root
and grow....
A considerable number of the poems are amatory; they are the expression
not of heathen sensuality, nor of sickly refinement, nor of fantastic
devotion, but of manly love; and they illustrate the philosophy of the
passion while they exhibit the various phases of its existence and
embody its power....
Mr. Tennyson sketches females as well as ever did Sir Thomas Lawrence.
His portraits are delicate, his likenesses (we will answer for them),
perfect, and they have life, character, and individuality. They are
nicely assorted also to all the different gradations of emotion and
passion which are expressed in common with the descriptions of them.
There is an appropriate object for every shade of feeling, from the
light touch of a passing admiration, to the triumphant madness of soul
and sense, or the deep and everlasting anguish of survivorship....
That these poems will have a rapid and extensive popularity
we do not anticipate. Their very originality will prevent their being
appreciated for a time. But that time will come, we hope, to a not far
distant end. They demonstrate the possession of powers, to the future
direction of which we look with some anxiety. A genuine poet has deep
responsibilities to his country and the world, to the present and future
generations, to earth and heaven. He, of all men, should have distinct
and worthy objects before him, and consecrate himself to their
promotion. It is then he best consults the glory of his art, and his own
lasting fame. Mr. Tennyson has a dangerous quality in that facility of
impersonation on which we have remarked, and by which he enters so
thoroughly into the most strange and wayward idiosyncracies of other
men. It must not degrade him into a poetical harlequin. He has higher
work to do than that of disporting himself among "mystics" and "flowing
philosophers." He knows that "the poet's mind is holy ground"; He knows
that the poet's portion is to be
Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
The love of love;
he has shown, in the lines from which we quote, his own just conception
of the grandeur of the poet's destiny; and we look to him for its
fulfilment. It is not for such men to sink into mere verse-makers for
the amusement of themselves or others. They can influence the
associations of unnumbered minds; they can command the sympathies of
unnumbered hearts; they can disseminate principles; they can give those
principles power over men's imaginations; they can excite in a good
cause the sustained enthusiasm that is sure to conquer; they can blast
the laurels of tyrants, and hallow the memories of the martyrs'
patriotism; they can act with a force, the extent of which it is
difficult to estimate, upon national feelings and character, and
consequently upon national happiness.