VERSE
There is a word, a "name of fear," which rouses terror in the heart
of the vast educated majority of the English-speaking race. The
most valiant will fly at the mere utterance of that word. The most
broad-minded will put their backs up against it. The most rash will
not dare to affront it. I myself have seen it empty buildings that had
been full; and I know that it will scatter a crowd more quickly than
a hose-pipe, hornets, or the rumour of plague. Even to murmur it is
to incur solitude, probably disdain, and possibly starvation, as
historical examples show. That word is "poetry."
The profound objection of the average man to poetry can scarcely
be exaggerated. And when I say the average man, I do not mean the
"average sensual man"--any man who gets on to the top of the omnibus;
I mean the average lettered man, the average man who does care a
little for books and enjoys reading, and knows the classics by name
and the popular writers by having read them. I am convinced that not
one man in ten who reads, reads poetry--at any rate, knowingly. I
am convinced, further, that not one man in ten who goes so far as
knowingly to _buy_ poetry ever reads it. You will find everywhere men
who read very widely in prose, but who will say quite callously,
"No, I never read poetry." If the sales of modern poetry, distinctly
labelled as such, were to cease entirely to-morrow not a publisher
would fail; scarcely a publisher would be affected; and not a poet
would die--for I do not believe that a single modern English poet
is living to-day on the current proceeds of his verse. For a country
which possesses the greatest poetical literature in the world this
condition of affairs is at least odd. What makes it odder is that,
occasionally, very occasionally, the average lettered man will have
a fit of idolatry for a fine poet, buying his books in tens of
thousands, and bestowing upon him immense riches. As with Tennyson.
And what makes it odder still is that, after all, the average lettered
man does not truly dislike poetry; he only dislikes it when it takes
a certain form. He will read poetry and enjoy it, provided he is not
aware that it is poetry. Poetry can exist authentically either in
prose or in verse. Give him poetry concealed in prose and there is a
chance that, taken off his guard, he will appreciate it. But show him
a page of verse, and he will be ready to send for a policeman. The
reason of this is that, though poetry may come to pass either in prose
or in verse, it does actually happen far more frequently in verse than
in prose; nearly all the very greatest poetry is in verse; verse is
identified with the very greatest poetry, and the very greatest poetry
can only be understood and savoured by people who have put themselves
through a considerable mental discipline. To others it is an
exasperating weariness. Hence chiefly the fearful prejudice of the
average lettered man against the mere form of verse.
The formation of literary taste cannot be completed until that
prejudice has been conquered. My very difficult task is to suggest
a method of conquering it. I address myself exclusively to the large
class of people who, if they are honest, will declare that, while they
enjoy novels, essays, and history, they cannot "stand" verse. The case
is extremely delicate, like all nervous cases. It is useless to employ
the arts of reasoning, for the matter has got beyond logic; it is
instinctive. Perfectly futile to assure you that verse will yield a
higher percentage of pleasure than prose! You will reply: "We believe
you, but that doesn't help us." Therefore I shall not argue. I shall
venture to prescribe a curative treatment (doctors do not argue); and
I beg you to follow it exactly, keeping your nerve and your calm. Loss
of self-control might lead to panic, and panic would be fatal.
First: Forget as completely as you can all your present notions about
the nature of verse and poetry. Take a sponge and wipe the slate of
your mind. In particular, do not harass yourself by thoughts of metre
and verse forms. Second: Read William Hazlitt's essay "On Poetry in
General." This essay is the first in the book entitled _Lectures on
the English Poets_. It can be bought in various forms. I think
the cheapest satisfactory edition is in Routledge's "New Universal
Library" (price 1s. net). I might have composed an essay of my own on
the real harmless nature of poetry in general, but it could only have
been an echo and a deterioration of Hazlitt's. He has put the truth
about poetry in a way as interesting, clear, and reassuring as anyone
is ever likely to put it. I do not expect, however, that you will
instantly gather the full message and enthusiasm of the essay. It
will probably seem to you not to "hang together." Still, it will leave
bright bits of ideas in your mind. Third: After a week's interval read
the essay again. On a second perusal it will appear more persuasive to
you.
Fourth: Open the Bible and read the fortieth chapter of Isaiah. It
is the chapter which begins, "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people," and
ends, "They shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not
faint." This chapter will doubtless be more or less familiar to you.
It cannot fail (whatever your particular _ism_) to impress you, to
generate in your mind sensations which you recognise to be of a lofty
and unusual order, and which you will admit to be pleasurable. You
will probably agree that the result of reading this chapter (even if
your particular _ism_ is opposed to its authority) is finer than the
result of reading a short story in a magazine or even an essay by
Charles Lamb. Now the pleasurable sensations induced by the fortieth
chapter of Isaiah are among the sensations usually induced by
high-class poetry. The writer of it was a very great poet, and what
he wrote is a very great poem. Fifth: After having read it, go back to
Hazlitt, and see if you can find anything in Hazlitt's lecture which
throws light on the psychology of your own emotions upon reading
Isaiah.
Sixth: The next step is into unmistakable verse. It is to read one of
Wordsworth's short narrative poems, _The Brothers_. There are editions
of Wordsworth at a shilling, but I should advise the "Golden Treasury"
Wordsworth (2s. 6d. net), because it contains the famous essay by
Matthew Arnold, who made the selection. I want you to read this poem
aloud. You will probably have to hide yourself somewhere in order to
do so, for, of course, you would not, as yet, care to be overheard
spouting poetry. Be good enough to forget that _The Brothers_ is
poetry. _The Brothers_ is a short story, with a plain, clear plot.
Read it as such. Read it simply for the story. It is very important
at this critical stage that you should not embarrass your mind with
preoccupations as to the _form_ in which Wordsworth has told his
story. Wordsworth's object was to tell a story as well as he could:
just that. In reading aloud do not pay any more attention to the metre
than you feel naturally inclined to pay. After a few lines the metre
will present itself to you. Do not worry as to what kind of metre it
is. When you have finished the perusal, examine your sensations....
Your sensations after reading this poem, and perhaps one or two other
narrative poems of Wordsworth, such as _Michael_, will be different
from the sensations produced in you by reading an ordinary, or even a
very extraordinary, short story in prose. They may not be so sharp, so
clear and piquant, but they will probably be, in their mysteriousness
and their vagueness, more impressive. I do not say that they will be
diverting. I do not go so far as to say that they will strike you as
pleasing sensations. (Be it remembered that I am addressing myself
to an imaginary tyro in poetry.) I would qualify them as being
"disturbing." Well, to disturb the spirit is one of the greatest aims
of art. And a disturbance of spirit is one of the finest pleasures
that a highly-organised man can enjoy. But this truth can only be
really learnt by the repetitions of experience. As an aid to the more
exhaustive examination of your feelings under Wordsworth, in order
that you may better understand what he was trying to effect in you,
and the means which he employed, I must direct you to Wordsworth
himself. Wordsworth, in addition to being a poet, was unsurpassed as a
critic of poetry. What Hazlitt does for poetry in the way of creating
enthusiasm Wordsworth does in the way of philosophic explanation. And
Wordsworth's explanations of the theory and practice of poetry are
written for the plain man. They pass the comprehension of nobody, and
their direct, unassuming, and calm simplicity is extremely persuasive.
Wordsworth's chief essays in throwing light on himself are the
"Advertisement," "Preface," and "Appendix" to _Lyrical Ballads_; the
letters to Lady Beaumont and "the Friend" and the "Preface" to the
Poems dated 1815. All this matter is strangely interesting and of
immense educational value. It is the first-class expert talking at
ease about his subject. The essays relating to _Lyrical Ballads_ will
be the most useful for you. You will discover these precious documents
in a volume entitled _Wordsworth's Literary Criticism_ (published by
Henry Frowde, 2s. 6d.), edited by that distinguished Wordsworthian
Mr. Nowell C. Smith. It is essential that the student of poetry should
become possessed, honestly or dishonestly, either of this volume or
of the matter which it contains. There is, by the way, a volume of
Wordsworth's prose in the Scott Library (1s.). Those who have not
read Wordsworth on poetry can have no idea of the naïve charm and the
helpful radiance of his expounding. I feel that I cannot too strongly
press Wordsworth's criticism upon you.
Between Wordsworth and Hazlitt you will learn all that it behoves you
to know of the nature, the aims, and the results of poetry. It is no
part of my scheme to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" of Wordsworth
and Hazlitt. I best fulfil my purpose in urgently referring you to
them. I have only a single point of my own to make--a psychological
detail. One of the main obstacles to the cultivation of poetry in the
average sensible man is an absurdly inflated notion of the ridiculous.
At the bottom of that man's mind is the idea that poetry is "silly."
He also finds it exaggerated and artificial; but these two accusations
against poetry can be satisfactorily answered. The charge of
silliness, of being ridiculous, however, cannot be refuted by
argument. There is no logical answer to a guffaw. This sense of the
ridiculous is merely a bad, infantile habit, in itself grotesquely
ridiculous. You may see it particularly in the theatre. Not the
greatest dramatist, not the greatest composer, not the greatest actor
can prevent an audience from laughing uproariously at a tragic moment
if a cat walks across the stage. But why ruin the scene by laughter?
Simply because the majority of any audience is artistically childish.
This sense of the ridiculous can only be crushed by the exercise of
moral force. It can only be cowed. If you are inclined to laugh when a
poet expresses himself more powerfully than you express yourself, when
a poet talks about feelings which are not usually mentioned in daily
papers, when a poet uses words and images which lie outside your
vocabulary and range of thought, then you had better take yourself in
hand. You have to decide whether you will be on the side of the angels
or on the side of the nincompoops. There is no surer sign of imperfect
development than the impulse to snigger at what is unusual, naïve, or
exuberant. And if you choose to do so, you can detect the cat walking
across the stage in the sublimest passages of literature. But more
advanced souls will grieve for you.
The study of Wordsworth's criticism makes the seventh step in my
course of treatment. The eighth is to return to those poems of
Wordsworth's which you have already perused, and read them again in
the full light of the author's defence and explanation. Read as much
Wordsworth as you find you can assimilate, but do not attempt either
of his long poems. The time, however, is now come for a long poem.
I began by advising narrative poetry for the neophyte, and I shall
persevere with the prescription. I mean narrative poetry in the
restricted sense; for epic poetry is narrative. _Paradise Lost_ is
narrative; so is _The Prelude_. I suggest neither of these great
works. My choice falls on Elizabeth Browning's _Aurora Leigh_. If you
once work yourself "into" this poem, interesting yourself primarily
(as with Wordsworth) in the events of the story, and not allowing
yourself to be obsessed by the fact that what you are reading is
"poetry"--if you do this, you are not likely to leave it unfinished.
And before you reach the end you will have encountered _en route_
pretty nearly all the moods of poetry that exist: tragic, humorous,
ironic, elegiac, lyric--everything. You will have a comprehensive
acquaintance with a poet's mind. I guarantee that you will come safely
through if you treat the work as a novel. For a novel it effectively
is, and a better one than any written by Charlotte Brontë or George
Eliot. In reading, it would be well to mark, or take note of, the
passages which give you the most pleasure, and then to compare these
passages with the passages selected for praise by some authoritative
critic. _Aurora Leigh_ can be got in the "Temple Classics" (1s. 6d.),
or in the "Canterbury Poets" (1s.). The indispensable biographical
information about Mrs. Browning can be obtained from Mr. J.H. Ingram's
short Life of her in the "Eminent Women" Series (1s. 6d.), or from
_Robert Browning_, by William Sharp ("Great Writers" Series, 1s.).
This accomplished, you may begin to choose your poets. Going back
to Hazlitt, you will see that he deals with, among others, Chaucer,
Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Chatterton, Burns, and
the Lake School. You might select one of these, and read under his
guidance. Said Wordsworth: "I was impressed by the conviction that
there were four English poets whom I must have continually before me
as examples--Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton." (A word to
the wise!) Wordsworth makes a fifth to these four. Concurrently with
the careful, enthusiastic study of one of the undisputed classics,
modern verse should be read. (I beg you to accept the following
statement: that if the study of classical poetry inspires you with a
distaste for modern poetry, then there is something seriously wrong
in the method of your development.) You may at this stage (and not
before) commence an inquiry into questions of rhythm, verse-structure,
and rhyme. There is, I believe, no good, concise, cheap handbook to
English prosody; yet such a manual is greatly needed. The only one
with which I am acquainted is Tom Hood the younger's _Rules of Rhyme:
A Guide to English Versification_. Again, the introduction to Walker's
_Rhyming Dictionary_ gives a fairly clear elementary account of the
subject. Ruskin also has written an excellent essay on verse-rhythms.
With a manual in front of you, you can acquire in a couple of hours a
knowledge of the formal principles in which the music of English verse
is rooted. The business is trifling. But the business of appreciating
the inmost spirit of the greatest verse is tremendous and lifelong. It
is not something that can be "got up."