There is a striking contrast between the poetry of Browning and the
poetry of Wordsworth; and this comes naturally from the difference
between the two men in genius, temperament and life. I want to trace
carefully and perhaps more clearly some of the lines of that difference.
I do not propose to ask which of them ranks higher as poet. That seems
to me a futile question. The contrast in kind interests me more than the
comparison of degree. And this contrast, I think, can best be felt and
understood through a closer knowledge of the central theme of each of the
two poets.
Wordsworth is a poet of recovered joy. He brings consolation and
refreshment to the heart,—consolation which is passive strength,
refreshment which is peaceful energy. His poetry is addressed not to
crowds, but to men standing alone, and feeling their loneliness most
deeply when the crowd presses most tumultuously about them. He speaks
to us one by one, distracted by the very excess of life, separated from
humanity by the multitude of men, dazzled by the shifting variety of hues
into which the eternal light is broken by the prism of the world,—one
by one he accosts us, and leads us gently back, if we will follow him,
into a more tranquil region and a serener air. There we find the repose
of “a heart at leisure from itself.” There we feel the unity of man and
nature, and of both in God. There we catch sight of those eternal stars
of truth whose shining, though sometimes hidden, is never dimmed by the
cloud-confusions of morality. Such is the mission of Wordsworth to the
age. Matthew Arnold has described it with profound beauty.
“He found us when the age had bound
Our souls in its benumbing round,
He spoke, and loosed our heart in tears.
He laid us as we lay at birth
On the cool flowery lap of earth,
Smiles broke from us and we had ease,
The hills were round us, and the breeze
Went o’er the sun-lit fields again:
Our foreheads felt the wind and rain.
Our youth returned; for there was shed
On spirits that had long been dead,
Spirits dried up and closely furled,
The freshness of the early world.”
But precious as such a service is and ever must be, it does not fill
the whole need of man’s heart. There are times and moods in which it
seems pale and ineffectual. The very contrast between its serenity, its
assurance, its disembodied passion, its radiant asceticism, and the
mixed lights, the broken music, the fluctuating faith, the confused
conflict of actual life, seems like a discouragement. It calls us to
go into a retreat, that we may find ourselves and renew our power to
live. But there are natures which do not easily adapt themselves to a
retreat,—natures which crave stimulus more than consolation, and look
for a solution of life’s problem that can be worked out while they are
in motion. They do not wish, perhaps they are not able, to withdraw
themselves from active life even for the sake of seeing it more clearly.
Wordsworth’s world seems to them too bare, too still, too monotonous.
The rugged and unpopulous mountains, the lonely lakes, the secluded
vales, do not attract them as much as the fertile plain with its
luxuriant vegetation, the whirling city, the crowded highways of trade
and pleasure. Simplicity is strange to them; complexity is their native
element. They want music, but they want it to go with them in the
march, the parade, the festal procession. The poet for them must be
in the world, though he need not be altogether of it. He must speak
of the rich and varied life of man as one who knows its artificial as
well as its natural elements,—palaces as well as cottages, courts as
well as sheep-folds. Art and politics and literature and science and
churchmanship and society,—all must be familiar to him, material to his
art, significant to his interpretation. His message must be modern and
militant. He must not disregard doubt and rebellion and discord, but take
them into his poetry and transform them. He must front
“The cloud of mortal destiny,”
and make the most of the light that breaks through it. Such a poet is
Robert Browning; and his poetry is the direct answer to at least one
side of the modern _Zeitgeist_, restless, curious, self-conscious,
energetic, the active, questioning spirit.
I
Browning’s poetic work-time covered a period of about fifty-six years,
(1833-1889,) and during this time he published over thirty volumes of
verse, containing more than two hundred and thirty poems, the longest,
_The Ring and the Book_, extending to nearly twenty-one thousand lines.
It was an immense output, greater I think, in mass, than that of almost
any other English poet except Shakespeare. The mere fact of such
productiveness is worth noting, because it is a proof of the activity of
the poet’s mind, and also because it may throw some light upon certain
peculiarities in the quality of his work.
Browning not only wrote much himself, he was also the cause of much
writing in others. Commentaries, guide-books, handbooks, and expositions
have grown up around his poetry so fast that the vines almost hide the
trellis. The Browning Literature now demands not merely a shelf, but a
whole case to itself in the library. It has come to such a pass that one
must choose between reading the books that Browning wrote and the books
that other people have written about Browning. Life is too short for both.
A reason, if not a justification, for this growth of a locksmith
literature about his work is undoubtedly to be found in what Mr.
Augustine Birrell calls “The Alleged Obscurity of Mr. Browning’s Poetry.”
The adjective in this happy title indicates one of the points in the
voluminous discussion. Does the difficulty in understanding Browning lie
in him, or in his readers? Is it an accidental defect of his style, or
a valuable element of his art, or an inherent profundity of his subject
that makes him hard to read? Or does the trouble reside altogether in
the imagination of certain readers, or perhaps in their lack of it? This
question was debated so seriously as to become at times almost personal
and threaten the unity of households if not the peace of nations.
Browning himself was accustomed to tell the story of a young man who
could not read his poetry, falling deeply in love with a young woman who
would hardly read anything else. She made it a condition of her favour
that her lover should learn to love her poet, and therefore set the
marriage day at a point beyond the time when the bridegroom could present
himself before her with convincing evidence that he had perused the works
of Browning down to the last line. Such was the strength of love that
the condition was triumphantly fulfilled. The poet used to tell with
humourous satisfaction that he assisted in person at the wedding of these
two lovers whose happiness he had unconsciously delayed and accomplished.
But an incident like this does not contribute much to the settlement of
the controversy which it illustrates. Love is a notorious miracle-worker.
The question of Browning’s obscurity is still debatable; and whatever may
be said on one side or the other, one fact must be recognized: it is not
yet quite clear whether his poetry is clear or not.
To this fact I would trace the rise and flourishing of Browning Societies
in considerable abundance, during the late Victorian Era, especially near
Boston. The enterprise of reading and understanding Browning presented
itself as an affair too large and difficult for the intellectual capital
of any private person. Corporations were formed, stock companies of
intelligence were promoted, for the purpose of working the field of his
poetry. The task which daunted the solitary individual was courageously
undertaken by phalanxes and cheerfully pursued in fellowship. Thus the
obscurity, alleged or actual, of the poet’s writing, having been at
first a hindrance, afterward became an advertisement to his fame. The
charm of the enigma, the fascination of solving riddles, the pleasure
of understanding something which other people at least professed to
be unable to understand, entered distinctly into the growth of his
popularity. A Browning cult, a Browning propaganda, came into being and
toiled tremendously.
One result of the work of these clubs and societies is already evident:
they have done much to remove the cause which called them into being. It
is generally recognized that a considerable part of Browning’s poetry is
not really so difficult after all. It can be read and enjoyed by any one
whose mind is in working order. Those innocent and stupid Victorians
were wrong about it. We alert and sagacious George-the-Fifthians need
some tougher poetry to try our mettle. So I suppose the Browning
Societies, having fulfilled their function, will gradually fade away,—or
perhaps transfer their attention to some of those later writers who
have put obscurity on a scientific basis and raised impenetrability to
a fine art. Meantime I question whether all the claims which were made
on behalf of Browning in the period of propaganda will be allowed at
their face value. For example, that _The Ring and the Book_ is “the
greatest work of creative imagination that has appeared since the time of
Shakespeare,”[10] and that _A Grammarian’s Funeral_ is “the most powerful
ode in English, the mightiest tribute ever paid to a man,”[11] and that
Browning’s “style as it stands is God-made, not Browning-made,”[12]
appear even now like drafts on glory which must be discounted before
they are paid. Nor does it seem probable that the general proposition
which was sometimes advanced by extreme Browningites, (and others,)
to the effect that all great poetry _ought_ to be hard to read, and
that a poem which is easy cannot be great, will stand the test of time.
Milton’s _Comus_, Gray’s _Elegy_, Wordsworth’s _Ode on the Intimations of
Immortality_, Shelley’s _Skylark_, Keats’ _Grecian Urn_, and Tennyson’s
_Guinevere_ cannot be reduced to the rank of minor verse by such a
formula.
And yet it must be said that the very extravagance of the claims which
were made for Browning, the audacity of enthusiasm which he inspired
in his expositors, is a proof of the reality and the potency of his
influence. Men are not kindled where there is no fire. Men do not keep
on guessing riddles unless the answers have some interest and value. A
stock company cannot create a prophet out of straw. Browning must have
had something important to say to the age, and he must have succeeded in
saying it in a way which was suitable, in spite of its defects, to convey
his message, else we may be sure his age never would have listened to
him, even by select companies, nor discussed him, even in a partisan
temper, nor felt his influence, even at second-hand.
What was it, then, that he had to say, and how did he say it? What was
the theme of his poetry, what the method by which he found it, what
the manner in which he treated it, and what the central element of
his disposition by which the development of his genius was impelled
and guided? These are the questions,—questions of fact rather than of
theory,—that particularly interest me in regard to Browning. And I hope
it may be possible to consider them from a somewhat fresh point of view,
and without entering into disturbing and unprofitable comparisons of rank
with Shakespeare and the other poets.
But there is no reason why the answers to these questions should be
concealed until the end of the chapter. It may be better to state them
now, in order that we may be able to test them as we go on, and judge
whether they are justified and how far they need to be qualified. There
is a particular reason for taking this course, in the fact that Browning
changed very little in the process of growth. There were alterations
in his style, but there was no real alteration in the man, nor in his
poetry. His first theme was his last theme. His early manner of treatment
was his latest manner of treatment. What he said at the beginning he
said again at the end. With the greatest possible variety of titles he
had but one main topic; with the widest imaginable range of subjects, he
used chiefly one method and reached but one conclusion; with a nature
of almost unlimited breadth he was always under control of one central
impulse and loyal to one central quality. Let me try, then, to condense
the general impression into a paragraph and take up the particulars
afterwards, point by point.
The clew to Browning’s mind, it seems to me, is vivid and inexhaustible
curiosity, dominated by a strangely steady optimism. His topic is not
the soul, in the abstract, but souls in the concrete. His chosen method
is that of spiritual drama, and for the most part, monodrama. His manner
is the intense, subtle, passionate style of psychological realism. His
message, uttered through the lips of a hundred imaginary characters, but
always with his own accent,—his message is “the Glory of the Imperfect.”
[Illustration: ROBERT BROWNING.
Painted by G. F. Watts.
_From a photograph, copyright by Hollyer, London._]