one who associates with educated persons not to be familiar. They have
become part and parcel of the common speech of the time. We speak of the
"widow's mite," of a "Judas' kiss," of "the flesh-pots of Egypt," of "a
still, small voice," of a "Jehu," a "perfect Babel," a "Nimrod," of
"bread upon the waters," and of a "Delilah." The phrases have to a
considerable extent acquired their own meaning, so that even one who is
not familiar with the Scriptures is not likely to have difficulty in
getting from them a general idea. To the reader who is acquainted with
the force and origin of these terms, however, they have a vigor and
significance which for others they must lack. The name Jehu brings up to
him not merely a driver on a New England stage-coach, but the figure of
the newly crowned usurper rushing down to the slaughter of King Joram,
his master, when the watchman upon the wall looked out and said: "The
driving is like the driving of Jehu, the son of Nimshi; for he driveth
furiously." The phrase "bread upon the waters" affords a good
illustration here. Perhaps most readers are likely to know the origin of
the quotation, and probably the promise which concludes it. The number
is smaller who realize the figure to be that of the oriental farmer
casting abroad the seed-rice over flooded fields, sowing for the harvest
which he shall find "after many days." The phrase "a still, small voice"
has become dulled by common use,--one might almost say profane, since
the quotation is of a quality which should render it too dignified and
noble for careless employment. It speaks to the reader who knows its
origin of that magnificently impressive scene on Horeb when Elijah stood
on the mount before the Lord:--
And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the
mountain, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord
was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord
was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the
Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still, small voice. And
it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his
mantle, and went out and stood in the entering in of the cave. And
behold, there came a voice unto him, and said: "What doest thou here,
Elijah?"--_1 Kings_ xix. 11-13.
It is not necessary to dwell upon this class of allusions. The reader
who expects to get from them their full force must know the original;
and while in ordinary speech these phrases are used carelessly and with
little regard for their full significance, they are in the work of
imaginative writers to be taken for all that they can and should convey.
There are other Biblical allusions which are less common and less
obvious. When in the "Ode on the Nativity," Milton speaks of
----that twice batter'd god of Palestine,
the verse means much to the reader who recalls the double fall of the
fish-tailed god Dagon before the captured ark of Israel, but to others
it is likely to mean nothing whatever. To be ignorant of the tale of
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego is to miss completely the force of
Hazlitt's remark that certain artists are so absorbed in their own
productions that "they walked through collections of the finest works
like the Children in the Fiery Furnace, untouched, unapproached." Not to
know the declaration of St. Paul of what he had suffered for his
faith[1] is to lose the point of Tennyson's verse
Not in vain,
Like Paul with beasts, I fought with death.
Prose and poetry are alike full of scriptural phraseology. In short, for
the understanding of the language of allusion in English literature a
knowledge of the English Bible is neither more nor less than essential.
[Footnote 1: If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at
Ephesus, what advantageth it me, if the dead rise not?--_1 Cor._ xv.
32.]
Another class of allusions frequent in literature is the mythological.
Here also we find phrases which have passed so completely into every-day
currency that we hear and use them almost without reflecting upon their
origin. "Scylla and Charybdis," "dark as Erebus," "hydra-headed," and
"Pandora's box," are familiar examples. We speak of "a herculean task"
without in the least calling to mind the labors of Hercules, and employ
the phrase "the thread of life" without seeming to see the three grisly
Fates, spinning in the chill gray dusk of their cave. We have gone so
far as to condense a whole legend into a single word, and then to ignore
the story. We say "lethean," "mercurial," "aurora," and "bacchanalian,"
without recalling their real significance. It is obvious how a
perception of the original meaning of these terms must impart vividness
to their use or to their understanding. There are innumerable instances,
more particular, in which it is essential to know the force of a
reference to old myths, lest the finer meaning of the author be
altogether missed. In "The Wind-Harp" Lowell wrote:--
I treasure in secret some long, fine hair
Of tenderest brown....
I twisted this magic in gossamer strings
Over a wind-harp's Delphian hollow.
In the phrase "a wind-harp's Delphian hollow" the poet has suggested all
the mysterious and fateful utterances of the abyss from which the
Delphic priestess sucked up prophecies, and he has prepared the
comprehending reader for the oracular murmur which swells from the
instrument upon which have been stretched chords twisted from the hair
of the dead loved one. To miss this suggestion is to lose a vital part
of the poem. When Keats writes of "valley-lilies whiter still than
Leda's love," unless there come instantly to the mind the image of the
snowy swan whose form Jove took to win Leda, the phrase means nothing.
The woeful cry in "Antony and Cleopatra,"
The shirt of Nessus is upon me; teach me,
Alcides, thou mine ancestor, thy rage,
is full of keen-edged horror when one recalls the garment poisoned with
his own blood by which the centaur avenged himself on Hercules. In a
flash it brings up the picture of the demigod tearing his flesh in more
than mortal agony, and calling to Philoctetes to light the funeral pyre
that he might be consumed alive. It is not needful to multiply examples
since they so frequently present themselves to the reader. The only
point to be made is that here we have another well defined division of
literary language.
Allusion to history is another characteristic form of the language of
literature. References to classic story are perhaps more common than
those to general or modern, but both are plentiful. Sometimes the form
is that of a familiar phrase, as "a Cadmean victory," "a Procrustean
bed," "a crusade," "a Waterloo," and so on. Phrases like these are
easily understood, although it is hardly possible to get their full
effect without a knowledge of their origin. What, however, would this
passage in Gray's "Elegy" convey to one unfamiliar with English
history?--
Some village Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest;
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.
It is necessary to know about the majestic figure of ivory and gold
which the Athenian sculptor wrought, or one misses the meaning of
Emerson's couplet,--
Not from a vain or shallow thought
His awful Jove young Phidias brought.
Shakespeare abounds in examples of this use of allusions to history to
produce a clear or vivid impression of some emotion or thought.
I will make a Star-chamber matter of it.
_Merry Wives_, i. 1.
Though Nestor swear the jest be laughable.
_Merchant of Venice_, i. 1.
Even such a man, so faint, so spiritless,
So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,
Drew Priam's curtain in the dead of night,
And would have told him half his Troy was burnt.
_2 Henry IV._, i. 1.
The reader must know something of the Star-chamber, of the gravity and
wisdom of Nestor, of the circumstances of the tragic destruction of
Troy, or these passages can have little meaning for him.
Sometimes references of this class are less evident, as where Byron
speaks of
The starry Galileo with his woes;
or where Poe finely compresses the whole splendid story of antiquity
into a couple of lines:--
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
If we have in mind the varied and inspiring story of Greece and Rome,
these lines unroll before us like a matchless panorama. We linger over
them to let the imagination realize the full richness of their
suggestion. The heart beats more quickly, and we find ourselves
murmuring over and over to ourselves with a kindling sense of warmth and
glow:--
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Poe affords an excellent example of this device of historical allusion
carried to its extreme. In "The Fall of the House of Usher," there is a
stanza which reads:--
Wanderers in that happy valley
Through two luminous windows saw
Spirits moving musically
To a lute's well-tunèd law,
Round about a throne, where sitting
(Porphyrogene!)
In state his glory well-befitting,
The ruler of the realm was seen.
If the reader chance to know that in the great palace of Constantine the
Great at Constantinople there was a building of red porphyry, which by
special decree was made sacred to motherhood, and that here the princes
of the blood were born, being in recognition called "porphyrogene,"
there will come to him the vision which Poe desired to evoke. The word
will suggest the regal splendors of the Byzantine court at a time when
the whole world babbled of its glories, and will give to the verse a
richness of atmosphere which could hardly be produced by any piling up
of specific details. The reader who is not in possession of this
information can only stumble over the word as I did in my youth, with an
aggrieved feeling of being shut out from the inner mysteries of the
poem. I spoke of this as an extreme instance of the use of this form of
literary language, because the knowledge needed to render it
intelligible is more unusual and special than that generally appealed to
by writers. It is one of those bold strokes which are tremendously
effective when they succeed, but which are likely to fail with the
ordinary reader.
After historic allusion comes that to folk-lore, which used to be a good
deal appealed to by imaginative writers. Some knowledge of old beliefs
is often essential to the comprehension of earlier authors. Suckling,
for instance, says very charmingly:--
But oh, she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter day
Is half so fine a sight!
The reference, of course, is to the superstition that the sun on Easter
morning danced for joy at the coming of the day when the Lord arose. To
get the force of the passage, it is necessary to put one's self into the
mood of those who believed this pretty legend. In the same way it is
only to one who is acquainted with the myth of the lubber fiend, the
spirit who did the work of the farm at night for the wage of a bowl of
cream set for him beside the kitchen fire, that there is meaning in the
lines in "L'Allegro:"--
Tells how the grudging goblin sweat
To earn his cream-bowl duly set,
When in one night, ere glimpse of morn,
His shadowy flail hath thresh'd the corn
That ten day-laborers could not end;
And, stretch'd out all the chimney's length,
Basks at the fire his hairy strength;
And crop-full out of doors he flings,
Ere the first cock his matin rings.
There is much of this folk-lore language in Shakespeare, and in our own
time Browning has perhaps more of it than any other prominent author.
It may be remarked in passing, that Browning, who loved odd books and
read a good many strange old works which are not within general reach,
is more difficult in this matter of allusion than any other
contemporary. References of this class are generally a trouble to the
ordinary reader, and especially are young students likely to be unable
to understand them readily.
The last class of allusions, and one which in books written to-day is
especially common, is that which calls up passages or characters in
literature itself. We speak of a "quixotic deed;" we allude to a thing
as to be taken "in a Pickwickian sense;" we have become so accustomed to
hearing a married man spoken of as a "Benedick," that we often forget
the brisk and gallant bachelor of "Much Ado about Nothing," and how he
was transformed into "Benedick the married man" almost without his own
consent. When an author who weighs his words employs allusions of this
sort, it is needful to know the originals well if we hope to get the
real intent of what is written. In "Il Penseroso," Milton says:--
Sometime let gorgeous Tragedy
In sceptered pall come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine.
There should pass before the mind of the reader all the fateful story of
the ill-starred house of Labdacus: the horrible history of OEdipus,
involved in the meshes of destiny; the deadly strife of his sons, and
the sublime self-sacrifice of Antigone; all the involved and passionate
tragedies of the descendants of Pelops: Agamemnon, the slaughter of
Iphigenia, the vengeance of Clytemnestra, the waiting of Electra, the
matricide of Orestes and the descent of the Furies upon him; and after
this should come to mind the oft-told tale of Troy in all its fullness.
Milton was not one to use words inadvertently or without a clear sense
of all that they implied. He desired to suggest all the rich and tragic
histories which I have hinted at, to move the reader, and to show how
stirring and how pregnant is tragedy when dealing with high themes. In
two lines he evokes all that is most potent in Grecian poetry. Or again,
when Wordsworth speaks of
The gentle Lady married to the Moor,
And heavenly Una with her milk-white lamb,
it is not enough to glance at a foot-note and discover that the allusion
is to Desdemona, and to the first canto of Spenser's "Faerie Queene."
The reader is expected to be so familiar with the poems referred to that
the spirit of one and then of the other comes up to him in all its
beauty. An allusion of this sort should be like a breath of perfume
which suddenly calls up some dear and thrilling memory.
Enough has been said to show that the language of literature is a
complicated and in some respects a difficult one. Literature in its
highest and best sense is of an importance and of a value so great as to
justify the assumption that no difficulties of language are too great if
needed for the full expression of the message which genius bears to
mankind. In other words, the writer who can give to his fellows works
which are genuinely imaginative is justified in employing any
conventions which will really aid in expression. It is the part of his
readers to acquaint themselves with the means which he finds it best to
employ; and to be grateful for the gift of the master, whatever the
trouble it costs to appreciate and to enter into its spirit. If we are
wise, if we have a proper sense of values, we shall find it worth our
while to familiarize ourselves with scriptural phrases, with mythology,
history, folk-lore, or whatever will aid us in seizing the innermost
significance of masterpieces.
It is important, moreover, to know literary language before the moment
comes for using it. Information grubbed from foot-notes at the instant
of need may be better than continued ignorance, but it is impossible to
thrill and tingle over a passage in the middle of which allusions must
be looked up in the comments of the editor. It is like feeling one's way
through a poem in a foreign tongue when one must use a lexicon for every
second word. The feelings cannot carry the reader away if they must bear
not only the intangible imagination but a solidly material dictionary.
As has been said in a former page, notes should not be allowed to
interrupt a first reading. It is often a wise plan to study them
beforehand, so as to have their aid at once. It is certainly idle to
expect a vivid first impression if one stops continually to look up
obscure points; one cannot soar to the stars with foot-notes as a
flying-machine.
One danger must here be noted. The student may so fill his mind with
concern about the language that he cannot give himself up to the author.
The language is for the work, and not the work for the language. The
teacher who does not instruct the student in the meaning and value of
allusion fails of his mission; but the teacher who makes this the limit,
and fails to impress upon the learner the fact that all this is a means
to an end, commits a crime. I had rather intrust a youth to an
instructor ill-informed in the things of which we have been speaking,
and filled with a genuine love and reverence for beauty as far as he
could apprehend it, than to a preceptor completely equipped with
erudition, and filled with Philistine satisfaction over this knowledge
for its own sake. No amount of learning can compensate for a lack of
enthusiasm. The object of reading literature is not only to understand
it, but to experience it; not only to apprehend it with the intellect,
but to comprehend it with the emotions. To understand it is necessary
and highly important; but this is not the best thing. When the gods send
us gifts, let us not be content with examining the caskets.
VIII
THE INTANGIBLE LANGUAGE
We have spoken of the tangible language of literature; we have now to do
with that which is intangible. Open and direct allusion is neither the
more important nor the more common form of suggestion. He who has
trained himself to recognize references to things historical,
mythological, and so on, has not necessarily become fully familiar with
literary language. Phrase by phrase, and word by word, literature is a
succession of symbols. The aim of the imaginative writer is constantly
to excite the reader to an act of creation. He only is a poet who can
arouse in the mind a creative imagination. Indeed, one is tempted to
indulge here in an impossible paradox, and to say that he only is a poet
who can for the time being make his reader a poet also. The object of
that which is expressed is to arouse the intellect and the emotions to
search for that which is not expressed. The language of allusion is
directed to this end, but literature has also its means far more subtile
and far more effective.
Suggestion is still the essence of this, but it is suggestion conveyed
more delicately and impalpably. Sometimes it is so elusive as almost to
seem accidental or even fanciful. The choice of a single word gives to
a sentence a character which without it would be entirely wanting; a
simple epithet modifies an entire passage. In Lincoln's "Gettysburg
Address," for instance, after the so concise and forceful statement of
all that has brought the assembly together, the speaker declares "that
we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain." The
adverb is the last of which an ordinary mind might have thought in this
connection, and yet once spoken, it is the one inevitable and supreme
word. It lifts the mind at once into an atmosphere elevated and noble.
By this single word Lincoln seems to say: "With the dead at our feet,
and the future for which they died before us, lifted by the
consciousness of all that their death meant, of all that hangs upon the
fidelity with which we carry forward the ideals for which they laid down
life itself, we '_highly_ resolve that their death shall not have been
in vain.'" The phrase is one of the most superb in American literature.
It is in itself a trumpet-blast clear and strong. Or take Shakespeare's
epithet when he speaks of "death's dateless night." To the appreciative
reader this is a word to catch the breath, and to touch one with the
horror of that dull darkness where time has ceased; where for the
sleeper there is neither end nor beginning, no point distinguished from
another; night from which all that makes life has been utterly swept
away. "Death's dateless night"!
It is told of Keats that in reading Spenser he shouted aloud in delight
over the phrase "sea-shouldering whales." The imagination is taken
captive by the vigor and vividness of the image of the great monsters
shouldering their mighty way through opposing waves as a giant might
push his path through a press of armed men, forging onward by sheer
force and bulk. The single word says more than pages of ordinary,
matter-of-fact description. The reader who cannot appreciate why Keats
cried out over this can hardly be said to have begun truly to understand
the effect of the epithet in imaginative writing.
Hazlitt cites the lines of Milton:--
Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat
Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks
Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams;
and comments: "The word lucid here gives to the idea all the sparkling
effect of the most perfect landscape," In each of the following passages
from Shakespeare the single italicized word is in itself sufficient to
give distinction:--
Enjoy the _honey-heavy_ dew of slumber.
_Julius Cæsar_, ii. 1.
When love begins to sicken and decay
It useth an _enforcèd_ ceremony.
_Ib._, iv. 2.
After life's _fitful_ fever he sleeps well.
_Macbeth_, iii. 2.
It would lead too far to enter upon the suggestiveness which is the
result of skillful use of technical means; but I cannot resist the
temptation to call attention to the great effect which may result from a
wise repetition of a single word, even if that word be in itself
commonplace. I know of nothing else in all literature where so
tremendous an effect is produced by simple means as by the use of this
device is given in the familiar lines:--
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.
_Macbeth_, v.
The suggestion of heart-sick realization of the following of one day of
anguish after another seems to sum up in a moment all the woe of years
until it is almost more than can be borne.
In many passages appreciation is all but impossible unless the language
of suggestion is comprehended. To a dullard there is little or nothing
in the line of Chaucer:--
Up roos the sonne, and up roos Emelye.
It is constantly as important to read what is not written as what is set
down. Lowell remarks of Chaucer: "Sometimes he describes amply by the
merest hint, as where the Friar, before setting himself softly down,
drives away the cat. We know without need of more words that he has
chosen the snuggest corner." The richest passages in literature are
precisely those which mean so much that to the careless or the obtuse
reader they seem to mean nothing.
The great principle of the need of complete comprehension of which we
have spoken before meets us here and everywhere. It is necessary to read
with a mind so receptive as almost to be creative: creative, that is, in
the sense of being able to evoke before the imagination of the reader
those things which have been present to the inner vision of the writer.
The comprehension of literary language is above all else the power of
translating suggestion into imaginative reality.
When we read, for instance:--
Like waiting nymphs the trees present their fruit;
the line means nothing to us unless we are able with the eye of the mind
to see the sentient trees holding out their branches like living arms,
tendering their fruits. When Dekker says of patience:--
'Tis the perpetual prisoner's liberty,
His walks and orchards;
we do not hold the poet's meaning unless there has come to us a lively
sense of how the wretch condemned to life-long captivity may by patience
find in the midst of his durance the same buoyant joy which swells in
the heart of one who goes with the free step of a master along his own
walks and through his richly fruited orchards.
Almost any page of Shakespeare might be given bodily here in
illustration. Take, for instance, the talk of Lorenzo and Jessica as in
the moonlit garden at Belmont they await the return of Portia.
_Lor._ The moon shines bright. In such a night as this,
When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees,
And they did make no noise,--in such a night
Troilus, methinks, mounted the Trojan walls,
And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents,
Where Cressid lay that night.
_Jes._ In such a night
Did Thisbe fearfully o'ertrip the dew,
And saw the lion's shadow ere himself,
And ran dismayed away.
_Lor._ In such a night
Stood Dido with a willow in her hand
Upon the wild sea-banks, and waved her love
To come again to Carthage.
_Jes._ In such a night
Medea gathered the enchanted herbs
That did renew old Æson.