'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
impermissible 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 or 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 over-rate 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 over-rate 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 stérile 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'Héricault,
the editor of Clément 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 over-rate 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 Théroulde,
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 à remembrer 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]
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--
[Illustration: Fragment of Homer's Iliad [3]]
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, an infallible touchstone
for detecting the presence or absence of high poetic quality, and also
the degree of this 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
[Illustration: Fragment of Homer's Iliad [4]]
the address of Zeus to the horses of Peleus;--or take finally his
[Illustration: Fragment of Homer's Iliad [5]]
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; sì dentro impietrai.
Piangevan elli . . .' [6]
take the lovely words of Beatrice to Virgil--
'Io son fatta da Dio, sua mercè, tale,
Che la vostra miseria non mi tange,
Nè fiamma d'esto incendio non m'assale . . .' [7]
take the simple, but perfect, single line--
'In la sua volontade è nostra pace.' [8]
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 recognized 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 (_philosophoteron chai spoudaioteron_).
Let us add, therefore, to what we have said, this: that the substance
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 seed-time 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 Brunette Latini,
the master of Dante, wrote his _Treasure_ in French because, he says,
'la parleure en est plus délitable et plus commune à 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 à 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 arestée!'
'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.
If we ask ourselves wherein consists the immense superiority of
Chaucer's poetry over the romance-poetry--why it is that in passing
from this to Chaucer we suddenly feel ourselves to be in another world,
we shall find that his superiority is both in the substance of his
poetry and in the style of his poetry. His superiority in substance is
given by his large, free, simple, clear yet kindly view of human
life,--so unlike the total want, in the romance-poets, of all
intelligent command of it. Chaucer has not their helplessness; he has
gained the power to survey the world from a central, a truly human
point of view. We have only to call to mind the Prologue to _The
Canterbury Tales_. The right comment upon it is Dryden's: 'It is
sufficient to say, according to the proverb, that _here is God's
plenty_.' And again: 'He is a perpetual fountain of good sense.' It
is by a large, free, sound representation of things, that poetry, this
high criticism of life, has truth of substance; and Chaucer's poetry
has truth of substance.
Of his style and manner, if we think first of the romance-poetry and
then of Chaucer's divine liquidness of diction, his divine fluidity of
movement, it is difficult to speak temperately. They are irresistible,
and justify all the rapture with which his successors speak of his
'gold dew-drops of speech.' Johnson misses the point entirely when he
finds fault with Dryden for ascribing to Chaucer the first refinement
of our numbers, and says that Gower also can show smooth numbers and
easy rhymes. The refinement of our numbers means something far more
than this. A nation may have versifiers with smooth numbers and easy
rhymes, and yet may have no real poetry at all. Chaucer is the father
of our splendid English poetry; he is our 'well of English undefiled,'
because by the lovely charm of his diction, the lovely charm of his
movement, he makes an epoch and founds a tradition. In Spenser,
Shakespeare, Milton, Keats, we can follow the tradition of the liquid
diction, the fluid movement of Chaucer; at one time it is his liquid
diction of which in these poets we feel the virtue, and at another time
it is his fluid movement. And the virtue is irresistible.
Bounded as is my space, I must yet find room for an example of
Chaucer's virtue, as I have given examples to show the virtue of the
great classics. I feel disposed to say that a single line is enough to
show the charm of Chaucer's verse; that merely one line like this--
'O martyr souded[9] in virginitee!'
has a virtue of manner and movement such as we shall not find in all
the verse of romance-poetry;--but this is saying nothing. The virtue
is such as we shall not find, perhaps, in all English poetry, outside
the poets whom I have named as the special inheritors of Chaucer's
tradition. A single line, however, is too little if we have not the
strain of Chaucer's verse well in our memory; let us take a stanza. It
is from _The Prioress's Tale_, the story of the Christian child
murdered in a Jewry--
'My throte is cut unto my nekke-bone
Saidè this child, and as by way of kinde
I should have deyd, yea, longè time agone;
But Jesu Christ, as ye in bookès finde,
Will that his glory last and be in minde,
And for the worship of his mother dere
Yet may I sing O _Alma_ loud and clere.'
Wordsworth has modernised this Tale, and to feel how delicate and
evanescent is the charm of verse, we have only to read Wordsworth's
first three lines of this stanza after Chaucer's--
'My throat is cut unto the bone, I trow,
Said this young child, and by the law of kind
I should have died, yea, many hours ago.'
The charm is departed. It is often said that the power of liquidness
and fluidity in Chaucer's verse was dependent upon a free, a licentious
dealing with language, such as is now impossible; upon a liberty, such
as Burns too enjoyed, of making words like _neck, bird_, into a
dissyllable by adding to them, and words like _cause, rhyme_, into a
dissyllable by sounding the _e_ mute. It is true that Chaucer's
fluidity is conjoined with this liberty, and is admirably served by it;
but we ought not to say that it was dependent upon it. It was
dependent upon his talent. Other poets with a like liberty do not
attain to the fluidity of Chaucer; Burns himself does not attain to it.
Poets, again, who have a talent akin to Chaucer's, such as Shakespeare
or Keats, have known how to attain his fluidity without the like
liberty.
And yet Chaucer is not one of the great classics. His poetry
transcends and effaces, easily and without effort, all the
romance-poetry of Catholic Christendom; it transcends and effaces all
the English poetry contemporary with it, it transcends and effaces all
the English poetry subsequent to it down to the age of Elizabeth. Of
such avail is poetic truth of substance, in its natural and necessary
union with poetic truth of style. And yet, I say, Chaucer is not one
of the great classics. He has not their accent. What is wanting to
him is suggested by the mere mention of the name of the first great
classic of Christendom, the immortal poet who died eighty years before
Chaucer,--Dante. The accent of such verse as
'In la sua volontade è nostra pace . . .'
is altogether beyond Chaucer's reach; we praise him, but we feel that
this accent is out of the question for him. It may be said that it was
necessarily out of the reach of any poet in the England of that stage
of growth. Possibly; but we are to adopt a real, not a historic,
estimate of poetry. However we may account for its absence, something
is wanting, then, to the poetry of Chaucer, which poetry must have
before it can be placed in the glorious class of the best. And there
is no doubt what that something is. It is the _spoudaiotes_ the high
and excellent seriousness, which Aristotle assigns as one of the grand
virtues of poetry. The substance of Chaucer's poetry, his view of
things and his criticism of life, has largeness, freedom, shrewdness,
benignity; but it has not this high seriousness. Homer's criticism of
life has it, Dante's has it, Shakespeare's has it. It is this chiefly
which gives to our spirits what they can rest upon; and with the
increasing demands of our modern ages upon poetry, this virtue of
giving us what we can rest upon will be more and more highly esteemed.
A voice from the slums of Paris, fifty or sixty years after Chaucer,
the voice of poor Villon out of his life of riot and crime, has at its
happy moments (as, for instance, in the last stanza of _La Belle
Heaulmière_[10]) more of this important poetic virtue of seriousness
than all the productions of Chaucer. But its apparition in Villon, and
in men like Villon, is fitful; the greatness of the great poets, the
power of their criticism of life, is that their virtue is sustained.
To our praise, therefore, of Chaucer as a poet there must be this
limitation; he lacks the high seriousness of the great classics, and
therewith an important part of their virtue. Still, the main fact for
us to bear in mind about Chaucer is his sterling value according to
that real estimate which we firmly adopt for all poets. He has poetic
truth of substance, though he has not high poetic seriousness, and
corresponding to his truth of substance he has an exquisite virtue of
style and manner. With him is born our real poetry.
For my present purpose I need not dwell on our Elizabethan poetry, or
on the continuation and close of this poetry in Milton. We all of us
profess to be agreed in the estimate of this poetry: we all of us
recognise it as great poetry, our greatest, and Shakespeare and Milton
as our poetical classics. The real estimate, here, has universal
currency. With the next age of our poetry divergency and difficulty
begin. An historic estimate of that poetry has established itself; and
the question is, whether it will be found to coincide with the real
estimate.
The age of Dryden, together with our whole eighteenth century which
followed it, sincerely believed itself to have produced poetical
classics of its own, and even to have made advance, in poetry, beyond
all its predecessors. Dryden regards as not seriously disputable the
opinion 'that the sweetness of English verse was never understood or
practised by our fathers.' Cowley could see nothing at all in
Chaucer's poetry. Dryden heartily admired it, and, as we have seen,
praised its matter admirably; but of its exquisite manner and movement
all he can find to say is that 'there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch
tune in it, which is natural and pleasing, though not perfect.'
Addison, wishing to praise Chaucer's numbers, compares them with
Dryden's own. And all through the eighteenth century, and down even
into our own times, the stereotyped phrase of approbation for good
verse found in our early poetry has been, that it even approached the
verse of Dryden, Addison, Pope, and Johnson. Are Dryden and Pope
poetical classics? Is the historic estimate, which represents them as
such, and which has been so long established that it cannot easily give
way, the real estimate? Wordsworth and Coleridge, as is well known,
denied it; but the authority of Wordsworth and Coleridge does not weigh
much with the young generation, and there are many signs to show that
the eighteenth century and its judgments are coming into favour again.
Are the favourite poets of the eighteenth-century classics?
It is impossible within my present limits to discuss the question
fully. And what man of letters would not shrink from seeming to
dispose dictatorially of the claims of two men who are, at any rate,
such masters in letters as Dryden and Pope; two men of such admirable
talent, both of them, and one of them, Dryden, a man, on all sides, of
such energetic and genial power? And yet, if we are to gain the full
benefit from poetry, we must have the real estimate of it. I cast
about for some mode of arriving, in the present case, at such an
estimate without offence. And perhaps the best way is to begin, as it
is easy to begin, with cordial praise.
When we find Chapman, the Elizabethan translator of Homer, expressing
himself in his preface thus: 'Though truth in her very nakedness sits
in so deep a pit, that from Gades to Aurora and Ganges few eyes can
sound her, I hope yet those few here will so discover and confirm that,
the date being out of her darkness in this morning of our poet, he
shall now gird his temples with the sun,'--we pronounce that such a
prose is intolerable. When we find Milton writing: 'And long it was
not after, when I was confirmed in this opinion, that he, who would not
be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things,
ought himself to be a true poem,'--we pronounce that such a prose has
its own grandeur, but that it is obsolete and inconvenient. But when
we find Dryden telling us: 'What Virgil wrote in the vigour of his age,
in plenty and at ease, I have undertaken to translate in my declining
years; struggling with wants, oppressed with sickness, curbed in my
genius, liable to be misconstrued in all I write,'--then we exclaim
that here at last we have the true English prose, a prose such as we
would all gladly use if we only knew how. Yet Dryden was Milton's
contemporary.
But after the Restoration the time had come when our nation felt the
imperious need of a fit prose. So, too, the time had likewise come
when our nation felt the imperious need of freeing itself from the
absorbing preoccupation which religion in the Puritan age had
exercised. It was impossible that this freedom should be brought about
without some negative excess, without some neglect and impairment of
the religious life of the soul; and the spiritual history of the
eighteenth century shows us that the freedom was not achieved without
them. Still, the freedom was achieved; the preoccupation, an
undoubtedly baneful and retarding one if it had continued, was got rid
of. And as with religion amongst us at that period, so it was also
with letters. A fit prose was a necessity; but it was impossible that
a fit prose should establish itself amongst us without some touch of
frost to the imaginative life of the soul. The needful qualities for a
fit prose are regularity, uniformity, precision, balance. The men of
letters, whose destiny it may be to bring their nation to the
attainment of a fit prose, must of necessity, whether they work in
prose or in verse, give a predominating, an almost exclusive attention
to the qualities of regularity, uniformity, precision, balance. But an
almost exclusive attention to these qualities involves some repression
and silencing of poetry.
We are to regard Dryden as the puissant and glorious founder, Pope as
the splendid high priest, of our age of prose and reason, of our
excellent and indispensable eighteenth century. For the purposes of
their mission and destiny their poetry, like their prose, is admirable.
Do you ask me whether Dryden's verse, take it almost where you will, is
not good?
'A milk-white Hind, immortal and unchanged,
Fed on the lawns and in the forest ranged.'
I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the inaugurator of an age of
prose and reason. Do you ask me whether Pope's verse, take it almost
where you will, is not good?
'To Hounslow Heath I point, and Banstead Down
Thence comes your mutton, and these chicks my own.'
I answer: Admirable for the purposes of the high priest of an age of
prose and reason. But do you ask me whether such verse proceeds from
men with an adequate poetic criticism of life, from men whose criticism
of life has a high seriousness, or even, without that high seriousness,
has poetic largeness, freedom, insight, benignity? Do you ask me
whether the application of ideas to life in the verse of these men,
often a powerful application, no doubt, is a powerful _poetic_
application? Do you ask me whether the poetry of these men has either
the matter or the inseparable manner of such an adequate poetic
criticism; whether it has the accent of
'Absent thee from felicity awhile . . .'
or of
'And what is else not to be overcome . . .'
or of
'O martyr souded in virginitee!'
I answer: It has not and cannot have them; it is the poetry of the
builders of an age of prose and reason. Though they may write in
verse, though they may in a certain sense be masters of the art of
versification, Dryden and Pope are not classics of our poetry, they are
classics of our prose.
Gray is our poetical classic of that literature and age; the position
of Gray is singular, and demands a word of notice here. He has not the
volume or the power of poets who, coming in times more favourable, have
attained to an independent criticism of life. But he lived with the
great poets, he lived, above all, with the Greeks, through perpetually
studying and enjoying them; and he caught their poetic point of view
for regarding life, caught their poetic manner. The point of view and
the manner are not self-sprung in him, he caught them of others; and he
had not the free and abundant use of them. But, whereas Addison and
Pope never had the use of them, Gray had the use of them at times. He
is the scantiest and frailest of classics in our poetry, but he is a
classic.
And now, after Gray, we are met, as we draw towards the end of the
eighteenth century, we are met by the great name of Burns. We enter
now on times where the personal estimate of poets begins to be rife,
and where the real estimate of them is not reached without difficulty.
But in spite of the disturbing pressures of personal partiality, of
national partiality, let us try to reach a real estimate of the poetry
of Burns.
By his English poetry Burns in general belongs to the eighteenth
century, and has little importance for us.
'Mark ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes,
Rousing elate in these degenerate times;
View unsuspecting Innocence a prey,
As guileful Fraud points out the erring way;
While subtle Litigation's pliant tongue
The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong!'
Evidently this is not the real Burns, or his name and fame would have
disappeared long ago. Nor is Clarinda's love-poet, Sylvander, the real
Burns either. But he tells us himself: 'These English songs gravel me
to death. I have not the command of the language that I have of my
native tongue. In fact, I think that my ideas are more barren in
English than in Scotch. I have been at _Duncan Gray_ to dress it in
English, but all I can do is desperately stupid.' We English turn
naturally, in Burns, to the poems in our own language, because we can
read them easily; but in those poems we have not the real Burns.
The real Burns is of course in his Scotch poems. Let us boldly say
that of much of this poetry, a poetry dealing perpetually with Scotch
drink, Scotch religion, and Scotch manners, a Scotchman's estimate is
apt to be personal. A Scotchman is used to this world of Scotch drink,
Scotch religion, and Scotch manners; he has a tenderness for it; he
meets its poet half way. In this tender mood he reads pieces like the
_Holy Fair_ or _Halloween_. But this world of Scotch drink, Scotch
religion, and Scotch manners is against a poet, not for him, when it is
not a partial countryman who reads him; for in itself it is not a
beautiful world, and no one can deny that it is of advantage to a poet
to deal with a beautiful world. Burns's world of Scotch drink, Scotch
religion, and Scotch manners, is often a harsh, a sordid, a repulsive
world: even the world of his _Cotter's Saturday Night_ is not a
beautiful world. No doubt a poet's criticism of life may have such
truth and power that it triumphs over its world and delights us. Burns
may triumph over his world, often he does triumph over his world, but
let us observe how and where. Burns is the first case we have had
where the bias of the personal estimate tends to mislead; let us look
at him closely, he can bear it.
Many of his admirers will tell us that we have Burns, convivial,
genuine, delightful, here--
'Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair
Than either school or college;
It kindles wit, it waukens lair,
It pangs us fou o' knowledge.
Be't whisky gill or penny wheep
Or ony stronger potion,
It never fails, on drinking deep,
To kittle up our notion
By night or day.'
There is a great deal of that sort of thing in Burns, and it is
unsatisfactory, not because it is bacchanalian poetry, but because it
has not that accent of sincerity which bacchanalian poetry, to do it
justice, very often has. There is something in it of bravado,
something which makes us feel that we have not the man speaking to us
with his real voice; something, therefore, poetically unsound.
With still more confidence will his admirers tell us that we have the
genuine Burns, the great poet, when his strain asserts the
independence, equality, dignity, of men, as in the famous song _For a
that, and a' that_--
'A prince can mak' a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that;
But an honest man's aboon his might,
Guid faith he mauna fa' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Their dignities, and a' that,
The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.'
Here they find his grand, genuine touches; and still more, when this
puissant genius, who so often set morality at defiance, falls
moralising--
'The sacred lowe o' weel-placed love
Luxuriantly indulge it;
But never tempt th' illicit rove,
Tho' naething should divulge it.
I waive the quantum o' the sin,
The hazard o' concealing,
But och! it hardens a' within,
And petrifies the feeling.'