An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 9

In the dusk a very distinct handwriting becomes illegible.

And George Henry Lewes, in his 'Life of Goethe', well says:--

"A masterpiece excites no sudden enthusiasm; it must be studied much and long, before it is fully comprehended; we must grow up to it, for it will not descend to us. Its emphasis grows with familiarity.

We never become disenchanted; we grow more and more awe-struck at its infinite wealth. We discover no trick, for there is none to discover. Homer, Shakespeare, Raphael, Beethoven, Mozart, never storm the judgment; but once fairly in possession, they retain it with unceasing influence."

And Professor Dowden, in the article from which I have just quoted, says:--

"Approaching a great writer in this spirit of courageous and affectionate fraternity, we need all our forces and all our craft for the friendly encounter. If we love ease and lethargy, let us turn in good time and fly. The interpretation of literature, like the interpretation of Nature, is no mere record of facts; it is no catalogue of the items which make up a book-- such catalogues and a.n.a.lyses of contents enc.u.mber our histories of literature with some of their dreariest pages. The interpretation of literature exhibits no series of dead items, but rather the life and power of one mind at play upon another mind duly qualified to receive and manifest these. Hence, one who would interpret the work of a master must summon up all his powers, and must be alive at as many points as possible. He who approaches his author as a whole, bearing upon life as a whole, is himself alive at the greatest possible number of points, will be the best and truest interpreter. For he will grasp what is central, and at the same time will be sensitive to the value of all details, which details he will perceive not isolated, but in connection with one another, and with the central life to which they belong and from which they proceed."

In his poem ent.i.tled 'Pacchiarotto, and how he worked in distemper', Mr. Browning turns upon his critics, whom he characterizes as "the privileged fellows, in the drabs, blues, and yellows"

(alluding to the covers of the leading British Reviews), and especially upon Alfred Austin, the author of that work of wholesale condemnation, 'The Poetry of the Period', and gives them a sound and well-deserved drubbing. At the close of the onset he says:--

"Was it 'grammar' wherein you would 'coach' me-- You,--pacing in even that paddock Of language allotted you ad hoc, With a clog at your fetlocks,--you--scorners Of me free from all its four corners?

Was it 'clearness of words which convey thought?'

Ay, if words never needed enswathe aught But ignorance, impudence, envy And malice--what word-swathe would then vie With yours for a clearness crystalline?

But had you to put in one small line Some thought big and bouncing--as noddle Of goose, born to cackle and waddle And bite at man's heel as goose-wont is, Never felt plague its puny os frontis-- You'd know, as you hissed, spat and sputtered, Clear 'quack-quack' is easily uttered!"

In a letter written to Mr. W. G. Kingsland, in 1868, Mr. Browning says:--

"I can have little doubt that my writing has been in the main too hard for many I should have been pleased to communicate with; but I never designedly tried to puzzle people, as some of my critics have supposed. On the other hand, I never pretended to offer such literature as should be a subst.i.tute for a cigar or a game at dominoes to an idle man. So, perhaps, on the whole I get my deserts, and something over--not a crowd, but a few I value more." *

-- * 'Browning Society Papers', III., p. 344.

It was never truer of any author than it is true of Browning, that 'Le style c'est l'homme'; and Browning's style is an expression of the panther-restlessness and panther-spring of his impa.s.sioned intellect. The musing spirit of a Wordsworth or a Tennyson he partakes not of.

Mr. Richard Holt Hutton's characterization of the poet's style, as a "crowded note-book style", is not a particularly happy one.

In the pa.s.sage, which he cites from Sordello, to ill.u.s.trate the "crowded note-book style", occurs the following parenthesis:--

"(To be by him themselves made act, Not watch Sordello acting each of them.)"

"What the parenthesis means," he says, "I have not the most distant notion. Mr. Browning might as well have said, 'to be by him her himself herself themselves made act', etc., for any vestige of meaning I attach to this curious mob of p.r.o.nouns and verbs. It is exactly like the short notes of a speech intended to be interpreted afterwards by one who had heard and understood it himself." *

-- * 'Essays Theological and Literary'. Vol. II., 2d ed., rev.

and enl., p. 175.

At first glance, this parenthesis is obscure; but the obscurity is not due to its being "exactly like the short notes of a speech", etc. It is due to what the "obscurity" of Mr. Browning's language, as language, is, in nine cases out of ten, due, namely, to the COLLOCATION of the words, not to an excessive economy of words. He often exercises a liberty in the collocation of his words which is beyond what an uninflected language like the English admits of, without more or less obscurity. There are difficult pa.s.sages in Browning which, if translated into Latin, would present no difficulty at all; for in Latin, the relations of words are more independent of their collocation, being indicated by their inflections.

The meaning of the parenthesis is, and, independently of the context, a second glance takes it in (the wonder is, Mr. Hutton didn't take it in),--

"To be themselves made by him {to} act, Not each of them watch Sordello acting."

There are two or three characteristics of the poet's diction which may be noticed here:--

1. The suppression of the relative, both nominative and accusative or dative, is not uncommon; and, until the reader becomes familiar with it, it often gives, especially if the suppression is that of a subject relative, a momentary, but only a momentary, check to the understanding of a pa.s.sage.

The following examples are from 'The Ring and the Book':--

"Checking the song of praise in me, had else Swelled to the full for G.o.d's will done on earth."

I. The Ring and the Book, v. 591.

i.e., which had (would have) else swelled to the full, etc.

"This that I mixed with truth, motions of mine That quickened, made the inertness malleolable O' the gold was not mine,"-- I. The Ring and the Book, v. 703.

"Harbouring in the centre of its sense A hidden germ of failure, shy but sure, Should neutralize that honesty and leave That feel for truth at fault, as the way is too."

I. The Ring and the Book, v. 851.

"Elaborate display of pipe and wheel Framed to unchoak, pump up and pour apace Truth in a flowery foam shall wash the world."

I. The Ring and the Book, v. 1113.

"see in such A star shall climb apace and culminate,"

III. The Other Half Rome, v. 846.

"Guido, by his folly, forced from them The untoward avowal of the trick o' the birth, Would otherwise be safe and secret now."

IV. Tertium Quid, v. 1599.

"so I Lay, and let come the proper throe would thrill Into the ecstasy and outthrob pain."

VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi, v. 972.

"blind?

Ay, as a man would be inside the sun, Delirious with the plent.i.tude of light Should interfuse him to the finger-ends"-- X. The Pope, 1564.

"You have the sunrise now, joins truth to truth."

X. The Pope, 1763.

"One makes fools look foolisher fifty-fold By putting in their place the wise like you, To take the full force of an argument Would buffet their stolidity in vain."

XI. Guido, 858.

Here the infinitive "To take" might be understood, at first look, as the subject of "Would buffet"; but it depends on "putting", etc., and the subject relative "that" is suppressed: "an argument {that} would buffet their stolidity in vain."

"Will you hear truth can do no harm nor good?"

XI. Guido, 1915.

"I who, with outlet for escape to heaven, Would tarry if such flight allowed my foe To raise his head, relieved of that firm foot Had pinned him to the fiery pavement else!"

XI. Guido, 2099.

i.e., "that firm foot {that} had (would have) pinned."

. . ."ponder, ere ye pa.s.s, Each incident of this strange human play Privily acted on a theatre, Was deemed secure from every gaze but G.o.d's,"-- XII. The Book and the Ring, v. 546.

"As ye become spectators of this scene-- * * * * *

--A soul made weak by its pathetic want Of just the first apprenticeship to sin, Would thenceforth make the sinning soul secure From all foes save itself, that's truliest foe,"-- XII. The Book and the Ring, v. 559.

i.e., "sin, {that} would."