Browning and His Century Part 13

[Ill.u.s.tration: A. C. SWINBURNE]

Ruskin is said to have been the original inspirer of these four poets, though Fitz-Gerald's "Rubaiyat" of Omar Khayyam was not without its influence. But as Edmund Gosse says, "The attraction of the French romances of chivalry for William Morris, of Tuscan painting for D. G.

Rossetti, of the spirit of English Gothic architecture for Christina Rossetti, of the combination of all these with Greek and Elizabethan elements for Swinburne, were to be traced back to start--words given by the prophetic author of the 'Seven Lamps of Architecture.'"

Though the first books of this group of poets, the "Defence of Guenevere"

(1858), "Goblin Market," "Early Italian Poets," "Queen Mother and Rosamond" (1861), did not make any impression on the public, with the publication of Swinburne's "Atalanta in Calydon" an interest was awakened which reached a climax with the publication of Rossetti's poems in 1870.

Rossetti had thrown these poems into his wife's grave, as the world knows, but was prevailed upon to have them recovered and published.

In the success of this group was vindicated at last the principles of the naturalists of the dawn of the century. Here was a mixture of color, of melody, of mysticism, of sensuousness, of elaboration of form which carried originality and independence as far as it could well go in a direction which painted life primarily from the outside. But when this brilliant culminating flash of the early school of Coleridge and Keats began to burn itself out, there was Tennyson, who might be called the conservative wing of the romantic movement, dominant as ever, and Browning, the militant wing, advanced from his mid-century obscurity into a flood-tide of appreciation which was to bear him far onward toward literary pre-eminence, placing him among the few greatest names in literature.

The originality of the pre-Raphaelites grew out of their welding of romantic, cla.s.sical, and mediaeval elements, tempered in each case by the special mental att.i.tude of the poet.

Rossetti and his brother artists, Millais and Holman Hunt, who founded the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood of painters, pledged themselves to the fundamental principle laid down by Rossetti in the little magazine they started called the _Germ_. This new creed was simple enough and ran: "The endeavor held in view throughout the writings on art will be to encourage and enforce an entire adherence to the simplicity of Nature."

In their interpretation and development of this simple principle, artists and the poets who joined them differentiated from one another often to a wide extent. In Rossetti, it becomes an adoration of the beauty of woman expressed in ultra-sensuous though not in sensual imagery, combined with an atmosphere of religious wonder such as one finds in mediaeval poets, of which "The Blessed Damozel" stands as a typical example. In it, as one appreciator has said, all the qualities of Rossetti's poetry are found.

"He speaks alternately like a seer and an artist; one who is now bewitched with the vision of beauty, and now is caught up into Paradise, where he hears unutterable things. To him the spiritual world is an intense reality. He hears the voices, he sees the presences of the supernatural.

As he mourns beside the river of his sorrow, like Ezekiel, he has his visions of winged and wheeling glory, and leaning over the ramparts of the world his gaze is fixed on the uncovered mysteries of a world to come.

There is no poet to whom the supernatural has been so much alive.

Religious doubt he seems never to have felt. But the temper of religious wonder, the old, childlike, monkish att.i.tude of awe and faith in the presence of the unseen, is never absent in him. The artistic force of his temperament drives him to the worship of beauty; the poetic and religious forces to the adoration of mystery."

To Swinburne the simplicity of nature included the utmost lengths to which eroticism could go. Upon this ground he has been severely censured and he has had an unfortunate influence upon scores and scores of younger writers who have seemed to think that the province of the poet is to decry the existence of sincere affection, and who in their turn have exercised actual mischief in lowering social standards.

This is not all of Swinburne, however. His superb metrical power is his chief contribution to the originality of this group, and when he developed away from his nauseating eroticism, he could charm as no one else with his delicious music, though it often be conspicuous for its lack of richness in thought.

His fate has been somewhat different from that of most poets. When his "Atalanta in Calydon" was published it was received with enthusiasm, but the volumes overweighted with eroticism which followed caused a fierce controversy, and many have not even yet discovered that this was only one phase of Swinburne's art, and that, unfortunate as it is in many respects, it was a phase of the century's life which must find its expression in art if that life is to be completely given, and that it was a pa.s.sing phase Swinburne himself proved in the development of other phases shown in his interest in current political situations, his enthusiasm for Italy and his later expressions of high moral ideals, as well as in a quasi-religious att.i.tude of mind, not so far from that of Emerson, himself, in which strong emphasis is placed upon the importance of the individual, and upon the unity of G.o.d and man.

There is moral courage and optimism in the face of doubt of a high order in the following lines:

--"Are ye not weary and faint not by the way Seeing night by night devoured of day by day, Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire?

Sleepless; and ye too, when shall ye, too sleep?

--We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet, And surely more than all things sleep were sweet, Than all things save the inexorable desire Which whoso knoweth shall neither faint nor weep.

"Is this so sweet that one were fain to follow?

Is this so sure when all men's hopes are hollow, Even this your dream, that by much tribulation Ye shall make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight?

--Nay though our life were blind, our death were fruitless, Not therefore were the whole world's high hope rootless; But man to man, nation would turn to nation, And the old life live, and the old great word be great."

But Swinburne in his farthest reaches of pantheistic aspiration is to be seen in a poem like "Hertha":

"I am that which began; Out of me the years roll; Out of me G.o.d and man; I am equal and whole; G.o.d changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul.

"The tree many-rooted That swells to the sky With frondage red-fruited The life-tree am I; In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves; ye shall live and not die.

"But the G.o.ds of your fashion That take and that give, In their pity and pa.s.sion That scourge and forgive, They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off; they shall die and not live.

"My own blood is what stanches The wounds in my bark: Stars caught in my branches Make day of the dark, And are worshipped as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their fires as a spark."

Morris's interpretation of pre-Raphaelite tenets took him into mediaeval legend and the cla.s.sics for his subject matter. In his first volume, "The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems," he came into compet.i.tion with Tennyson, who was at the same time issuing his Arthurian legends. The polish of Tennyson's verse, as well as its symbolical meaning for the time, was more acceptable than the actual return to the nature of the fifteenth century, and this the first volume from a pre-Raphaelite was hardly noticed by the critics. Morris sulked within his literary tents for ten years before he again appeared, this time with "The Life and Death of Jason" (1867), which immediately became popular. Later came the "Earthly Paradise." These tales, in verse n.o.ble and simple, in style recalling the tales of Chaucer, yet with a charm all their own, in which the real men and women of Chaucer give place to types, have been the delight of those who like to find in poetry a dreamland of romance where they may enjoy themselves far from the problems and toils of everyday life. He differs from all the other poets of this group in his lack of religious hope. His mind was of the type that could not stand up against the undermining influences of the age: hence world-weariness and despair are the constantly recurring notes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI]

Mrs. Browning far outdistanced her husband in the early days in popularity. She pleased the people by her social enthusiasm, a characteristic more marked in her verse than in that of any of the poets mentioned. The critics have found many faults in her style, mainly those growing out of an impa.s.sioned nature which carried her at times beyond the realm of perfectly balanced art. But even an English critic of the conservatism of Edmund Gosse could at last admit that "In some of her lyrics and more rarely in her sonnets she rose to heights of pa.s.sionate humanity which place her only just below the great poets of her country."

Contemporary criticism of "Aurora Leigh," which was certainly a departure both in form and matter from the accepted standards, was, on the whole, just. _The Quarterly Review_ in 1862 said of it: "This 'Aurora Leigh' is a great poem. It is a wonder of art. It will live. No large audience will it have, but it will have audience; and that is more than most poems have. To those who know what poetry is and in what struggles it is born--how the great thoughts justify themselves--this work will be looked upon as one of the wonders of the age." Mrs. Browning resembles her husband in the fact that she does not fit into the main line of evolution of the romantic school, but is an individual manifestation of the romantic spirit, showing almost as great freedom from the trammels of accepted romanticism as Browning does.

The writer of the century whose experience as a novelist almost paralleled that of Browning as poet was Meredith. Because of his psychological a.n.a.lysis and the so-called obscurity of his style, he waited many years for recognition and finally was accepted as one of the most remarkable novelists of the age. His poetry, showing similar tendencies, and overshadowed by his novels, has not yet emerged into the light of universal appreciation. One finds it even ignored altogether in the most recent books of English literature, yet he is the author of one of the most remarkable series of sonnets in the English language, "Modern Love,"

presenting, as it does, a vivid picture of domestic decadence which forms a strange contrast to Rossetti's sonnets, "The House of Life," indicating how many and various have been the forces at work during the nineteenth century in the disintegrating and molding of social ideals. Meredith writes of "Hiding the Skeleton".

"At dinner she is hostess, I am host.

Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps The topic over intellectual deeps In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.

With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball: It is in truth a most contagious game; _Hiding the Skeleton_ shall be its name.

Such play as this the devils might appall, But here's the greater wonder; in that we, Enamor'd of our acting and our wits, Admire each other like true hypocrites.

Warm-lighted glances, Love's Ephemeral, Shoot gayly o'er the dishes and the wine.

We waken envy of our happy lot.

Fast sweet, and golden, shows our marriage-knot.

Dear guests, you now have seen Love's corpse-light shine!"

Rossetti writes "Lovesight":

"When do I see thee most, beloved one?

When in the light the spirits of mine eyes Before thy face, their altar, solemnize The worship of that Love through thee made known?

Or when, in the dusk hours (we two alone), Close-kiss'd and eloquent of still replies Thy twilight--hidden glimmering visage lies, And my soul only sees thy soul its own?

O love, my love! if I no more should see Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee, Nor image of thine eyes in any spring,-- How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope, The ground-whirl of the perish'd leaves of Hope, The wind of Death's imperishable wing?"

Browning's criticism of painting was evidently much influenced by the pre-Raphaelites. Their admiration for the painters who preceded Raphael, revealing as it did to them an art not satisfied with itself, but reaching after higher things, and earnestly seeking to interpret nature and human life, is echoed in his "Old Pictures in Florence," which was written but six years after Hunt, Millais, and Rossetti formed their brotherhood. In poetry, they did not eschew cla.s.sical subjects, as Browning did for the most part, but they treated these subjects in a romantic spirit, and so removed them from the sort of strictures that Browning made upon the perfection of Greek art.

From this summary of the chief lines of literary development in the nineteenth century it will be seen, not only what a marvelous age it has been for the flowering of individualism in literary invention, but how Browning has surpa.s.sed all the other poets of note in the wideness of his departure from accepted standards, and how helpless the earlier critics were in the face of this departure, because of their dependence always upon critical shibboleths--in other words, of principles not sufficiently universal--as their means of measuring a poet's greatness. Tennyson and the pre-Raphaelites won their popularity sooner among critics because they followed logically in the line of development inaugurated by the earlier poets, Wordsworth, Sh.e.l.ley, Keats, etc., whose poetry had already done some good work in breaking down the school of Dryden and Pope, though it succeeded only in erecting another standard not sufficiently universal to include Browning. The evolution of art forms, a principle so clearly understood, as we have shown by Browning, has never become a guiding one with critics, though Mr. Gosse in his "Modern English Literature" has expressed a wish that the principle of evolution might be adapted to criticism. He has evidently felt how hopeless is the task of appraising poets by the old individualistic method, which, as he says, has been in favor for at least a century. It possesses, he declares, considerable effectiveness in adroit hands, but is, after all, an adaptation of the old theory of the unalterable type, merely subst.i.tuting for the one authority of the ancients an equal rigidity in a mult.i.tude of isolated modern instances. For this inflexible style of criticism he proposes that a scientific theory shall be adopted which shall enable us at once to take an intelligent pleasure in Pope and in Wordsworth, in Spenser and in Swift. He writes:

"Herbert Spencer has, with infinite courage, opened the entire world of phenomena to the principles of evolution, but we seem slow to admit them into the little province of aesthetics. We cling to the individualist manner, to that intense eulogy which concentrates its rays on the particular object of notice and relegates all others to proportional obscurity. There are critics of considerable ac.u.men and energy who seem to know no other mode of nourishing a talent or a taste than that which is pursued by the cultivators of gigantic gooseberries. They do their best to nip off all other buds, that the juices of the tree of fame may be concentrated on their favorite fruit. Such a plan may be convenient for the purposes of malevolence, and in earlier times our general ignorance of the principles of growth might well excuse it. But it is surely time that we should recognize only two criteria of literary judgment. The first is primitive, and merely clears the ground of rubbish; it is, Does the work before us, or the author, perform what he sets out to perform with a distinguished skill in the direction in which his powers are exercised? If not, he interests the higher criticism not at all; but if yes, then follows the second test: Where, in the vast and ever-shifting scheme of literary evolution, does he take his place, and in what relation does he stand, not to those who are least like him, but to those who are of his own kith and kin?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE MEREDITH]

With such principles of criticism as this, the public would sooner be brought to an appreciation of all that is best worth while in literature, instead of being taken, as it too often is, upon a wrong scent to worship at the shrine of the Nokes and Stokes, who simply print blue and eat the turtles.

If Mr. Gosse had himself been fully imbued with such principles would he have made the statement quoted in chapter two in regard to Browning's later books? And should we have such senseless criticism as a remark which has become popular lately, and which I believe emanated from a university in the South--namely, that Browning never said anything that Tennyson had not said better? As an ill.u.s.tration of this a recent critic may be quoted who is entirely scornful of the person who prefers Browning's

"G.o.d's in his heaven, all's right with the world"

to Tennyson's

"And hear at times a sentinel Who moves about from place to place, And whispers to the worlds of s.p.a.ce In the deep night that all is well."

One might reply to this that it is a matter of taste had not Courthope shown conclusively that Matthew Arnold's criterion of criticism--namely, that a taste which is born of culture is the only certain possession by which the critic can measure the beauty of a poet's line--is a fallacy.

His argument is worth quoting:

"You have stated strongly one side of the truth, but you have ignored, completely ignored, the other. You have a.s.serted the claims of individual liberty, and up to a certain point I agree with you. I do not deny that spiritual liberty is founded on consciousness, and hence the self-consciousness of the age is part of the problem we are considering. I do not deny that the prevailing rage for novelty must also be taken into account. Liberty, variety, novelty, are all necessary to the development of Art. Without novelty there can be no invention, without variety there can be no character, without liberty there can be no life. Life, character, invention, these are of the essence of Poetry. But while you have defended with energy the freedom of the Individual, you have said nothing of the authority of society.

And yet the conviction of the existence of this authority is a belief perhaps even more firmly founded in the human mind than the sentiment as to the rights of individual liberty....

The great majority of the professors of poetry, however various their opinions, however opposite their tastes, have felt sure that there was in taste, as in science, a theory of false and true; in art, as in conduct, a rule of right and wrong. And even among those who have a.s.serted most strongly the inward and relative nature of poetry, do you think there was one so completely a skeptic as to imagine that he was the sole proprietor of the perception he sought to embody in words; one who doubted his power, by means of accepted symbols, to communicate to his audience his own ideas and feelings about external things? Yet until some man shall have been found bold enough to defend a thesis so preposterous, we must continue to believe that there is a positive standard, by which those at least who speak a common language may reason about questions of taste."