English Critical Essays Part 14

Whoever looks intelligently at this Shakespeare may recognize that he too was a _Prophet_, in his way; of an insight a.n.a.logous to the Prophetic, though he took it up in another strain. Nature seemed to this man also divine; _un_speakable, deep as Tophet, high as Heaven: 'We are such stuff as Dreams are made of!' That scroll in Westminster Abbey, which few read with understanding, is of the depth of any Seer.

But the man sang; did not preach, except musically. We called Dante the melodious Priest of Middle-Age Catholicism. May we not call Shakespeare the still more melodious Priest of a _true_ Catholicism, the 'Universal Church' of the Future and of all times? No narrow superst.i.tion, harsh asceticism, intolerance, fanatical fierceness or perversion: a Revelation, so far as it goes, that such a thousandfold hidden beauty and divineness dwells in all Nature; which let all men worship as they can! We may say without offence, that there rises a kind of universal Psalm out of this Shakespeare too; not unfit to make itself heard among the still more sacred Psalms. Not in disharmony with these, if we understood them, but in unison!--I cannot call this Shakespeare a 'Sceptic', as some do; his indifference to the creeds and theological quarrels of his time misleading them. No: neither unpatriotic, though he says little about his Patriotism; no sceptic, though he says little about his Faith. Such 'indifference' was the fruit of his greatness withal: his whole heart was in his own grand sphere of worship (we may call it such); these other controversies, vitally important to other men, were not vital to him.

But call it worship, call it what you will, is it not a right glorious thing and set of things, this that Shakespeare has brought us? For myself, I feel that there is actually a kind of sacredness in the fact of such a man being sent into this Earth. Is he not an eye to us all; a blessed heaven-sent Bringer of Light?--And, at bottom, was it not perhaps far better that this Shakespeare, everyway an unconscious man, was _conscious_ of no Heavenly message? He did not feel, like Mahomet, because he saw into those internal Splendours, that he specially was the 'Prophet of G.o.d': and was he not greater than Mahomet in that?

Greater; and also, if we compute strictly, as we did in Dante's case, more successful. It was intrinsically an error that notion of Mahomet's, of his supreme Prophethood; and has come down to us inextricably involved in error to this day; dragging along with it such a coil of fables, impurities, intolerances, as makes it a questionable step for me here and now to say, as I have done, that Mahomet was a true Speaker at all, and not rather an ambitious charlatan, perversity, and simulacrum, no Speaker, but a Babbler! Even in Arabia, as I compute, Mahomet will have exhausted himself and become obsolete, while this Shakespeare, this Dante may still be young;--while this Shakespeare may still pretend to be a Priest of Mankind, of Arabia as of other places, for unlimited periods to come!

Compared with any speaker or singer one knows, even with Aeschylus or Homer, why should he not, for veracity and universality, last like them? He is _sincere_ as they; reaches deep down like them, to the universal and perennial. But as for Mahomet, I think it had been better for him _not_ to be so conscious! Alas, poor Mahomet; all that he was _conscious_ of was a mere error; a futility and triviality,--as indeed such ever is. The truly great in him too was the unconscious: that he was a wild Arab lion of the desert, and did speak out with that great thunder-voice of his, not by words which he _thought_ to be great, but by actions, by feelings, by a history which _were_ great!

His Koran has become a stupid piece of prolix absurdity; we do not believe, like him, that G.o.d wrote that! The Great Man here too, as always, is a Force of Nature: whatsoever is truly great in him springs up from the _in_articulate deeps.

Well: this is our poor Warwickshire Peasant, who rose to be Manager of a Playhouse, so that he could live without begging; whom the Earl of Southampton cast some kind glances on; whom Sir Thomas Lucy, many thanks to him, was for sending to the Treadmill! We did not account him a G.o.d, like Odin, while he dwelt with us;--on which point there were much to be said. But I will say rather, or repeat: In spite of the sad state Hero-worship now lies in, consider what this Shakespeare has actually become among us. Which Englishman we ever made, in this land of ours, which million of Englishmen, would we not give up rather than the Stratford Peasant? There is no regiment of highest Dignitaries that we would sell him for. He is the grandest thing we have yet done. For our honour among foreign nations, as an ornament to our English Household, what item is there that we would not surrender rather than him? Consider now, if they asked us, Will you give up your Indian Empire or your Shakespeare, you English; never have had any Indian Empire, or never have had any Shakespeare? Really it were a grave question. Official persons would answer doubtless in official language; but we, for our part too, should not we be forced to answer: Indian Empire, or no Indian Empire; we cannot do without Shakespeare!

Indian Empire will go, at any rate, some day; but this Shakespeare does not go, he lasts for ever with us; we cannot give up our Shakespeare!

Nay, apart from spiritualities; and considering him merely as a real, marketable, tangibly-useful possession. England, before long, this Island of ours, will hold but a small fraction of the English: in America, in New Holland, east and west to the very Antipodes, there will be a Saxondom covering great s.p.a.ces of the Globe. And now, what is it that can keep all these together into virtually one Nation, so that they do not fall out and fight, but live at peace, in brotherlike intercourse, helping one another? This is justly regarded as the greatest practical problem, the thing all manner of sovereignties and governments are here to accomplish: what is it that will accomplish this? Acts of Parliament, administrative prime-ministers cannot.

America is parted from us, so far as Parliament could part it. Call it not fantastic, for there is much reality in it: Here, I say, is an English King, whom no time or chance, Parliament or combination of Parliaments, can dethrone! This King Shakespeare, does not he shine, in crowned sovereignty, over us all, as the n.o.blest, gentlest, yet strongest of rallying-signs; _in_destructible; really more valuable in that point of view, than any other means or appliance whatsoever? We can fancy him as radiant aloft over all the Nations of Englishmen, a thousand years hence. From Paramatta, from New York, wheresoever, under what sort of Parish-Constable soever, English men and women are, they will say to one another: 'Yes, this Shakespeare is ours: we produced him, we speak and think by him; we are of one blood and kind with him.' The most common-sense politician, too, if he pleases, may think of that.

Yes, truly, it is a great thing for a Nation that it get an articulate voice; that it produce a man who will speak forth melodiously what the heart of it means! Italy, for example, poor Italy lies dismembered, scattered asunder, not appearing in any protocol or treaty as a unity at all; yet the n.o.ble Italy is actually _one_: Italy produced its Dante: Italy can speak! The Czar of all the Russias, he is strong, with so many bayonets, Cossacks, and cannons: and does a great feat in keeping such a tract of Earth politically together; but he cannot yet speak. Something great in him, but it is a dumb greatness. He has had no voice of genius, to be heard of all men and times. He must learn to speak. He is a great dumb monster hitherto. His cannons and Cossacks will all have rusted into nonent.i.ty, while that Dante's voice is still audible. The Nation that has a Dante is bound together as no dumb Russia can be.--We must here end what we had to say of the _Hero-Poet_.

JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT

1784-1859

AN ANSWER TO THE QUESTION

WHAT IS POETRY? (1844)

Poetry, strictly and artistically so called, that is to say, considered not merely as poetic feeling, which is more or less shared by all the world, but as the operation of that feeling, such as we see it in the poet's book, is the utterance of a pa.s.sion for truth, beauty, and power, embodying and ill.u.s.trating its conceptions by imagination and fancy, and modulating its language on the principle of variety in uniformity. Its means are whatever the universe contains; and its ends, pleasure and exaltation. Poetry stands between nature and convention, keeping alive among us the enjoyment of the external and the spiritual world: it has const.i.tuted the most enduring fame of nations; and, next to Love and Beauty, which are its parents, is the greatest proof to man of the pleasure to be found in all things, and of the probable riches of infinitude.

Poetry is a pa.s.sion,[25] because it seeks the deepest impressions; and because it must undergo, in order to convey, them.

[25] _Pa.s.sio_, suffering in a good sense,--ardent subjection of one's-self to emotion.

It is a pa.s.sion for truth, because without truth the impression would be false or defective.

It is a pa.s.sion for beauty, because its office is to exalt and refine by means of pleasure, and because beauty is nothing but the loveliest form of pleasure.

It is a pa.s.sion for power, because power is impression triumphant, whether over the poet, as desired by himself, or over the reader, as affected by the poet.

It embodies and ill.u.s.trates its impressions by imagination, or images of the objects of which it treats, and other images brought in to throw light on those objects, in order that it may enjoy and impart the feeling of their truth in its utmost conviction and affluence.

It ill.u.s.trates them by fancy, which is a lighter play of imagination, or the feeling of a.n.a.logy coming short of seriousness, in order that it may laugh with what it loves, and show how it can decorate it with fairy ornament.

It modulates what it utters, because in running the whole round of beauty it must needs include beauty of sound; and because, in the height of its enjoyment, it must show the perfection of its triumph, and make difficulty itself become part of its facility and joy.

And lastly, Poetry shapes this modulation into uniformity for its outline, and variety for its parts, because it thus realizes the last idea of beauty itself, which includes the charm of diversity within the flowing round of habit and ease.

Poetry is imaginative pa.s.sion. The quickest and subtlest test of the possession of its essence is in expression; the variety of things to be expressed shows the amount of its resources; and the continuity of the song completes the evidence of its strength and greatness. He who has thought, feeling, expression, imagination, action, character, and continuity, all in the largest amount and highest degree, is the greatest poet.

Poetry includes whatsoever of painting can be made visible to the mind's eye, and whatsoever of music can be conveyed by sound and proportion without singing or instrumentation. But it far surpa.s.ses those divine arts in suggestiveness, range, and intellectual wealth;--the first, in expression of thought, combination of images, and the triumph over s.p.a.ce and time; the second, in all that can be done by speech, apart from the tones and modulations of pure sound.

Painting and music, however, include all those portions of the gift of poetry that can be expressed and heightened by the visible and melodious. Painting, in a certain apparent manner, is things themselves; music, in a certain audible manner, is their very emotion and grace. Music and painting are proud to be related to poetry, and poetry loves and is proud of them.

Poetry begins where matter of fact or of science ceases to be merely such, and to exhibit a further truth; that is to say, the connexion it has with the world of emotion, and its power to produce imaginative pleasure. Inquiring of a gardener, for instance, what flower it is we see yonder, he answers, 'a lily'. This is matter of fact. The botanist p.r.o.nounces it to be of the order of 'Hexandria Monogynia'. This is matter of science. It is the 'lady' of the garden, says Spenser; and here we begin to have a poetical sense of its fairness and grace. It is

The plant and flower of _light_,

says Ben Jonson; and poetry then shows us the beauty of the flower in all its mystery and splendour.

If it be asked, how we know perceptions like these to be true, the answer is, by the fact of their existence--by the consent and delight of poetic readers. And as feeling is the earliest teacher, and perception the only final proof, of things the most demonstrable by science, so the remotest imaginations of the poets may often be found to have the closest connexion with matter of fact; perhaps might always be so, if the subtlety of our perceptions were a match for the causes of them. Consider this image of Ben Jonson's--of a lily being the flower of light. Light, undecomposed, is white; and as the lily is white, and light is white, and whiteness itself is nothing _but_ light, the two things, so far, are not merely similar, but identical.

A poet might add, by an a.n.a.logy drawn from the connexion of light and colour, that there is a 'golden dawn' issuing out of the white lily, in the rich yellow of the stamens. I have no desire to push this similarity farther than it may be worth. Enough has been stated to show that, in poetical as in other a.n.a.logies, 'the same feet of Nature', as Bacon says, may be seen 'treading in different paths'; and that the most scornful, that is to say, dullest disciple of fact, should be cautious how he betrays the shallowness of his philosophy by discerning no poetry in its depths.

But the poet is far from dealing only with these subtle and a.n.a.logical truths. Truth of every kind belongs to him, provided it can bud into any kind of beauty, or is capable of being ill.u.s.trated and impressed by the poetic faculty. Nay, the simplest truth is often so beautiful and impressive of itself, that one of the greatest proofs of his genius consists in his leaving it to stand alone, ill.u.s.trated by nothing but the light of its own tears or smiles, its own wonder, might, or playfulness. Hence the complete effect of many a simple pa.s.sage in our old English ballads and romances, and of the pa.s.sionate sincerity in general of the greatest early poets, such as Homer and Chaucer, who flourished before the existence of a 'literary world', and were not perplexed by a heap of notions and opinions, or by doubts how emotion ought to be expressed. The greatest of their successors never write equally to the purpose, except when they can dismiss everything from their minds but the like simple truth. In the beautiful poem of _Sir Eger, Sir Graham and Sir Gray-Steel_ (see it in Ellis's _Specimens_, or Laing's _Early Metrical Tales_), a knight thinks himself disgraced in the eyes of his mistress:--

Sir Eger said, 'If it be so, Then wot I well I must forgo Love-liking, and manhood, all clean!'

_The water rush'd out of his een!_

Sir Gray-Steel is killed:

Gray-Steel into his death thus thraws[26]

He _walters[27] and the gra.s.s up draws;_

_A little while then lay he still (Friends that him saw, liked full ill) And bled into his armour bright._

[26] throes?

[27] welters,--throws himself about.

The abode of Chaucer's _Reeve_, or Steward, in the _Canterbury Tales_, is painted in two lines, which n.o.body ever wished longer:

His wonning[28] was full fair upon an heath, With greeny trees yshadowed was his place.

[28] dwelling.

Every one knows the words of Lear, 'most _matter-of-fact_, most melancholy.'

Pray, do not mock me; I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upwards: Not an hour more, nor less; and, to deal plainly I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

It is thus, by exquisite pertinence, melody, and the implied power of writing with exuberance, if need be, that beauty and truth become identical in poetry, and that pleasure, or at the very worst, a balm in our tears, is drawn out of pain.

It is a great and rare thing, and shows a lovely imagination, when the poet can write a commentary, as it were, of his own, on such sufficing pa.s.sages of nature, and be thanked for the addition. There is an instance of this kind in Warner, an old Elizabethan poet, than which I know nothing sweeter in the world. He is speaking of Fair Rosamond, and of a blow given her by Queen Eleanor.

With that she dash'd her on the lips, _So dyed double red: Hard was the heart that gave the blow, Soft were those lips that bled._