Arthur Henry Hallam

 

 

On some of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry,
and on the Lyrical Poems of Alfred Tennyson.

 

Text
Editionsbericht
Werkverzeichnis
Literatur: Hallam
Literatur: The Englishman's Magazine

 

So Mr. Montgomery's "Oxford," by the help of some pretty illustrations, has contrived to prolong its miserable existence to a second edition! But this is slow work, compared to that triumphant progress of the "Omnipresence," which, we concede to the author's friends, was "truly astonishing." We understand, moreover, that a new light has broken upon this "desolator desolate;" and since the "columns" have begun to follow the example of "men and gods," by whom our poetaster has long been condemned, "it is the fate of genius," he begins to discover, "to be unpopular." Now, strongly as we protest against Mr. Montgomery's application of this maxim to his own case, we are much disposed to agree with him as to its abstract correctness. Indeed, the truth which it inolves seems to afford the only solution of so curious a phenomenon as the success, partial and transient though it be, of himself, and others of his calibre. When Mr. Wordsworth, in his celebrated Preface to the "Lyrical Ballads," asserted that immediate or rapid popularity was not the test of poetry, great was the consternation and clamour among those farmers of public favour, the established critics. Never had so audacious an attack been made upon their undoubted privileges and hereditary charter of oppression. "What! 'The Edinburgh Review' not infallible!" shrieked the amiable petulance of Mr. Jeffrey. "'The Gentleman's Magazine' incapable of decision!" faltered the feeble garrulity of Silvanus Urban. And straightway the whole sciolist herd, men of rank, men of letters, men of wealth, men of business, all the "mob of gentlemen who think with ease," and a terrible number of old ladies and boarding-school misses began to scream in chorus, and prolonged the notes of execration with which they overwhelmed the new doctrine, until their wits and their voices fairly gave in from exhaustion. Much, no doubt, they did, for much persons will do when they fight for their dear selves: but there was one thing they could not do, and unfortunately it was the only one of any importance. They could not put down Mr. Wordsworth by clamour, or prevent his doctrine, once uttered, and enforced by his example, from awakening the minds of men, and giving a fresh impulse to art. It was the truth, and it prevailed; not only against the exasperation of that hydra, the Reading Public, whose vanity was hurt, and the blustering of its keepers, whose delusion was exposed, but even against the false glosses and narrow apprehensions of the Wordsworthians themselves. It is the madness of all who loosen some great principle, long buried under a snow-heap of custom and superstition, to imagine that they can restrain its operation, or circumscribe it by their purposes. But the right of private judgment was stronger than the will of Luther; and even the genius of Wordsworth cannot expand itself to the full periphery of poetic art.

It is not true, as his exclusive admirers would have it, that the highest species of poetry is the reflective: it is a gross fallacy, that, because certain opinions are acute or profound, the expression of them by the imagination must be eminently beautiful. Whenever the mind of the artist suffers itself to be occupied, during its periods of creation, by any other predominant motive than the desire of beauty, the result is false in art. Now there is undoubtedly no reason, why he may not find beauty in those moods of emotion, which arise from the combinations of reflective thought, and it is possible that he may delineate these with fidelity, and not be led astray by any suggestions of an unpoetical mood. But, though possible, it is hardly probable: for a man, whose reveries take a reasoning turn, and who is accustomed to measure his ideas by their logical relations rather than the congruity of the sentiments to which they refer, will be apt to mistake [617] the pleasure he has in knowing a thing to be true, for the pleasure he would have in knowing it to be beautiful, and so will pile his thoughts in a rhetorical battery, that they may convince, instead of letting them glow in the natural course of contemplation, that they may enrapture. It would not be difficult to shew, by reference to the most admired poems of Wordsworth, that he is frequently chargeable with this error, and that much has been said by him which is good as philosophy, powerful as rhetoric, but false as poetry. Perhaps this very distortion of the truth did more in the peculiar juncture of our literary affairs to enlarge and liberalize the genius of our age, than could have been effected by a less sectarian temper. However this may be, a new school of reformers soon began to attract attention, who, professing the same independence of immediate favour, took their stand on a different region of Parnassus from that occupied by the Lakers, * and one, in our opinion, much less liable to perturbing currents of air from ungenial climates. We shall not hesitate to express our conviction, that the Cockney school (as it was termed in derision, from a cursory view of its accidental circumstances) contained more genuine inspiration, and adhered more speedily to that portion of truth which it embraced, than any form of art that has existed in this country since the day of Milton. Their caposetta was Mr. Leigh Hunt, who did little more than point the way, and was diverted from his aim by a thousand personal predilections and political habits of thought. But he was followed by two men of a very superior make; men who were born poets, lived poets, and went poets to their untimely graves. Shelley and Keats were, indeed, of opposite genius; that of the one was vast, impetuous, and sublime: the other seemed to be "fed with honey-dew," and to have "drunk the milk of Paradise." Even the softness of Shelley comes out in bold, rapid, comprehensive strokes; he has no patience for minute beauties, unless they can be massed into a general effect of grandeur. On the other hand, the tenderness of Keats cannot sustain a lofty flight; he does not generalize or allegorize Nature; his imagination works with few symbols, and reposes willingly on what is given freely. Yet in this formal opposition of character there is, it seems to us, a ground-work of similarity sufficient for the purposes of classification, and constituting a remarkable point in the progress of literature. They are both poets of sensation rather than reflection. Susceptible of the slightest impulse from external nature, their fine organs trembled into emotion at colours, and sounds, and movements, unperceived or unregarded by duller temperaments. Rich and clear were their perceptions of visible forms; full and deep their feelings of music. So vivid was the delight attending the simple exertions of eye and ear, that it became mingled more and more with their trains of active thought, and tended to absorb their whole being into the energy of sense. Other poets seek for images to illustrate their conceptions; these men had no need to seek; they lived in a world of images; for the most important and extensive portion of their life consisted in those emotions, which are immediately conversant with sensation. Like the hero of Goethe's novel, they would hardly have been affected by what are called the pathetic parts of a book; but the merely beautiful passages, "those from which the spirit of the author looks clearly and mildly forth," would have melted them to tears. Hence they are not descriptive; they are picturesque. They are not smooth and negatively harmonious; they are full of deep and varied melodies. This powerful tendency of imagination to a life of immediate sympathy with the external universe, is not nearly so liable to false views of art as the opposite disposition of purely intellectual [618] contemplation. For where beauty is constantly passing before "that inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude;" where the soul seeks it as a perpetual and necessary refreshment to the sources of activity and intuition; where all the other sacred ideas of our nature, the idea of good, the idea of perfection, the idea of truth, are habitually contemplated through the medium of this predominant mood, so that they assume its colour, and are subject to its peculiar laws – there is little danger that the ruling passion of the whole mind will cease to direct its creative operations, or the energetic principle of love for the beautiful sink, even for a brief period, to the level of a mere notion in the understanding. We do not deny that it is, on other accounts, dangerous for frail humanity to linger with fond attachment in the vicinity of sense. Minds of this description are especially liable to moral temptations, and upon them, more than any, it is incumbent to remember that their mission as men, which they share with all their fellow-beings, is of infinitely higher interest than their mission as artists, which they possess by rare and exclusive privilege. But it is obvious that, critically speaking, such temptations are of slight moment. Not the gross and evident passions of our nature, but the elevated and less separable desires are the dangerous enemies which misguide the poetic spirit in its attempts at self-cultivation. That delicate sense of fitness, which grows with the growth of artist feelings, and strengthens with their strength, until it acquires a celerity and weight of decision hardly inferior to the correspondent judgments of conscience, is weakened by every indulgence of heterogeneous aspirations, however pure they may be, however lofty, however suitable to human nature. We are therefore decidedly of opinion that the heights and depths of art are most within the reach of those who have received from Nature the "fearful and wonderful" constitution we have described, whose poetry is a sort of magic, producing a number of impressions too multiplied, too minute, and too diversified to allow of our tracing them to their causes, because just such was the effect, even so boundless, and so bewildering, produced on their imaginations by the real appearance of Nature. These things being so, our friends of the new school had evidently much reason to recur to the maxim laid down by Mr. Wordsworth, and to appeal from the immediate judgments of lettered or unlettered contemporaries to the decision of a more equitable posterity. How should they be popular, whose senses told them a richer and ampler tale than most men could understand, and who constantly expressed, because they constantiy felt, sentiments of exquisite pleasure or pain, which most men were not permitted to experience? The public very naturally derided them as visionaries, and gibbeted in terrorem those inaccuracies of diction, occasioned sometimes by the speed of their conceptions, sometimes by the inadequacy of language to their peculiar conditions of thought. But, it may be asked, does not this line of argument prove too much? Does it not prove that there is a barrier between these poets and all other persons, so strong and immoveable, that, as has been said of the Supreme Essence, we must be themselves before we can understand them in the least? Not only are they not liable to sudden and vulgar estimation, but the lapse of ages, it seems, will not consolidate their fame, nor the suffrages of the wise few produce any impression, however remote or slowly matured, on the judgments of the incapacitated many. We answer, this is not the import of our argument. Undoubtedly the true poet addresses himself, in all his conceptions, to the common nature of us all. Art is a lofty tree, and may shoot up far beyond our grasp, but its roots are in daily life and experience. Every bosom contains the elements of those complex emotions which the artist feels, and every head can, to a certain extent, go over in itself the process of their combination, so as to understand his expressions and sympathize with his state. But this requires exertion; more or less, indeed, according to the difference of occasion, but always some degree of exertion. For since the emotions of the poet, during composition, follow a regular law of association, it follows that to accompany their progress up to the harmonious prospect of the whole, [619] and to perceive the proper dependence of every step on that which preceded, it is absolutely necessary to start from the same point, i. e., clearly to apprehend that leading sentiment in the poet's mind, by their conformity to wich the host of suggestions are arranged. Now this requisite exertion is not willingly made by the large majority of readers. It is so easy to judge capriciously, and according to indolent impulse! For very many, therefore, it has become morally impossible to attain the author's point of vision, on account of their habits, or their prejudices, or their circumstances; but it is never physically impossible, because nature has placed in every man the simple elements, of which art is the sublimation. Since then this demand on the reader for activity, when he wants to peruse his author in a luxurious passiveness, is the very thing that moves his bile, it is obvious that those writers will be always most popular, who require the least degree of exertion. Hence, whatever is mixed up with art, and appears under its semblance, is always more favourably regarded than art free and unalloyed. Hence, half the fashionable poems in the world are mere rhetoric, and half the remainder are perhaps not liked by the generality for their substantial merits. Hence, likewise, of the really pure compositions those are most universally agreeable, which take for their primary subject the usual passions of the heart, and deal with them in a simple state, without applying the transforming powers of high imagination. Love, friendship, ambition, religion, &c., are matters of daily experience, even amongst imaginative tempers. The forces of association, therefore, are ready to work in these directions, and little effort of will is necessary to follow the artist. For the same reason such subjects often excite a partial power of composition, which is no sign of a truly poetic organization. We are very far from wishing to depreciate this class of poems, whose influence is so extensive, and communicates so refined a pleasure. We contend only that the facility with which its impressions are communicated, is no proof of its elevation as a form of art, but rather the contrary. What then, some may be ready to exclaim, is the pleasure derived by most men from Shakspeare, or Dante, or Homer, entirely false and factitious? If these are really masters of their art, must not the energy required of the ordinary intelligences, that come in contact with their mighty genius, be the greatest possible? How comes it then that they are popular? Shall we not say, after all, that the difference is in the power of the author, not in the tenor of his meditations? Those eminent spirits find no difficulty in conveying to common apprehension their lofty sense, and profound observation of Nature. They keep no aristocratic state, apart from the sentiments of society at large; they speak to the hearts of all, and by the magnetic force of their conceptions elevate inferior intellects into a higher and purer atmosphere. The truth contained in this objection is undoubtedly important; geniuses of the most universal order, and assigned by destiny to the most propitious eras of a nation's literary developement, have a clearer and larger access to the minds of their compatriots, than can ever be open to those who are circumscribed by less fortunate circumstances. In the youthful periods of any literature there is an expansive and communicative tendency in mind, which produces unreservedness of communion, and reciprocity of vigour between different orders of intelligence. Without abandoning the ground which has always been defended by the partizans of Mr. Wordsworth, who declare with perfect truth that the number of real admirers of what is really admirable in Shakspeare and Milton are much fewer than the number of apparent admirers might lead one to imagine, we may safely assert that the intense thoughts set in circulation by those "orbs of song," and their noble satellites, "in great Eliza's golden time," did not fail to awaken a proportionable intensity in the natures of numberless auditors. Some might feel feebly, some strongly; the effect would vary according to the character of the recipient; but upon none was the stirring influence entirely unimpressive. The knowledge and power thus imbibed, became a part of national existence; it was ours as Englishmen; and amid the [620] flux of generations and customs we retain unimpaired this privilege of intercourse with greatness. But the age in which we live comes late in our national progress. That first raciness, and juvenile vigour of literature, when nature "wantoned as in her prime, and played at will her virgin fancies," is gone, never to return. Since that day we have undergone a period of degradation. "Every handicraftsman has worn the mark of Poesy." It would be tedious to repeat the tale, so often related, of French contagion, and the heresies of the Popian school. With the close of the last century came an era of reaction, an era of painful struggle, to bring our overcivilised condition of thought into union with the fresh productive spirit that brightened the morning of our literature. But repentance is unlike innocence: the laborious endeavour to restore has more complicated methods of action, than the freedom of untainted nature. Those different powers of poetic disposition, the energies of Sensitive, * of Reflective, of Passionate Emotion, which in former, times were intermingled, and derived from mutual support an extensive empire over the feelings of men, were now restrained within separate spheres of agency. The whole system no longer worked harmoniously, and by intrinsic harmony acquired external freedom; but there arose a violent and unusual action in the several component functions, each for itself, all striving to reproduce the regular power which the whole had once enjoyed. Hence the melancholy, which so evidently characterises the spirit of modern poetry; hence that return of the mind upon itself, and the habit of seeking relief in idiosyncracies rather than community of interest. In the old times the poetic impulse went along with the general impulse of the nation; in these, it is a reaction against it, a check acting for conservation against a propulsion towards change. We have indeed seen it urged in some of our fasnionable publications, that the diffusion of poetry must necessarily be in the direct ratio of the diffusion of machinery, because a highly civilized people must have new objects of interest, and thus a new field will be opened to description. But this notable argument forgets that against this objective amelioration may be set the decrease of subjective power, arising from a prevalence of social activity, and a continual absorption of the higher feelings into the palpable interests of ordinary life. The French Revolution may be a finer theme than the war of Troy; but it does not so evidently follow that Homer is to find his superior. Our inference, therefore, from this change in the relative position of artists to the rest of the community is, that modern poetry, in proportion to its depth and truth, is likely to have little immediate authority over public opinion. Admirers it will have; sects consequently it will form; and these strong under-currents will in time sensibly affect the principal stream. Those writers, whose genius, though great, is not strictly and essentially poetic, become mediators between the votaries of art and the careless cravers for excitement. Art herself, less manifestly glorious than in her periods of undisputed supremacy, retains her essential prerogatives, and forgets not to raise up chosen spirits, who may minister to her state, and vindicate her title.

One of this faithful Islâm, a poet in the truest and highest sense, we are anxious to present to our readers. He has yet written little, and published less; but in these "preludes of a loftier strain," we recognise the inspiring god. Mr. Tennyson belongs decidedly to the class we have already described as Poets of Sensation. He sees all the forms of nature with the "eruditus [621] oculus and his ear has a fairy fineness. There is a strange earnestness in his worship of beauty, which throws a charm over his impassioned song, more easily felt than described, and not to be escaped by those who have once felt it. We think he has more definiteness, and soundness of general conception, than the late Mr. Keats, and is much more free from blemishes of diction, and hasty capriccios of fancy. He has also this advantage over that poet, and his friend Shelley, that he comes before the public, unconnected with any political party, or peculiar system of opinions. Nevertheless, true to the theory we have stated, we believe his participation in their characteristic excellencies is sufficient to secure him a share in their unpopularity. The volume of "Poems, chiefly Lyrical," does not contain above 154 pages; but it shews us much more of the character of its parent mind, than many books we have known of much larger compass, and more boastful pretensions. The features of original genius are clearly and strongly marked. The author imitates nobody; we recognise the spirit of his age, but not the individual form of this or that writer. His thoughts bear no more resemblance to Byron or Scott, Shelley or Coleridge, than to Homer or Calderon, Ferdusi or Calidas. We have remarked five distinctive excellencies of his own manner. First, his luxuriance of imagination, and at the same time his control over it. Secondly, his power of embodying himself in ideal characters, or rather moods of character, with such extreme accuracy of adjustment, that the circumstances of the narration seem to have a natural correspondence with the predominant feeling, and, as it were, to be evolved from it by assimilative force. Thirdly, his vivid, picturesque delineation of objects, and the peculiar skill with which he holds all of them fused to borrow a metaphor from science, in a medium of strong emotion. Fourthly, the variety of his lyrical measures, and exquisite modulation of harmonious words and cadences to the swell and fall of the feelings expressed. Fifthly, the elevated habits of thought, implied in these compositions, and imparting a mellow soberness of tone, more impressive, to our minds, than if the author had drawn up a set of opinions in verse, and sought to instruct the understanding, rather than to communicate the love of beauty to the heart. We shall proceed to give our readers some specimens in illustration of these remarks, and, if possible, we will give them entire; for no poet can fairly be judged of by fragments, least of all a poet, like Mr. Tennyson, whose mind conceives nothing isolated, nothing abrupt, but every part with reference to some other part, and in subservience to the idea of the whole.

"Recollections of the Arabian Nights!" What a delightful, endearing title! How we pity those to whom it calls up no reminiscence of early enjoyment, no sentiment of kindliness as towards one who sings a song they have loved, or mentions with affection a departed friend! But let nobody expect a multifarious enumeration of Viziers, Barmecides, Fireworshippers, and Cadis; trees that sing, horses that fly, and Goules that eat rice pudding! Our author knows what he is about: he has, with great judgment, selected our old acquaintance, "the good Haroun Alraschid," as the most prominent object of our childish interest, and with him has called up one of those luxurious garden scenes, the account of which, in plain prose, used to make our mouths water for sherbet, since luckily we were too young to think much about Zobeide! We think this poem will be the favourite among Mr. Tennyson's admirers; perhaps upon the whole it is our own; at least we find ourselves recurring to it oftener than to any other, and every time we read it, we feel the freshness of its beauty increase, and are inclined to exclaim with Madame de Sevigné, "à force d'être ancien, il m'est nouveau." But let us draw the curtain.

                           I.
When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flowed back with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer morn
Adown the Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;
   True Mussulman was I and sworn,
   For it was in the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alraschid.

                  [622] II.
Anight my shallop, rustling through
The low and bloomed foliage, drove
The fragrant, listening deeps, and clove
The citron shadows in the blue;
By garden porches on the brim,
The costly doors flung open wide,
Gold glittering thro' lamplight dim,
And broidered sophas on each side:
   In sooth it was a goodly time,
   For it was in the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alraschid.

                         III.
Often, where cear-stemmed platans guard
The outlet, did I turn away
The boathead down a broad canal
From the main river sluiced, where all
The sloping of the moonlit sward
Was damask work, and deep inlay
Of braided blossoms unmown, which crept
Adown to where the waters slept.
   A goodly place, a goodly time,
   For it was in the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alraschid.

                         IV.
A motion from the river won
Ridged the smooth level, bearing on
My shallop thro' the star-strown calm,
Until another night in night
I entered, from the clearer light,
Imbowered vaults of pillared palm,
Imprisoning sweets, which as they clomb
Heavenward, were stayed beneath the dome
   Of hollow boughs.   A goodly time,
   For it was in the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alrachid!

                         V.
Still onward and the clear canal
Is rounded to as clear a lake.
From the green rivage many a fall
Of diamond rillets musical,
Thro' little chrystal arches low,
Down from the central fountain's flow
Fall'n silver-chiming, seemed to shake
The sparkling flints beneath the prow.
   A goodly place, a goodly time,
   For it was in the golden prime,
   Of good Haroun Alraschid!

                        VI.
Above thro' many a bowery turn
A walk with vary-coloured shells
Wandered engrained.   On either side,
All round about the fragrant marge,
From fluted vase and brazen urn
In order, eastern flowers large,
Some dropping low their crimson bells
Half closed, and others studded wide
   With dicks and diars, fed the time
   With odour in the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alraschid!

                       VII.
Far off and where the lemon grove
In closest coverture upsprang,
The living airs of middle night
Died round the Bulbul as be sang:
Not he; but something which possessed
The darkness of the world, delight,
Life, anguish, death, immortal love,
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepressed,
   Apart from place, withholding time,
   But flattering the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alraschid.

                       VIII.
Black-green the garden bowers and grots
Slumbered: the solemn palms were ranged
Above, unwooed of summer wind.
A sudden splendour from behind
Flushed all the leaves with rich gold-green,
And flowing rapidly between
Their interspaces, counterchanged
The level lake with diamond plots
   Of saffron light.   A lovely time,
   For it was in the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alraschid!

                        IX.
Dark blue the deep sphere overhead,
Distinct with vivid stars unrayed,
Grew darker from that underflame;
So leaping lightly from the boat,
With silver anchor left afloat,
In marvel whence that glory came
Upon me, as in sleep I sank
In cool, soft turf upon the bank,
   Entranced with that place and time,
   So worthy of the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alraschid.

                        X.
Thence thro' the garden I was borne;
A realm of pleasance; many a mound
And many a shadow-chequered lawn
Full of the city's stilly sound;
And deep myrrh thickets blowing round
The stately cedar, tamarisks,
Thick rosaries of scented thorn,
Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks
   Graven with emblems of the time,
   In honour of the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alraschid.

                        XI.
With dazēd vision unawares
From the long alley's latticed shade
Emerged, I came upon the great
Pavilion of the Caliphat.
Right to the carven cedarn doors,
Flung inward over spangled floors,
Broad based flights of marble stairs
Ran up with golden balustrade,
   After the fashion of the time,
   And humour of the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alraschid.

                        XII.
The fourscore windows all alight
As with the quintessence of flame,
A million tapers flaring bright
From wreathed silvers looked to shame
[623] The hollow-vaulted dark, and streamed
Upon the moonēd domes aloof
In inmost Bagdat, till there seemed
Hundreds of crescents on the roof
   Of night new-risen, that marvellous time,
   To celebrate the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alraschid.

                        XIII.
Then stole I up, and trancedly
Gazed on the Persian girl alone,
Serene with argent-lidded eyes
Amorous, and lashes like to rays
Of darkness, and a brow of pearl
Tressed with redolent ebony,
In many a dark, delicious curl
Flowing below her rose-hued zone:
   The sweetest lady of the time,
   Well worthy of the golden prime
   Of good Haroun Alraschid.

                        XIV.
Six columns, three on either side,
Pure silver, underpropped a rich
Throne o' the massive ore, from which
Down drooped, in many a floating fold,
Engarlanded and diapered
With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold.
Thereon, his deep eye laughter stirred
With merriment of kingly pride,
   Sole star of all that place and time.
   I saw him       in his golden prime,
   The good Haroun Alraschid!

Criticism will sound but poorly after this; yet we cannot give silent votes. The first stanza, we beg leave to observe, places us at once in the position of feeling, which the poem requires. The scene is before us, around us; we cannot mistake its localities, or blind ourselves to its colours. That happy ductility of childhood returns for the moment; "true Mussulmans are we, and sworn," and yet there is a latent knowledge, which heightens the pleasure, that to our change from really childish thought we owe the capacities by which we enjoy the recollection. As the poem proceeds, all is in perfect keeping. There is a solemn distinctness in every image, a majesty of slow motion in every cadence, that aids the illusion of thought, and steadies its contemplation of the complete picture. Originality of observation seems to cost nothing to our author's liberal genius; he lavishes images of exquisite accuracy and elaborate splendour, as a common writer throws about metaphorical truisms, and exhausted tropes. Amidst all the varied luxuriance of the sensations described, we are never permitted to lose sight of the idea which gives unity to this variety, and by the recurrence of which, as a sort of mysterious influence, at the close of every stanza, the mind is wrought up, with consummate art, to the final disclosure. This poem is a perfect gallery of pictures; and the concise boldness, with which in a few words an object is clearly painted, is sometimes (see the 6th stanza) majestic as Milton, sometimes (see the 12th) sublime as Æschylus. We have not, however, so far forgot our vocation as critics, that we would leave without notice the slight faults which adhere to this precious work. In the 8th stanza, we doubt the propriety of using the bold compound "black-green," at least in such close vicinity to "gold-green:" nor is it perfectly clear by the term, although indicated by the context, that "diamond plots" relates to shape rather than colour. We are perhaps very stupid, but "vivid stars unrayed". does not convey to us a very precise notion. "Rosaries of scented thorn," in the 10th stanza, is, we believe, an entirely unauthorized use of the word. Would our author translate "biferique rosaria Pæsti." – "And rosaries of Pæstum, twice in bloom?" To the beautiful 13th stanza, we are sorry to find any objection: but even the bewitching loveliness of that "Persian girl" shall not prevent our performing the rigid duty we have undertaken, and we must hint to Mr. Tennyson, that "redolent" is no synonyme for "fragrant." Bees may be redolent of honey: spring may be "redolent of youth and love," but the absolute use of the word has, we fear, neither in Latin nor English, any better authority than the monastic epitaph on Fair Rosamond. "Hic jacet in tombâ Rosa Mundi, non Rosa Munda, non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet."

We are disposed to agree with Mr. Coleridge, when he says "no adequate compensation can be made for the mischief a writer does by confounding the distinct senses of words." At the same time our feelings in this instance rebel strongly in behalf of "redolent;" for the melody of the passage, as it stands, is [624] beyond the possibility of improvement, and unless he should chance to light upon a word very nearly resembling this in consonants and vowels, we can hardly quarrel with Mr. Tennyson if, in spite of our judgment, he retains the offender in his service.

Our next specimen is of a totally different character, but not less complete, we think, in its kind. Have we among our readers any who delight in the heroic poems of Old England, the inimitable ballads? Any to whom Sir Patrick Spens, and Clym of the Clough, and Glorious Robin, are consecrated names? Any who sigh with disgust at the miserable abortions of simpleness mistaken for simplicity, or florid weakness substituted for plain energy, which they may often have seen dignified with the title of Modern Ballads? Let such draw near, and read the Ballad of Oriana. We know no more happy seizure of the antique spirit in the whole compass of our literature; yet there is no foolish self desertion, no attempt at obliterating the present, but every where a full discrimination of how much ought to be yielded, and how much retained. The author is well aware that the art of one generation cannot become that of another by any will or skill: but the artist may transfer the spirit of the past, making it a temporary form for his own spirit, and so effect, by idealizing power, a new and legitimate combination. If we were asked to name among the real antiques that which bears greatest resemblance to this gem, we should refer to the ballad of "Fair Helen of Kirconnel Lea" in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." It is a resemblance of mood, not of execution. They are both highly wrought lyrical expressions of pathos; and it is very remarkable with what intuitive art, every expression and cadence in "Fair Helen" is accorded to the main feeling. The characters that distinguish the language of our lyrical, from that of our epic ballads, have never yet been examined with the accuracy they deserve. But, beyond question, the class of poems, which, in point of harmonious combination, Oriana most resembles, is the Italian. Just thus the meditative tenderness of Dante and Petrarch is embodied in the clear, searching tones of Tuscan song. These mighty masters produce two-thirds of their effect by sound. Not that they sacrifice sense to sound, but that sound conveys their meaning, where words would not. There are innumerable shades of fine emotion in the human heart, especially when the senses are keen and vigilant, which are too subtle and too rapid to admit of corresponding phrases. The understanding takes no definite note of them; how then can they leave signatures in language? Yet they exist; in plenitude of being and beauty they exist; and in music they find a medium through which they pass from heart to heart. The tone becomes the sign of the feeling; and they reciprocally suggest each other. Analogous to this suggestive power, may be reckoned, perhaps, in a sister art, the effects of Venetian colouring. Titian explains by tints, as Petrarch by tones. Words would not have done the business of the one, nor any groupings, or narration by form, that of the other. But, shame upon us! we are going back to our metaphysics, when that "sweet, meek face" is waiting to be admitted.

                        I.
My heart is wasted with my woe,
            Oriana.
There is no rest for me below,
            Oriana.
When the long dun wolds are ribbed with snow,
And loud the Norland whirlwinds blow,
            Oriana,
Alone I wander to and fro,
            Oriana.

                        II.
Ere the light on dark was growing,
            Oriana,
At midnight the cock was crowing,
            Oriana:
Winds were blowing, waters flowing,
We heard the steeds to battle going,
            Oriana:
Aloud the hollow bugle blowing
            Oriana.

                       III.
In the yew-wood black as night,
            Oriana,
Ere I rode into the fight,
            Oriana,
[625] While blissful tears blinded my sight,
By starshine and by moonlight,
            Oriana,
I to thee my troth did plight,
            Oriana.

                        IV.
She stood upon the castle wall,
            Oriana:
She watched my crest among them all,
            Oriana:
She saw me fight, she heard me call,
When forth there stepped a foeman tall,
            Oriana,
Atween me and the castle wall,
            Oriana.

                        V.
The bitter arrow went aside,
            Oriana:
The false, false arrow went aside,
            Oriana:
The damn'd arrow glanced aside,
And pierced thy heart, my love, my bride,
            Oriana!
Thy heart, my life, my love, my bride,
            Oriana!

                        VI.
Oh narrow, narrow was the space,
            Oriana.
Loud, loud rang out the bugle's brays,
            Oriana.
Oh, deathful stabs were dealt apace;
The battle deepened in its place,
            Oriana;
But I was down upon my face,
            Oriana.

                       VII.
They should have stabbed me where I lay,
            Oriana!
How could I rise and come away,
            Oriana!
How could I look upon the day?
They should have stabbed me where I lay,
            Oriana;
They should have trod me into clay,
            Oriana!

                      VIII.
Oh breaking heart that will not break,
            Oriana;
Oh pale, pale face so sweet and meek,
            Oriana;
Thou smilest, but thou dost not speak,
And then the tears run down thy cheek,
            Oriana;
Whom wantest thou? whom dost thou seek,
            Oriana?

                      IX.
I cry aloud: none hears my cries,
            Oriana.
Thou com'st atween me and the skies,
            Oriana.
I feel the tears of blood arise
Up from my heart unto my eyes,
            Oriana.
Within thy heart my arrow lies,
            Oriana.

                      X.
Oh cursed hand! oh cursed blow!
            Oriana!
Oh happy thou that liest low,
            Oriana!
All night the silence seems to flow
Beside me in my utter woe,
            Oriana.
A weary, weary way I go,
            Oriana.

                      XI.
When Norland winds pipe down the lea,
            Oriana,
I walk, I dare not think of thee,
            Oriana.
Thou liest beneath the greenwood tree;
I dare not die, and come to thee,
            Oriana –
I hear the roaring of the sea,
            Oriana.

We have heard it objected to this poem, that the name occurs once too often in every stanza. We have taken the plea into our judicial consideration, and the result is, that we overrule it, and pronounce that the proportion of the melodious cadences to the pathetic parts of the narration, could not be diminished without materially affecting the rich lyrical impression of the ballad. For what is the author's intention? To gratify our curiosity with a strange adventure? To shake our nerves with a painful story? Very far from it. Tears indeed may "blind our sight," as we read; but they are "blissful tears:" the strong musical delight prevails over every painful feeling, and mingles them all in its deep swell, until they attain a composure of exalted sorrow, a mood in which the latest repose of agitation becomes visible, and the influence of beauty spreads like light, over the surface of the mind. The last line, with its dreamy wildness, reveals the design of the whole. It is transferred, if we mistake not, from an old ballad, (a freedom of immemorial usage with ballad mongers, as [626] our readers doubtles know,) but the merit lies in the abrupt application of it to the leading sentiment, so as to flash upon us in a few little words a world of meaning, and to consecrate the passion that was beyond cure or hope, by resigning it to the accordance of inanimate Nature, who, like man, has her tempests, and occasions of horror, but august in their largeness of operation, awful by their dependence on a fixed and perpetual necessity.

We must give one more extract, and we are almost tempted to choose by lot among many that crowd on our recollection, and solicit our preference with such witchery, as it is not easy to withstand. The poems towards the middle of the volume seem to have been written at an earlier period than the rest. They display more unrestrained fancy, and are less evidently proportioned to their ruling ideas, than those which we think of later date. Yet in the Ode to Memory – the only one which we have the poet's authority for referring to early life – there is a majesty of expression, united to a truth of thought, which almost confounds our preconceived distinctions. The "Confessions of a second-rate, Sensitive Mind," are full of deep insight into human nature, and into those particular trials, which are sure to beset men who think and feel for themselves at this epoch of social developement. The title is perhaps ill chosen: not only has it an appearance of quaintness, which has no sufficient reason, but it seems to us incorrect. The mood pourtrayed in this poem, unless the admirable skill of delineation has deceived us, is rather the clouded season of a strong mind, than the habitual condition of one feeble and "second-rate." Ordinary tempers build up fortresses of opinion on one side or another; they will see only what they choose to see; the distant glimpse of such an agony as is here brought out to view, is sufficient to keep them for ever in illusions, voluntarily raised at first, but soon trusted in with full reliance as inseparable parts of self. Perhaps, however, Mr. Tennyson's mode of "rating" is different from ours. He may esteem none worthy of the first order, who has not attained a complete universality of thought, and such trustful reliance on a principle of repose, which lies beyond the war of conflicting opinions, that the grand ideas, "qui planent sans cesse <au> dessus de l'humanité," cease to affect him with bewildering impulses of hope and fear. We have not space to enter farther into this topic; but we should not despair of convincing Mr. Tennyson, that such a position of intellect would not be the most elevated, nor even the most conducive to perfection of art. The "How and the Why" appears to present the reverse of the same picture. It is the same mind still; the sensitive sceptic, whom we have looked upon in his hour of distress, now scoffing at his own state with an earnest mirth that borders on sorrow. It is exquisitely beautiful to see in this, as in the former portrait, how the feeling of art is kept ascendant in our minds over distressful realities, by constant reference to images of tranquil beauty, whether touched pathetically, as the Ox and the Lamb in the first piece, or with fine humour, as the "great bird" and "little bird" in the second. The "Sea Fairies" is another strange title; but those who turn to it with the very natural curiosity of discovering who these new births of mythology may be, will be unpardonable if they do not linger over it with higher feelings. A stretch of lyrical power is here exhibited, which we did not think the English language had possessed. The proud swell of verse, as the harp tones "run up the ridged sea," and the soft and melancholy lapse, as the sounds die along the widening space of waters, are instances of that right imitation which is becoming to art, but which in the hands of the unskilful, or the affecters of easy popularity, is often converted into a degrading mimicry, detrimental to the best interests of the imagination. A considerable portion of this book is taken up with a very singular, and very beautiful class of poems, on which the author has evidently bestowed much thought and elaboration. We allude to the female characters, every trait of which presumes an uncommon degree of observation and reflection. Mr. Tennyson's way of proceeding seems to be this. He collects the most striking phenomena of individual minds, [627] until he arrives at some leading fact, which allows him to lay down an axiom, or law, and then, working on the law thus attained, he clearly discerns the tendency of what new particulars his invention suggests, and is enabled to impress an individual freshness and unity on ideal combinations. These expressions of character are brief and coherent: nothing extraneous to the dominant fact is admitted, nothing illustrative of it, and, as it were, growing out of it, is rejected. They are like summaries of mighty dramas. We do not say this method admits of such large luxuriance of power, as that of our real dramatists; but we contend that it is a new species of poetry, a graft of the lyric on the dramatic, and Mr. Tennyson deserves the laurel of an inventor, an enlarger of our modes of knowledge and power. We must hasten to make our election; so, passing by the "airy, fairy Lilian," who "clasps her hands" in vain to retain us; the "stately flower" of matronly fortitude, "revered Isabel;" Madeline, with her voluptuous alternation of smile and frown; Mariana, last, but oh not least – we swear by the memory of Shakspeare, to whom a monument of observant love has here been raised by simply expanding all the latent meanings and beauties contained in one stray thought of his genius – we shall fix on a lovely, albeit somewhat mysterious lady, who has fairly taken our "heart from out our breast."

         ADELINE.

Mystery of mysteries,
Faintly smiling Adeline,
Scarce of earth, nor all divine,
Nor unhappy, nor at rest;
But beyond expression fair,
With thy floating flaxen hair,
Thy rose lips and full blue eyes
Take the heart from out my breast:
Wherefore those dim looks of thine,
Shadowy, dreaming Adeline?
Whence that aery bloom of thine.
Like a lily which the sun
Looks through in his sad decline,
And a rose bush leans upon,
Thou that faintly smilest still,
As a Naiad in a well,
Looking at the set of day,
Or a phantom, two hours old,
Of a maiden past away,
Ere the placid lips be cold?
Wherefore those faint smiles of thine,
Spiritual Adeline?
What hope or fear or joy is thine?
Who talketh with thee, Adeline,
For sure thou art not all alone!
Do beating hearts of salient springs
Keep measure with thine own?
Hast thou heard the butterflies,
What they say betwixt their wings?
Or in stillest evenings
With what voice the violet woos
To his heart the silver dews?
Or when little airs arise,
How the merry bluebell rings
To the mosses underneath?
Hast thou looked upon the breath
Of the lilies at sunrise?
Wherefore that faint smile of thine,
Shadowy dreaming Adeline?
Some honey-converse feeds thy mind;
Some spirit of a crimson rose
In love with thee forgets to close
His curtains, wasting odorous sighs
All night long on darkness blind.
What aileth thee? whom waitest thou
With thy softened, shadowed brow,
And those dewlit eyes of thine,
Thou faint smiler, Adeline?
Lovest thou the doleful wind,
When thou gazest at the skies?
Doth the lowtongued Orient
Wander from the side o' the morn
Dripping with Sabæan spice
On thy pillow, lowly bent
With melodious airs lovelorn,
Breathing light against thy face,
While his locks a dropping twined
Round thy neck in subtle ring
Make a carcanet of rays,
And we talk together still
In the language, wherewith Spring
Letters cowslips on the hill?
Hence that look and smile of thine,
Spiritual Adeline.

Is not this beautiful? When this Poet dies, will not the Graces and the Loves mourn over him, "fortunatâque favillâ nascentur violæ?" How original is the imagery, and how delicate! How wonderful the new world thus created for us, the region between real and unreal! The gardens of Armida were but poorly musical compared with the roses and lilies that bloom around thee, thou faint smiler, Adeline, on whom the glory of imagination reposes, endow[628]ing all thou lookest on with sudden and mysterious life. We could expatiate on the deep meaning of this poem, but it is time to twitch our critical mantles; and, as our trade is not that of mere enthusiasm, we shall take our leave with an objection (perhaps a cavil) to the language of cowslips, which we think too ambiguously spoken of for a subject on which nobody, except Mr. Tennyson, can have any information. The "ringing bluebell" too, if it be not a pun, suggests one, and might probably be altered to advantage.

One word more, before we have done, and it shall be a word of praise. The language of this book, with one or two rare exceptions, is thorough and sterling English. A little more respect, perhaps, was due to the "jus et norma loquendi," but we are inclined to consider as venial a fault arising from generous enthusiasm for the principles of sound analogy, and for that Saxon element, which constitutes the intrinsic freedom and nervousness of our native tongue. We see no signs in what Mr. Tennyson has written of the Quixotic spirit which has led some persons to desire the reduction of English to a single form, by excluding nearly the whole of Latin and Roman derivatives. Ours is necessarily a compound language; as such alone it can flourish and increase; nor will the author of the poems we have extracted be likely to barter for a barren appearance of symmetrical structure that fertility of expression, and variety of harmony, which "the speech that Shakspeare spoke," derived from the sources of southern phraseology.

In presenting this young poet to the public, as one not studious of instant popularity, nor likely to obtain it, we may be thought to play the part of a fashionable lady, who deludes her refractory mate into doing what she chooses by pretending to wish the exact contrary; or of a cunning pedagogue who practises a similar manœuvre on some self-willed Flibbertigibbet of the schoolroom. But the supposition would do us wrong. We have spoken in good faith, commending this volume to feeling hearts and imaginative tempers, not to the stupid readers, or the voracious readers, or the malignant readers, or the readers after dinner! We confess, indeed, we never knew an instance in which the theoretical abjurers of popularity have shewn themselves very reluctant to admit its actual advances; so much virtue is not, perhaps, in human nature; and if the world should take a fancy to buy up these poems, in order to be revenged on the ENGLISHMAN'S MAGAZINE, who knows whether even we might not disappoint its malice by a cheerful adaptation of our theory to "existing circumstances?"

 

 

[Die Anmerkungen stehen als Fußnoten auf den in eckigen Klammern bezeichneten Seiten]

[617] * This cant term was justly ridiculed by Mr. Wordsworth's supporters; but it was not so easy to substitute an inoffensive denomination. We are not at all events the first who have used it without a contemptuous intention, for we remember to have heard a disciple quote Aristophanes in its behalf. 'Οὗτος ὀυ τῶν ἠθάδον τῶνδ' ὦν ὁρᾶθ' ὑμεἷσ ἀεὶ ἀλλὰ ΛΙΜΝΑΙΟΣ    "This is no common, no barn-door fowl: No, but a Lakist!   zurück

[620] * We are aware that this is not the right word, being appropriated by common use to a diferent signification. Those who think the caution given by Cæsar should not stand in the way of urgent occasion, may substitute "sensuous," a word in use amongst our elder divines, and revived by a few bold writers in our own time.   zurück

[620] May we not compare them to the bright, but unsubstantial clouds which, in still evenings, girdle the sides of lofty mountains, and seem to form a natural connexion between the lowly vallies, spread out beneath, and those isolated peaks above, that hold the "last parley with the setting sun?"   zurück

 

 

 

 

Erstdruck und Druckvorlage

The Englishman's Magazine.
1831, August, S. 616-628.

Ungezeichnet.

Die Textwiedergabe erfolgt nach dem ersten Druck (Editionsrichtlinien).


The Englishman's Magazine   online
PURL: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hwp8ba
URL: https://archive.org/details/englishmansmaga00unkngoog
URL: https://books.google.de/books?id=MdsEAAAAQAAJ

 

 

Zeitschriften-Repertorium

 

Moderne Ausgaben

 

 

 

Werkverzeichnis

Hallam, Arthur Henry: On some of the Characteristics of Modern Poetry.
In: The Englishman's Magazine.
1831, August, S. 616-628.
PURL: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hwp8ba
URL: https://archive.org/details/englishmansmaga00unkngoog
URL: https://books.google.de/books?id=MdsEAAAAQAAJ

Hallam, Arthur Henry: Remains in Verse and Prose.
London: Murray 1862
[zuerst: Privatdruck 1834].
URL: https://archive.org/details/remainsinversea02lushgoog
PURL: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nnc1.0114307634   [1863]


Hallam, Arthur Henry: The Poems of Arthur Henry Hallam.
Together with His Essay on the Lyrical Poems of Alfred Tennyson.
Hrsg. von Richard Le Gallienne.
London: Elkin Mathews & John Lane u.a. 1893.
URL: https://archive.org/details/poemsarthurhenr00hallgoog
PURL: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiuo.ark:/13960/t59d4g158

Hallam, Arthur Henry: The Writings.
Hrsg. von T. H. Vail Motter.
New York u.a.: Modern Language Association of America 1943.

Hallam, Arthur Henry: The Letters.
Hrsg. von Jack Kolb.
Columbus: Ohio State University Press 1981.
URL: https://ohiostatepress.org/books/openaccess.html

 

 

 

Literatur: Hallam

Armstrong, Isobel: Victorian Poetry. Poetry, poetics and politics. London u.a. 2003.
Vgl. bes. S. 60-67.

Blocksidge, Martin: "In the Absence of a Modern Edition": The History of the Arthur Hallam Canon. In: Tennyson Research Bulletin 9 (2011), S. 409-421.

Bristow, Joseph: Reforming Victorian poetry: poetics after 1832. In: The Cambridge Companion to Victorian Poetry. Hrsg. von Joseph Bristow. Cambridge u.a. 2000, S. 1-24.

Christ, Carol T.: Victorian Poetics. In: A Companion to Victorian Poetry. Hrsg. von Richard Cronin u.a. Malden, MA 2002, S. 1-21.

Dawson, Clara: Victorian Poetry and the Culture of Evaluation. Oxford 2020.

Ebbatson, Roger: "Impassioned Song": Arthur Hallam and the Crisis in Lyric Poetry. In: Tennyson Research Bulletin 9 (2011), S. 445-453.

Hansen, Michael: Arthur Hallam's "Characteristics" and Pleasure's Moral Sense. In: Modern Philology. Critical and Historical Studies in Literature, Medieval Through Contemporary 114 (2017), S. 899-921.

Helsinger, Elizabeth K.: Poetry and the Thought of Song in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Charlottesville u. London 2015.

Leighton, Angela: On Form. Poetry, Aestheticism, and the Legacy of a Word. Oxford 2007.
Vgl. S. 57-58.

Mazzeno, Laurence W.: Alfred Tennyson: The Critical Legacy. Rochester, NY u.a. 2004.

McDonald, Peter: Sound Intentions. The Workings of Rhyme in Nineteenth-Century Poetry. Oxford u.a. 2012.

Shattock, Joanne: Reviewing. In: A Companion to Victorian Poetry. Hrsg. von Richard Cronin u.a. Malden, MA 2002, S. 378-391.

 

 

Literatur: The Englishman's Magazine

Brake, Laurel / Demoor, Marysa (Hrsg.): Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland. Gent u. London 2009, S. 205.

King, Andrew u.a. (Hrsg.): The Routledge Handbook to Nineteenth-Century British Periodicals and Newspapers. London u. New York 2019.

Kathryn, Kathryn: Tennyson and Victorian Periodicals. Commodities in Context. Aldershot 2007.

Prance, Claude A.: The Englishman's Magazine. In: Charles Lamb Bulletin. The Lamb Society Journal 37 (1982, Jan.), S. 98-101.

 

 

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Lyriktheorie » R. Brandmeyer