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Of that +transfigured world this new poetry takes possession, and sublimates +beyond it another still fainter and more spectral, which is literally +an artificial or "earthly paradise." It is a finer ideal, extracted +from what in relation to any actual world is already an ideal. Like +some strange second flowering after date, it renews on a more +delicate type the poetry of a past age, but must not be confounded +with it. The secret of the enjoyment of it is that inversion of +home-sickness known to some, that incurable thirst for the sense of +escape, which no actual form of life [214] satisfies, no poetry even, +if it be merely simple and spontaneous. + +The writings of the "romantic school," of which the aesthetic poetry +is an afterthought, mark a transition not so much from the pagan to +the medieval ideal, as from a lower to a higher degree of passion in +literature. The end of the eighteenth century, swept by vast +disturbing currents, experienced an excitement of spirit of which one +note was a reaction against an outworn classicism severed not more +from nature than from the genuine motives of ancient art; and a +return to true Hellenism was as much a part of this reaction as the +sudden preoccupation with things medieval. The medieval tendency is +in Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen, the Hellenic in his Iphigenie. +At first this medievalism was superficial, or at least external. +Adventure, romance in the frankest sense, grotesque individualism-- +that is one element in medieval poetry, and with it alone Scott and +Goethe dealt. Beyond them were the two other elements of the +medieval spirit: its mystic religion at its apex in Dante and Saint +Louis, and its mystic passion, passing here and there into the great +romantic loves of rebellious flesh, of Lancelot and Abelard. That +stricter, imaginative medievalism which re-creates the mind of the +Middle Age, so that the form, the presentment grows outward [215] +from within, came later with Victor Hugo in France, with Heine in +Germany. + +In the Defence of Guenevere: and Other Poems, published by Mr. +William Morris now many years ago, the first typical specimen of +aesthetic poetry, we have a refinement upon this later, profounder +medievalism. The poem which gives its name to the volume is a thing +tormented and awry with passion, like the body of Guenevere defending +herself from the charge of adultery, and the accent falls in strange, +unwonted places with the effect of a great cry. In truth these +Arthurian legends, in their origin prior to Christianity, yield all +their sweetness only in a Christian atmosphere. What is +characteristic in them is the strange suggestion of a deliberate +choice between Christ and a rival lover. That religion, monastic +religion at any rate, has its sensuous side, a dangerously sensuous +side, has been often seen: it is the experience of Rousseau as well +as of the Christian mystics. The Christianity of the Middle Age made +way among a people whose loss was in the life of the senses partly by +its aesthetic beauty, a thing so profoundly felt by the Latin hymn- +writers, who for one moral or spiritual sentiment have a hundred +sensuous images. And so in those imaginative loves, in their highest +expression, the Provencal poetry, it is a rival religion with a [216] +new rival cultus that we see. Coloured through and through with +Christian sentiment, they are rebels against it. The rejection of +one worship for another is never lost sight of. The jealousy of that +other lover, for whom these words and images and refined ways of +sentiment were first devised, is the secret here of a borrowed, +perhaps factitious colour and heat. It is the mood of the cloister +taking a new direction, and winning so a later space of life it never +anticipated. + +Hereon, as before in the cloister, so now in the chateau, the reign +of reverie set in. The devotion of the cloister knew that mood +thoroughly, and had sounded all its stops. For the object of this +devotion was absent or veiled, not limited to one supreme plastic +form like Zeus at Olympia or Athena in the Acropolis, but distracted, +as in a fever dream, into a thousand symbols and reflections. But +then, the Church, that new Sibyl, had a thousand secrets to make the +absent near. Into this kingdom of reverie, and with it into a +paradise of ambitious refinements, the earthly love enters, and +becomes a prolonged somnambulism. Of religion it learns the art of +directing towards an unseen object sentiments whose natural direction +is towards objects of sense. Hence a love defined by the absence of +the beloved, choosing to be without hope, protesting [217] against +all lower uses of love, barren, extravagant, antinomian. It is the +love which is incompatible with marriage, for the chevalier who never +comes, of the serf for the chatelaine, of the rose for the +nightingale, of Rudel for the Lady of Tripoli. Another element of +extravagance came in with the feudal spirit: Provencal love is full +of the very forms of vassalage. To be the servant of love, to have +offended, to taste the subtle luxury of chastisement, of +reconciliation--the religious spirit, too, knows that, and meets just +there, as in Rousseau, the delicacies of the earthly love. Here, +under this strange complex of conditions, as in some medicated air, +exotic flowers of sentiment expand, among people of a remote and +unaccustomed beauty, somnambulistic, frail, androgynous, the light +almost shining through them. Surely, such loves were too fragile and +adventurous to last more than for a moment. + +That monastic religion of the Middle Age was, in fact, in many of its +bearings, like a beautiful disease or disorder of the senses: and a +religion which is a disorder of the senses must always be subject to +illusions. Reverie, illusion, delirium: they are the three stages of +a fatal descent both in the religion and the loves of the Middle Age. +Nowhere has the impression of this delirium been conveyed as by +Victor Hugo in Notre Dame de Paris. The [218] strangest creations of +sleep seem here, by some appalling licence, to cross the limit of the +dawn. The English poet too has learned the secret. He has diffused +through King Arthur's Tomb the maddening white glare of the sun, and +tyranny of the moon, not tender and far-off, but close down--the +sorcerer's moon, large and feverish. The colouring is intricate and +delirious, as of "scarlet lilies." The influence of summer is like a +poison in one's blood, with a sudden bewildered sickening of life and +all things. In Galahad: a Mystery, the frost of Christmas night on +the chapel stones acts as a strong narcotic: a sudden shrill ringing +pierces through the numbness: a voice proclaims that the Grail has +gone forth through the great forest. It is in the Blue Closet that +this delirium reaches its height with a singular beauty, reserved +perhaps for the enjoyment of the few. + +A passion of which the outlets are sealed, begets a tension of nerve, +in which the sensible world comes to one with a reinforced brilliancy +and relief--all redness is turned into blood, all water into tears. +Hence a wild, convulsed sensuousness in the poetry of the Middle Age, +in which the things of nature begin to play a strange delirious part. +Of the things of nature the medieval mind had a deep sense; but its +sense of them was not objective, no real escape [219] to the world +without us. The aspects and motions of nature only reinforced its +prevailing mood, and were in conspiracy with one's own brain against +one. A single sentiment invaded the world: everything was infused +with a motive drawn from the soul. The amorous poetry of Provence, +making the starling and the swallow its messengers, illustrates the +whole attitude of nature in this electric atmosphere, bent as by +miracle or magic to the service of human passion. + +The most popular and gracious form of Provencal poetry was the +nocturn, sung by the lover at night at the door or under the window +of his mistress. These songs were of different kinds, according to +the hour at which they were intended to be sung. Some were to be +sung at midnight--songs inviting to sleep, the serena, or serenade; +others at break of day--waking songs, the aube or aubade.* This +waking-song is put sometimes into the mouth of a comrade of the +lover, who plays sentinel during the night, to watch for and announce +the dawn: sometimes into the mouth of one of the lovers, who are +about to separate. A modification of it is familiar to us all in +Romeo and Juliet, where the lovers debate whether the song they hear +is of the nightingale or the lark; the aubade, with the two other +great forms of love-poetry then floating in the world, the sonnet and +the [220] epithalamium, being here refined, heightened, and inwoven +into the structure of the play. Those, in whom what Rousseau calls +les frayeurs nocturnes are constitutional, know what splendour they +give to the things of the morning; and how there comes something of +relief from physical pain with the first white film in the sky. The +Middle Age knew those terrors in all their forms; and these songs of +the morning win hence a strange tenderness and effect. The crown of +the English poet's book is one of these appreciations of the dawn:-- + + "Pray but one prayer for me 'twixt thy closed lips, + Think but one thought of me up in the stars, + The summer-night waneth, the morning light slips, + Faint and gray 'twixt the leaves of the aspen, + betwixt the cloud-bars, + That are patiently waiting there for the dawn: + Patient and colourless, though Heaven's gold + Waits to float through them along with the sun. + Far out in the meadows, above the young corn, + The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold + The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun; + Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn, + Round the lone house in the midst of the corn. + Speak but one word to me over the corn, + Over the tender, bow'd locks of the corn." + +It is the very soul of the bridegroom which goes forth to the bride: +inanimate things are longing with him: all the sweetness of the +imaginative loves [221] of the Middle Age, with a superadded +spirituality of touch all its own, is in that! + +The Defence of Guenevere was published in 1858; the Life and Death of +Jason in 1867; to be followed by The Earthly Paradise; and the change +of manner wrought in the interval, entire, almost a revolt, is +characteristic of the aesthetic poetry. Here there is no delirium or +illusion, no experiences of mere soul while the body and the bodily +senses sleep, or wake with convulsed intensity at the prompting of +imaginative love; but rather the great primary passions under broad +daylight as of the pagan Veronese. This simplification interests us, +not merely for the sake of an individual poet--full of charm as he +is--but chiefly because it explains through him a transition which, +under many forms, is one law of the life of the human spirit, and of +which what we call the Renaissance is only a supreme instance. Just +so the monk in his cloister, through the "open vision," open only to +the spirit, divined, aspired to, and at last apprehended, a better +daylight, but earthly, open only to the senses. Complex and subtle +interests, which the mind spins for itself may occupy art and poetry +or our own spirits for a time; but sooner or later they come back +with a sharp rebound to the simple elementary passions--anger, +desire, regret, [222] pity, and fear: and what corresponds to them in +the sensuous world--bare, abstract fire, water, air, tears, sleep, +silence, and what De Quincey has called the "glory of motion." + +This reaction from dreamlight to daylight gives, as always happens, a +strange power in dealing with morning and the things of the morning. +Not less is this Hellenist of the Middle Age master of dreams, of +sleep and the desire of sleep--sleep in which no one walks, restorer +of childhood to men--dreams, not like Galahad's or Guenevere's, but +full of happy, childish wonder as in the earlier world. It is a +world in which the centaur and the ram with the fleece of gold are +conceivable. The song sung always claims to be sung for the first +time. There are hints at a language common to birds and beasts and +men. Everywhere there is an impression of surprise, as of people +first waking from the golden age, at fire, snow, wine, the touch of +water as one swims, the salt taste of the sea. And this simplicity +at first hand is a strange contrast to the sought-out simplicity of +Wordsworth. Desire here is towards the body of nature for its own +sake, not because a soul is divined through it. + +And yet it is one of the charming anachronisms of a poet, who, while +he handles an ancient subject, never becomes an antiquarian, but +animates his [223] subject by keeping it always close to himself, +that betweenwhiles we have a sense of English scenery as from an eye +well practised under Wordsworth's influence, as from "the casement +half opened on summer-nights," with the song of the brown bird among +the willows, the + + "Noise of bells, such as in moonlit lanes + Rings from the grey team on the market night." + +Nowhere but in England is there such a "paradise of birds," the fern- +owl, the water-hen, the thrush in a hundred sweet variations, the +ger-falcon, the kestrel, the starling, the pea-fowl; birds heard from +the field by the townsman down in the streets at dawn; doves +everywhere, pink-footed, grey-winged, flitting about the temple, +troubled by the temple incense, trapped in the snow. The sea-touches +are not less sharp and firm, surest of effect in places where river +and sea, salt and fresh waves, conflict. + +In handling a subject of Greek legend, anything in the way of an +actual revival must always be impossible. Such vain antiquarianism +in a waste of the poet's power. The composite experience of all the +ages is part of each one of us: to deduct from that experience, to +obliterate any part of it, to come face to face with the people of a +past age, as if the Middle Age, the Renaissance, the eighteenth +century had not been, is as impossible as to become a little [224] +child, or enter again into the womb and be born. But though it is +not possible to repress a single phase of that humanity, which, +because we live and move and have our being in the life of humanity, +makes us what we are, it is possible to isolate such a phase, to +throw it into relief, to be divided against ourselves in zeal for it; +as we may hark back to some choice space of our own individual life. +We cannot truly conceive the age: we can conceive the element it has +contributed to our culture: we can treat the subjects of the age +bringing that into relief. Such an attitude towards Greece, aspiring +to but never actually reaching its way of conceiving life, is what is +possible for art. + +The modern poet or artist who treats in this way a classical story +comes very near, if not to the Hellenism of Homer, yet to the +Hellenism of Chaucer, the Hellenism of the Middle Age, or rather of +that exquisite first period of the Renaissance within it. Afterwards +the Renaissance takes its side, becomes, perhaps, exaggerated or +facile. But the choice life of the human spirit is always under +mixed lights, and in mixed situations, when it is not too sure of +itself, is still expectant, girt up to leap forward to the promise. +Such a situation there was in that earliest return from the +overwrought spiritualities of the Middle Age to the earlier, more +ancient life of the senses; and for us the most attractive form of +[225] classical story is the monk's conception of it, when he escapes +from the sombre atmosphere of his cloister to natural light. The +fruits of this mood, which, divining more than it understands, +infuses into the scenery and figures of Christian history some subtle +reminiscence of older gods, or into the story of Cupid and Psyche +that passionate stress of spirit which the world owes to +Christianity, constitute a peculiar vein of interest in the art of +the fifteenth century. + +And so, before we leave Jason and The Earthly Paradise, a word must +be said about their medievalisms, delicate inconsistencies, which, +coming in a poem of Greek subject, bring into this white dawn +thoughts of the delirious night just over and make one's sense of +relief deeper. The opening of the fourth book of Jason describes the +embarkation of the Argonauts: as in a dream, the scene shifts and we +go down from Iolchos to the sea through a pageant of the Middle Age +in some French or Italian town. The gilded vanes on the spires, the +bells ringing in the towers, the trellis of roses at the window, the +close planted with apple-trees, the grotesque undercroft with its +close-set pillars, change by a single touch the air of these Greek +cities and we are at Glastonbury by the tomb of Arthur. The nymph in +furred raiment who seduces Hylas is conceived frankly in the spirit +of Teutonic romance; her song is of a garden [226] enclosed, such as +that with which the old church glass-stainer surrounds the mystic +bride of the song of songs. Medea herself has a hundred touches of +the medieval sorceress, the sorceress of the Streckelberg or the +Blocksberg: her mystic changes are Christabel's. It is precisely +this effect, this grace of Hellenism relieved against the sorrow of +the Middle Age, which forms the chief motives of The Earthly +Paradise: with an exquisite dexterity the two threads of sentiment +are here interwoven and contrasted. A band of adventurers sets out +from Norway, most northerly of northern lands, where the plague is +raging--the bell continually ringing as they carry the Sacrament to +the sick. Even in Mr. Morris's earliest poems snatches of the sweet +French tongue had always come with something of Hellenic blitheness +and grace. And now it is below the very coast of France, through the +fleet of Edward the Third, among the gaily painted medieval sails, +that we pass to a reserved fragment of Greece, which by some divine +good fortune lingers on in the western sea into the Middle Age. +There the stories of The Earthly Paradise are told, Greek story and +romantic alternating; and for the crew of the Rose Garland, coming +across the sins of the earlier world with the sign of the cross, and +drinking Rhine-wine in Greece, the two worlds of sentiment are +confronted. + +[227] One characteristic of the pagan spirit the aesthetic poetry +has, which is on its surface--the continual suggestion, pensive or +passionate, of the shortness of life. This is contrasted with the +bloom of the world, and gives new seduction to it--the sense of death +and the desire of beauty: the desire of beauty quickened by the sense +of death. But that complexion of sentiment is at its height in +another "aesthetic" poet of whom I have to speak next, Dante Gabriel +Rossetti. + +1868. + +NOTES + +213. +This essay appeared only in the 1889 edition of Appreciations. + +219. *Fauriel's Histoire de la Poesie Provencale, tome ii. ch. xviii. + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Aesthetic Poetry, by Walter Pater + diff --git a/old/sthpt10.zip b/old/sthpt10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2777672 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/sthpt10.zip |