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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c47d92a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #69468 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69468) diff --git a/old/69468-0.txt b/old/69468-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9c88699..0000000 --- a/old/69468-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5356 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Shakespeare's treatment of love and -marriage and other essays, by Charles Harold Herford - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Shakespeare's treatment of love and marriage and other essays - -Author: Charles Harold Herford - -Release Date: December 4, 2022 [eBook #69468] - -Language: English - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, Turgut Dincer, Eleni Christofaki and the - Online Distributed Proofreading Team at - https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKESPEARE'S TREATMENT OF -LOVE AND MARRIAGE AND OTHER ESSAYS *** - - - - - -Transcriber’s note - -Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained. Minor punctuation -inconsistencies have been silently repaired. A list of the corrections -made can be found at the end of the book. Formatting and special -characters are indicated as follows: - -_italic_ - - - - -SHAKESPEARE’S TREATMENT OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE AND OTHER ESSAYS - - - - -THE MERMAID SERIES - -THE BEST PLAYS OF THE OLD DRAMATISTS. _Literal Reproductions of the Old -Text_ - -WITH PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE - -Boards, =3/6= net; Cloth, =5/-= net each - -THOMAS DEKKER, JOHN DRYDEN, BEN JONSON, THOMAS OTWAY, Etc. - -_Send for a copy of the Prospectus of the Mermaid Series_ - - -T. FISHER UNWIN LTD. LONDON - - - - - SHAKESPEARE’S - TREATMENT OF - LOVE & MARRIAGE - AND OTHER ESSAYS - - _By_ C. H. HERFORD - - HONORARY PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE - IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER - - - T. FISHER UNWIN LTD - LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE - - - - -_First published in 1921_ - -(_All rights reserved_) - - - - - TO - MY STUDENTS, - PAST AND PRESENT, - IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER - 1901-1921 - - - - -PREFACE - - -THE following essays, mainly concerned with famous and familiar names, -are less heterogeneous, and it is hoped less hackneyed, than some of -the titles may suggest. They are all occupied ultimately with some -aspect of a single problem in what I would call the psychology of -poetic experience, did not the phrase imply a scientific rigour of -method hardly as yet achieved, in this region, by psychological science -itself, and in any case beyond the reach of the present writer. How is -the gift of imaginative creation affected by the presence in the same -mind of one or other of the spiritual energies which have a different, -even an alien, perhaps incompatible, aim or goal; or simply by a bias -of ingrained ethical habitudes or ideals? What terms does poetry -make with philosophy, or religion, or patriotism, or politics, or -love, when one of these is urgent, also, in the mind of a poet? I say -‘terms’ advisedly, for nothing is more certain than that the outcome -is determined by a process of give and take. Every complex experience -involves a certain compromise among its disparate or contending -factors; a compromise in great part, indeed, involuntary, resulting -from the fact that, even in the least integrated personalities, the -field of consciousness is a continuous unity, into which no fresh -element enters without modifying, and being itself modified by, the -rest. In the class of cases with which we are here concerned the -modification may be loss or gain, or both together. We think of Dante -or Lucretius as great philosophical poets, and many people assume, -because there are _longueurs_ in the _Paradiso_, and tough blocks of -versified mechanics in the _De Rerum Natura_, that these great poets -would have produced better poems had they pursued poetry ‘for its -own sake.’ What is certain is that, without the passion for truth, -without the passionate desire to understand the universe, without, -too, the missionary passion to save souls by communicating their own -uplifting and fortifying faith, each would have been less occasionally -tedious, doubtless, but also would have missed some of those heights -in poetry which they in fact achieved. A chorus of critics denounce -the ‘didactic poem,’ and clearly the impulse to instruct is more -likely to act as slag than as fuel upon the flame of poetic creation. -But the prophet is only the schoolmaster writ large, and _vates_ is -one of the oldest names of the poet. Matthew Arnold made fun of the -educational theorizing in _The Excursion_, but no one better understood -the grandeur of Wordsworth the prophet, and he and Goethe are doubtless -chiefly accountable for the Arnoldian definition of poetry as -‘criticism of life.’ - -Analogous problems are touched in the essays on Keats and on -d’Annunzio. These two very dissimilar poets, both recently invested -with topical interest by the hazards of a centenary and of a political -adventure, have this in common, that into the life of both came, at -a certain moment, an experience of grandeur, which told decisively, -though in utterly different ways, upon the scale and contents of their -imaginative vision. Keats in 1818 for the first time looked upon ‘grand -mountains’ (his own phrase); d’Annunzio, in the early nineties, was -captivated by the Nietzschean revelation of the Superman. Upon Keats, -the effect, complicated as we know, with other influences, was wholly -astringent and bracing; it concurred with the strenuous art of Milton -to wean him from the ‘luxury’ of his earlier song and inspire the -colossal imaginings of _Hyperion_. Upon d’Annunzio the effect was less -entirely happy. The fiery declamations of the Destroyer (as his Italian -disciple called Nietzsche), who aspired to rear an ideally potent -and perfect race upon the ruins of present-day humanity, enlarged -his intellectual horizons and quickened his patriotic ambition, but -also tinged his thinking and his action, whether as a poet or as a -publicist, henceforth, with a megalomania hazardous for him in both -capacities. - -Shakespeare may seem to offer little foothold for this kind of study, -or at least to illustrate aspects of it too familiar to be discussed. -No one now imagines him a passionless artist, holding up the mirror -to a world in which he had no further concern. He was in any case a -devoted lover of his country, and patriotism contributed vitally to -the making of one, not the least splendid or memorable, division of -his drama. National pride has occasionally impaired the poetry of the -English Histories, though the vulgar Joan of Arc scenes in 1 _Henry -VI_ be no misdeed of his; it has again and again caught the poet up -to towering heights. But in some other, perhaps less obvious, ways -Shakespeare’s mentality, as we divine it, seems to stand in a like -double relation to his poetry; here tributory and creative, there, if -not impairing its quality, limiting its scope. With all his apparent -spontaneity, and the thousand unblotted lines which astonished -his editors and offended Ben, he was hardly pure poet, hardly ‘of -imagination all compact’; the man of ‘sovran alchemy’ had his share of -the still untransmuted stuff. His poetry, compared with Spenser’s or -Shelley’s, is in intimate touch with fact, far richer and deeper than -theirs, but also nearer to the temper which is the negation of poetry. -His glorious humanity is not without preferences and exclusions; and -these are largely of a kind which he shares with the respectable -citizen rather than with the finer and rarer spirits. He has not -Browning’s taste for eccentric or exceptional types, his interest is -not on the dangerous edge of things; and if each of his great creations -is in some sense unique, they are rich beyond all others in traits -which make them seem our kin. He unmistakably prefers order to turmoil; -‘degree, priority and place’ to the romance and heroics of revolution; -observance of custom, other things being the same, to the breach of it; -the normal to the irregular. His temperament was thus of a type which -has affinities with some great and with some less estimable things: -it is allied on the one side to the noble harmonies and symmetries of -classical art, on the other to unreflecting habit and dull routine. -It is the aim of the opening essay to trace the effects of what I may -then call Shakespeare’s bias for _normality_ in a single sphere of his -art--his treatment of Love and Marriage. His ideal of love is a state -in which passion and sense and intellect are united in happy balance, -and we owe to it a series of creations of incomparable loveliness, -from Rosalind and Portia to Imogen and Perdita. But it is plain -that Shakespeare has sounded only a few notes of the gamut of love -poetry. He gives us a few exquisite simple melodies; he rarely hints -its complex music, the difficult harmonies extorted from dissonance -and conflict. He rather conspicuously avoids, save for special -dramatic purposes, irregular, illicit, or criminal passion. It is not -merely accident or stage fashion that has prevented our having from -Shakespeare more than occasional approximations to a Vittoria Corombona -or a Francesca da Rimini, a Gretchen or a Rebekka West. - -The fifth essay, finally, asks a question which may appear futile, -or academic, but at least arises very naturally for the student in -this field. Does the creative activity of poetry, so readily fed and -fanned, or obstructed and impaired, by philosophical or religious -preoccupation, itself react upon the poet’s beliefs, his outlook upon -the world, in any definable way? We may be inclined to reply, with the -young Tennyson, that the poet stands apart from beliefs, ‘holding no -form of creed, but contemplating all’; or to object, on the contrary, -that poets are the most sensitive of men, apt to be rather less than -others exempt from subjection to the idols of their place and time. -Certainly there is no ‘poet’s creed.’ But there may be a common -bent or bias which poetic creation tends to impress upon creeds and -convictions otherwise derived; and a survey of the modifications -actually undergone by philosophies and theologies in the crucible of -poetry suggests that this bent will be towards the faith which, in -one guise or another, exalts the place and function of spirit in the -universe, and in the last resort finds in spiritual energy the heart of -reality. - - * * * * * - -I desire to express my acknowledgments to the Council of the British -Academy, for permission to reprint the fifth Essay; to the Keats’ -Memorial Committee, for permission to reprint the third; to the Council -of the Rylands Library, for permission to reprint the second and -fourth; and to the proprietors of _Edda_ (Christiania) for permission -to reprint the first. Most of them have been extensively revised and in -part re-written for the present volume. I am indebted to my colleagues, -Prof. E. Gardner and Signor A. Valgimigli, for kindly reading the -fourth essay. Neither is in any way responsible for the opinions -expressed. The translations throughout the volume, unless the contrary -is stated, are original. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - - PREFACE 7 - - I. SHAKESPEARE’S TREATMENT OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE 17 - - II. THE POETRY OF LUCRETIUS 47 - - III. MOUNTAIN SCENERY IN KEATS 83 - - IV. GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO 101 - - V. IS THERE A POETIC VIEW OF THE WORLD? 147 - - - - -I SHAKESPEARE’S TREATMENT OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE - - - - -I SHAKESPEARE’S TREATMENT OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE - - -THE Shakesperean world is impressed, as a whole, with an unmistakable -joy in healthy living. This tells habitually as a pervading spirit, a -contagious temper, not as a creed put forward, or an example set up. -It is as clear in the presentment of Falstaff or Iago, as of Horatio -or Imogen. And nowhere is it clearer than in his handling of the -relations between men and women. For here Shakespeare’s preferences and -repugnances are unusually transparent; what pleased him in the ways of -lovers and wedded folks he drew again and again, and what repelled him -he rarely and only for special reasons drew at all. Criminal love, of -any kind, holds a quite subordinate place in his art; and, on the other -hand, if ideal figures are to be found there, it is among his devoted, -passionate, but arch and joyous women. - -It is thus possible to lay down a Shakesperean _norm_ or ideal type -of love-relations. It is most distinct in the mature Comedies, where -he is shaping his image of life with serene freedom; but also in the -Tragedies, where a Portia or a Desdemona innocently perishes in the -web of death. Even in the Histories it occasionally asserts itself -(as in Richard II’s devoted queen, historically a mere child) against -the stress of recorded fact. In the earlier Comedies it is approached -through various stages of erratic or imperfect forms. And both in -Comedy and Tragedy he makes use, though not largely, of other than the -‘normal’ love for definitely comic or tragic ends. - -The present study will follow the plan thus indicated. The first -section defines the ‘norm.’ The second describes the kinds of appeal -and effect, in Comedy and Tragedy, to which the drama of ‘normal’ love -lent itself. The third traces the gradual approach to the norm in the -early Comedies. The fourth and fifth sections, finally, discuss the -treatment, in Comedy and Tragedy, of Love-types other than the norm. - - -I - -The Shakesperean norm of love,[1] thus understood, may be described -somewhat as follows. Love is a passion, kindling heart, brain, -and senses alike in natural and happy proportions; ardent but not -sensual, tender but not sentimental, pure but not ascetic, moral but -not puritanic, joyous but not frivolous, mirthful and witty but not -cynical. His lovers look forward to marriage as a matter of course, and -they neither anticipate its rights nor turn their affections elsewhere. -They commonly love at first sight and once for all. Love-relations -which do not contemplate marriage occur rarely and in subordination -to other dramatic purposes. Tragedy like that of Gretchen does not -attract him. Romeo’s amour with Rosalind is a mere foil to his greater -passion, Cassio’s with Bianca merely a mesh in the network of Iago’s -intrigue; Claudio’s with Juliet is the indispensable condition of the -plot. The course of love rarely runs smooth; but rival suitors proposed -by parents are quietly resisted or merrily abused, never, even by the -gentlest, accepted. Crude young girls like Hermia, delicate-minded -women like Desdemona and Imogen, the rapturous Juliet and the homely -Anne Page, the discreet Silvia and the naïve Miranda, are all at one -on this point. And they all carry the day. The dramatically powerful -situations which arise from forced marriage--as when Ford’s Penthea -(_The Broken Heart_) or Corneille’s Chimène (_Le Cid_) is torn by -the conflict between love and honour--lie, like this conflict in -general, outside Shakespeare’s chosen field. And with this security -of possession his loving women combine a capacity for mirth and jest -not usual in the dramatic representation of passion. Rosalind is more -intimately Shakesperean than Juliet. - -Married life, as Shakespeare habitually represents it, is the -counterpart, _mutatis mutandis_, of his representation of unmarried -lovers. His husbands and wives have less of youthful abandon; they -rarely speak of love, and still more rarely with lyric ardour, or -coruscations of poetic wit. But they are no less true. The immense -field of dramatic motives based upon infringements of marriage, so -fertile in the hands of his successors, and in most other schools of -drama, did not attract Shakespeare, and he touched it only occasionally -and for particular purposes. Heroines like Fletcher’s Evadne (_A -Maid’s Tragedy_), who marries a nominal husband to screen her guilty -relations with the King, or Webster’s Vittoria Corombona (_The White -Devil_), who conspires with her lover to murder her husband, or -Chapman’s Tamyra (_Bussy d’Ambois_), whose husband kills her lover in -her chamber; even Heywood’s erring wife, whom her husband elects to -‘kill with kindness,’ are definitely un-Shakesperean. - - -II - -The norm of love lent itself both to comic and to tragic situation, but -only within somewhat narrow limits. The richness, depth and constancy -of the passion precluded a whole world of comic effects. It precluded -the comedy of the coquette and the prude, of the affected gallant -and the cynical roué, of the calf-lover and the doting husband; the -comedy of the fantastic tricks played by love under the obsession of -pride, self-interest, meticulous scruple, or superstition. Into this -field Shakespeare made brilliant incursions, but it hardly engaged his -rarest powers, and to large parts of it his ‘universal’ genius remained -strange. We have only to recall, among a crowd of other examples, -Moreto’s Diana (_El Desden con el Desden_), Molière’s Alceste and -Célimène, Congreve’s Millamant, in Shakespeare’s century; or, in the -modern novel, a long line of figures from Jane Austen to _The Egoist_ -and Ibsen’s _Love’s Comedy_--to recognize that Shakespeare, with all -the beauty, wit and charm of his work, touched only the fringes of the -Comedy of love. - -The normal love, not being itself ridiculous, could thus yield material -for the comic spirit only through some fact or situation external to -it. It may be brought before us only in ludicrous parody. We laugh -at the ‘true love’ of Pyramus and Thisbe in the ‘tedious brief’ play -of the Athenian artisans, or at that of Phœbe and Silvius, because -Shakespeare is chaffing the literary pastoral of his day. Hamlet’s -love, itself moving, even tragic, becomes a source of comedy in the -solemn analysis of Polonius. Or again, the source of fun lies in the -wit and humour of the lovers themselves. Some of them, like Rosalind -and Beatrice, virtually create and sustain the wit-fraught atmosphere -of the play single-handed. But Shakespeare habitually heightens this -source of fun by some piquancy of situation--almost always one arising -from delusion, particularly through confusion of identity. It is a -mark of the easy-going habits of his art in comedy that he never threw -aside this rather elementary device, though subjecting it, no doubt, to -successive refinements which become palpable enough when we pass from -the _Two Gentlemen_ to _Cymbeline_. But his genius made perennially -delightful even the crude forms of confusion which create grotesque -infatuations like those of Titania, Malvolio, Phœbe, Olivia. More -refined, and yet more delightful, are the confusions which bring true -and destined lovers together, like the arch make-believe courtship -with which Rosalind’s wit amuses and consoles her womanhood, and that -other which liberates the natural congeniality of Beatrice and Benedict -from their ‘merry war.’ In cases like these, Shakespeare’s humour has -the richer and finer effluence which derives from a hidden ground of -passion or tears. Rosalind’s wit is that of a woman many fathoms deep -in love; Beatrice’s ears tingle with remorse at the tale of Benedick’s -secret attachment; Viola’s gallant bravado to Olivia conceals her own -unspoken maiden love. And Portia crowns her home-coming to her husband -and her splendid service to his friend with the madcap jest of the -rings. Such jesting is in Shakespeare a part of the language of love; -and like its serious or lyrical speech, is addressed with predilection -to love’s object. - -Again, the normal love offered in itself equally little promise of -tragedy. No deformed or morbid passion, but the healthy and natural -self-fulfilment of man and woman, calling heart and wit and senses -alike into vigorous play, it provided equally little hold for the -criminal erotics in which most of Shakespeare’s contemporaries sought -the tragic thrill, and for the bitter disenchantment and emotional -decay which generate the subtle tragedy of _Anna Karénina_ or _Modern -Love_. Tragic these healthy lovers of themselves will never become; -they have to be led into the realm of pity and fear, as into that of -laughter and mirth, by the incitement or the onthrust of alien forces. -Here, too, Shakespeare’s habitual instrument is delusion; only now it -is not the delusion which deftly entangles and pleasantly infatuates, -but that which horribly perplexes and rends apart. The blindness, -of Claudio, of Othello, of Posthumus, of Leontes, is provoked by -circumstances of very various cogency, but in each case it wrecks a -love relation in which we are allowed to see no flaw. The situation -of innocent, slandered, heart-stricken womanhood clearly appealed -strongly to him, and against his wont he repeated it again and again. -Even after leaving the stage, he was allured by the likeness of the -story of Henry VIII’s slandered queen to his Hermione, to reopen the -magic ‘book’ he had ‘drowned.’ He was no sentimentalist; his pathos is -never morbid; but it is in imagining souls of texture fine and pure -enough to be wrought upon to the most piteous extreme by slander from -the man they love, that Shakespeare found most of his loveliest and -most authentically Shakesperean characters of women. Hermione and Hero, -Desdemona and Imogen, are to his graver art what Rosalind and Beatrice -and Portia are to his comedy. - -But while the tragic issue is directly provoked by the alien -intervention, it is clear that almost all its tragic quality springs, -not from the operations of Iachimo or Iago, but from the wonderful -presentment of the love they wreck. Shakespeare’s supreme command of -pity springs from his exalted faith in love. The poet of the Sonnets is -implicit in the poet of _Othello_. And the dramas themselves abound in -lyric outbursts, often hardly called for by the situation, in which his -ideal of wedded love is uttered with the poignant insight of one who -was probably far from having achieved or observed it himself. One need -but think of France’s reply to Burgundy (_King Lear_, I, i. 241): - - Love’s not love - When it is mingled with regards that stand - Aloof from the entire point. - -Or of Imogen, blind to all but the path of light and air that divides -her from Milford Haven: - - I see before me, man; nor here, nor here, - Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them, - That I cannot look through. - -Even Adriana, in the _Comedy of Errors_, expresses the unity of married -love with an intensity which we expect neither from this bustling -_bourgeoise_ nor in this early play: - - For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall - A drop of water in the breaking gulf - And take unmingled thence that drop again - Without addition or diminishing, - As take from me thyself and not me too; (II, ii. 127.) - -an utterance which in its simple pathos anticipates the agonized cry of -Othello--the most thrilling expression in Shakespeare of the meaning of -wedded unity: - - But there, where I have garnered up my heart, - Where either I must live, or bear no life, - The fountain from the which my current runs, - Or else dries up: to be discarded thence! - -The husband in these cases, it is true, neither forgives nor condones, -and Shakespeare (unlike Heywood) gives no hint that he would have -dissented from the traditional ethics on which Othello and Posthumus -and Leontes acted, had their wives in fact been guilty. The wives, on -the other hand, encounter the husband’s unjust suspicions, or brutal -slanders, without a thought of revenge or reprisal. Desdemona, Imogen, -Hermione, alike beautifully fulfil the ideal of love presented in the -great sonnet: - - Love is not love - Which alters when it alteration finds, - Or bends with the remover to remove. - -In one drama only did he represent ideal love brought to a tragic -doom without a hint of inner severance. The wedded unity of Romeo and -Juliet is absolute from their first meeting to their last embrace; it -encounters only the blind onset of outer and irrelevant events; nothing -touches their rapturous faith in one another. This earliest of the -authentic tragedies thus represents, in comparison with its successors, -only an elementary order of tragic experience; set beside _Othello_, -it appears to be not a tragedy of love, but love’s triumphal hymn. Yet -it is only in this sense immature. If Shakespeare had not yet fathomed -the depths of human misery, he understood completely the exaltation of -passion, and _Romeo and Juliet_, though it gives few glimpses beyond -the horizons of his early world, remains the consummate flower of his -poetry of ideal love. - - -III - -The beauty and insight of Shakespeare’s finest portrayals of the comedy -and the tragedy of love were not reached at once. His conception of -love itself was still, at the opening of his career, relatively slight -and superficial; his mastery of technique was equally incomplete. The -early plays accordingly abound with scenes and situations where from -either cause or both the dramatic treatment of love is not yet in the -full sense Shakesperean. It will suffice in this sketch to specify two -types of each. - -The young Shakespeare, as is well known, showed a marked leaning to two -apparently incongruous kinds of dramatic device--paradox and symmetry. -In the riotous consciousness of power he loved to take up the challenge -of outrageous situations, to set himself dramaturgical problems, which -he solves by compelling us to admit that the impossible might have -happened in the way he shows. A shrew to be ‘tamed’ into a model wife. -A widow following her murdered father’s coffin, to be wooed, there and -then, and won, by his murderer. A girl of humble birth, in love with -a young noble who scorns her, to set herself, notwithstanding, to win -him, and to succeed. Paradoxical feats like these were foreign to the -profound normality--under whatever romantic disguise--of Shakespeare’s -mature art. Richard and Petruchio and Helen carry into the problems -of love-making the enterprising audacity of the young Shakespeare -in the problems of art. But the audacity of the young Shakespeare -showed itself in another way. His so-called taste for ‘symmetry’ had -nothing in common with the classical canons of balance and order. It -was nearer akin to the boyish humour of mimicry. If he found a pair -of indistinguishable twins producing amusing confusion in a Roman -play, he capped them with a second pair, to produce confusion worse -confounded in the English _Comedy of Errors_. And so with love. Navarre -(in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_) and his three lords, like the four horses -of an antique quadriga, go through the same adventure side by side. -All four have forsworn the sight of women; all four fall in love, not -promiscuously but in order of rank, with the French princess and her -ladies, whose numbers, by good fortune, precisely go round. - -But love itself is not, as yet, drawn with any power. Berowne’s -magnificent account of its attributes and effects (IV, iii., mainly -re-written in 1597) is not borne out by any representation of it -in the play. The ‘taffeta phrases’ and ‘silken terms precise,’ the -pointed sallies and punning repartees, full of a hard crackling gaiety, -neither express passion nor suggest, like the joyous quips of the later -Rosalind, that passion is lurking behind. We are spectators of a rather -protracted flirtation, a ‘way of love’ which was to occupy a minimal -place in his later drama. Armado’s dramatically unimportant seduction -of Jaquenetta is likewise a symptom of his ‘apprentice’ phase. - -Equally immature is the representation of fickle love in the _Two -Gentlemen_. Proteus is Shakespeare’s only essay in the Don Juan type, -but it falls far short in psychological and dramatic force of his -portrait of the faithful Julia. Proteus’s speeches are often rhetorical -analyses of his situation rather than dramatic expressions of it. -His threat to outrage Sylvia (V, iv. 58) is, as he naively declares, -‘’gainst the nature of love,’ and it clashed no less violently with -Shakespeare’s rendering of the passion elsewhere. Even the apparent -fickleness produced by delusion flourishes only in the magical world -of the young Shakespeare’s Midsummer Dream. The inconstancy of the -Athenian lovers attests only the potency of the faery juice. No doubt -Shakespeare’s denouements, even in some of the maturest comedies, show -his lovers accepting with a singular facility a fate in love other than -that they had chosen. Olivia accepts Sebastian in default of Viola, -and the Duke Viola when Olivia is out of the question. Still less -defensible artistically is Isabel’s renunciation of the convent to -marry the Duke. But these acquiescences, even if they were not touched -with the frequent perfunctoriness of Shakespeare’s finales, are not to -be classed with deliberate inconstancy. - -A second mark of unripeness in the conception of love is extravagant -magnanimity. This, like other kinds of unnatural virtue, was a part -of the heritage from mediæval romance, fortified with Roman legend. -The antique exaltation of friendship concurred with the Germanic -absoluteness of faithful devotion, and for the mediæval mind the most -convincing way of attesting this was by the surrender of a mistress. -In the tenth book of the _Decamerone_ Boccaccio collects the most -admired examples of ‘things done generously and magnificently,’ chiefly -in matters of love; one of them is the tale of Tito and Gisippo -(_Decamerone_, X, 8), where, Tito having fallen in love with his -friend’s bride, Gisippo ‘generously’ resigns to him all but the name of -husband. The story, quoted in Sir T. Elyot’s _Governour_ (1531), was -well known in Elizabethan England, and fell in with the fantastical -world of Fletcher’s Romanticism. But the humanity and veracity of the -mature Shakespeare rejected these extravagances as the cognate genius -of the mature Chaucer had done before him. Chaucer lived to mock at the -legendary magnanimity of Griselda, so devoutly related in the _Clerkes -Tale_; and it was only the young Shakespeare who could have made -Valentine’s astounding offer, in the _Two Gentlemen_, to resign ‘all -his rights’ in his bride to the ‘friend’ from whose offer of violence -he has only a moment before rescued her (V, vi. 83).[2] - -A second variety of extravagant magnanimity was the recurring situation -of the girl, who, deserted by her lover, follows him in disguise, -takes service as his page, and in that capacity is employed by him -to further his suit to a new mistress. This motive was of the purest -romantic lineage; having first won vogue in Europe through Montemayor’s -_Diana_ (1558, trans. 1588), and in England by Sidney’s _Arcadia_ -(1581, publ. 1590). On the London stage it profited by the special -piquancy attaching to the rôles of girls in masculine disguise when -the actors were boys, and its blend of audacious adventure and devoted -self-sacrifice gave the Elizabethan auditor precisely the kind of -composite thrill he loved. - -For some forms of sex-confusion Shakespeare throughout his career -retained an unmistakable liking. But the finer instincts of his -ripening art gradually restricted its scope. Viola, in the original -story (Bandello, II, 36) follows a faithless lover; in _Twelfth -Night_, wrecked on the Illyrian coast, she disguises herself merely -for safety, takes service with the Duke as a complete stranger, and -only subsequently falls in love with him. The change indicates with -precision Shakespeare’s attitude at this date (_c._ 1600) to this type -of situation. He was still quite ready to exploit the rather elementary -comedy arising out of sex-confusion--to paint with gusto Viola’s -embarrassments as the object of Olivia’s passion and Sir Andrew’s -challenge, or the brilliant pranks of Rosalind in a like position. But -he would not now approach these situations by the romantic avenue of a -love-sick woman’s pursuit. In his latest plays he shows disrelish even -for the delightful fun evolved from sex-confusion in _Twelfth Night_ -and _As you like it_. The adventures of Imogen in disguise are purely -pathetic. Pisanio indeed proposes, and Imogen agrees, to follow her -husband to Italy in disguise; but this opening is significantly not -followed up. (_Cymbeline_, III, iv. 150 f.) - -But in the _Two Gentlemen_, the entire motive without curtailment -or qualification is presented in the adventures of Julia. Abandoned -by Proteus, she follows him in disguise, takes service as his page, -and is employed as go-between in his new courtship of Silvia. To the -young Shakespeare the situation was still wholly congenial, and he -availed himself of its opportunities of pathos without reserve, though -with incomplete power. His riper technique, fortified probably by a -closer acquaintance with the spirited and high-bred womanhood of the -Portias and Rosalinds of his time, withdrew his interest, perhaps -his belief, from the risky psychology of Julia’s self-assertion and -self-abnegation. Like other strained situations suggested by ‘golden -tongued romance,’ it fell away before the consolidated experience, the -genial worldliness, the poetized normality, of his riper art. - -The case of another devoted pursuer of an unwilling man is more -complicated, and calls for closer examination. _All’s Well That -Ends Well_ has already been referred to as an example of the -paradox-plotting congenial to the young Shakespeare. But Helena’s -passion and her sacrifices for the man whose love she seeks ally her -also with the Julia type. Yet internal evidence leaves no doubt that -this play, though originally written, and therefore planned, in the -early nineties, was revised by Shakespeare at a date not far remote -from that of Hamlet. If the paradox-subject was the apprentice’s eager -choice, the artist at the height of his power did not reject its -challenge. In the original story (_Decamerone_, III, 9) the flavour of -paradox was even more pronounced. Like the other tales of the Third -Day, it describes one who _alcuna cosa molto da lui desiderata con -industria acquistasse_. Giletta of Narbonne succeeds in effect by sheer -audacity and enterprise; and Boccaccio’s readers doubtless enjoyed -this inversion of the usual rôles, where a masterful girl captures a -reluctant man. Shakespeare’s earlier version was probably the lost -_Love’s Labour’s Won_ mentioned by Meres, and the title emphasizes the -element of resolute and unhesitating pursuit which marks the original, -and was probably more pronounced in the earlier than in the revised -play. - -For it is plain that precisely the resolute pursuit of a resisting -man was uncongenial to Shakespeare’s riper art, because unnatural -in the type of high-bred and refined womanhood whose ways in love -reflected his ideal of healthy love-making. Helena, as the heroine and -predominant figure of the play, had to be of the sisterhood of Portia -and Rosalind and Beatrice and Viola. But if the plot forbad this? -And clearly, the most hazardous incident of all (the substitution of -Helen for Diana) could not be eliminated without breaking up the plot -altogether. Why then take up the old play at all? Plainly there must -have been in the fundamental theme something which Shakespeare was -unwilling to lose as well as something that he would have wished away. -This something that attracted him was evidently Helen’s clear-sighted -resolution in itself; in this she is, in fact, a true sister of -Portia and Rosalind, though her seriousness is not, like theirs, -irradiated with laughter. Could she be visibly endowed with this grace -of clear sight and will, yet at the same time be rather drawn on by -circumstances to the final conquest of Bertram than herself the active -agent in it? Somewhat thus must the problem have presented itself to -Shakespeare. Did he completely solve it? I think not. But we can to -some extent follow his procedure. - -Strength and delicacy are from the first blended in Helen. Her famous -lines (I, i. 231): - - Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie - Which we ascribe to heaven. - -strike the keynote of her resolute temper. Yet her love, a maiden’s -idolatry, is content without possession; with her, ‘Dian’ is ‘both -herself and love’ (I, iii. 218). If she forms plans for showing her -merit and thus commending herself in Bertram’s eyes, she takes no step -herself; it is the Countess who, having discovered her love, welcomes -her prospective daughter-in-law and sends her with all proper convoy to -court to ‘cure the king.’ Her choosing of Bertram (II, iii. 109) is an -offer of life-long service, not the appropriation of a well-won prize. -And when Bertram bluntly declares that he ‘cannot love her nor will -strive to do it,’ she proposes, turning to the king, to withdraw her -whole claim: - - That you are well restored, my lord, I’m glad; - Let the rest go. - -The crucial situation, however, for her (and for Shakespeare) begins -only with Bertram’s definite departure, and scornful intimation of the -conditions on which he will be her husband. Giletta, on receiving the -corresponding message, had made up her mind at once what to do; had -arranged her affairs and set out on the _soi-disant_ pilgrimage to -Florence, where Beltramo she knows will be found. Helena’s procedure -is less clear. Two distinct courses were open to her. She might, like -Giletta, make direct for Bertram at Florence, under the pretext of -going on a pilgrimage. Or she might finally surrender the pursuit of -a husband who had decisively shown he did not love her, as she had -already proposed to do when he had only declared that he did not. The -second was unquestionably more in keeping with Helen’s character. But -the first was more in keeping with the plot. It might well be that -Shakespeare’s Helen would hesitate between the two. But it is in any -case probable that Shakespeare hesitated, and that the marks of his -hesitation have not been effaced from the text. - -On reading Bertram’s letter she is, like Imogen when she reads -Posthumus’s, for the moment overwhelmed. ‘This is a dreadful sentence.’ -She hardly speaks, and gives no hint to the Countess of her thoughts. -But when she is alone she breaks out in the great passionate monologue -of renunciation (III, ii. 102 f.).... - - No, come thou home, Rousillon, - Whence honour but of danger wins a scar, - As oft it loses all: I will be gone; - My being here it is that holds thee hence: - Shall I stay here to do’t? no, no, although - The air of paradise did fan the house, - And angels office’d all: I will be gone.... - -This can only imply, since she is alone, that she sincerely proposes to -give up all claim to her nominal husband. - -Nevertheless, in Scene iv., the Countess is seen reading a letter from -Helen which declares that she has gone as a pilgrim to Saint Jaques, -in Florence. She begs the Countess, it is true, to summon Bertram home -to live there in peace while she in the far land does penance for her -‘ambitious love.’ Was this a subterfuge, like Giletta’s, or was it her -sincere intention as we should infer from the previous monologue? If it -is the first, Helena comes nearer to the crafty duplicity of Giletta -than anywhere else in the play, and this towards the Countess who -has just indignantly renounced her stubborn son, and taken Helena to -her heart as her sole child (III, ii. 71). But if it is the second, -we cannot but ask why then, if Helena means _bona fide_ to avoid -Bertram and leave him free, she chooses for her pilgrimage precisely -the one place in the world in which she knows he will be found? And -this awkward question remains un-answered, notwithstanding the evident -effort to allow us to believe in Helena’s innocent good faith. Giletta, -on arriving at Florence, takes up her abode at an inn, ‘eager to hear -news of her lord.’ Helena arrives, apparently concerned only to learn -the way to St. Jacques, and where the pilgrims bound thither found -lodging. Then Bertram is mentioned; she learns that he is known, and -has made advances to Diana; presently he passes by, and now at length -Helen deliberately and unhesitatingly takes measures to fulfil his -‘impossible’ conditions. - -Helena’s conduct appears, then, to fluctuate, without clear -explanation, between resolute pursuit and dignified renunciation. - -There can be no doubt that the former type of procedure represents the -earlier, the latter the riper, mind of Shakespeare, in the treatment -of love. The letter to the Countess, of III, iv., is, like all his -verse-letters, early work; the great preceding monologue is in the -richly imaginative phrase and daringly yet harmoniously moulded verse -of the Hamlet period. He set out to fit a character based upon a nobler -type of love into a plot based upon a grosser; and even he could not -effect this without some straining of the stuff, and here and there a -palpable rent. - - -IV - -What I have called the norm of love must thus rank high among the -determining forces of his mature drama. Obscured and disguised at -the outset by crude conceptions and immature technique, it gradually -grew clear, and provided the background of passion, faith, and truth -out of which, aided by misunderstandings, pleasant or grave, his most -delightful comedy and his most poignant tragedy were evolved. And other -types of love--whether they made for comedy or for tragedy, held a -relatively slight place in his work. In particular he concerns himself -only in a quite exceptional or incidental way either with the high -comedy of love or with guilty passion. - -His comedy of love outside the norm for the most part resembles -burlesque. In other words, the ‘ways of love’ which he treats as -comic material are not plausible or subtle approximations to romantic -passion, but ludicrously absurd counterfeits of it. The fun is -brilliant, but it does not strike deep; it provokes the loud laugh -rather than the ‘slim feasting smile.’ It commonly springs from some -grotesque infatuation; as when, in Bottom and Titania, human grossness -and fairy fantasticality are brought together for the eternal joy -of gods and men. Ridicule of such infatuations was soon to find its -peculiar home in the Humour comedy of the later nineties, in the -prosaic satirical air of which the romantic or normal love had no -place at all. It is hardly an accident that the plays in which this -Shakesperean comedy of grotesque infatuation in love runs riot were -produced when the Humour comedy was at the height of its vogue, or that -they bear clear traces of its influence. _Twelfth Night_ is far from -being as a whole a Comedy of Humours. Viola’s maiden passion is touched -with a charm wholly alien to it. The Duke, with his opal and taffeta -mind, a self-pleasing artist in emotion, who feeds his languid passion -on music, and does his wooing by proxy, is perhaps Shakespeare’s only -serious study of love as a humour. Of still more laughable futility -is the love-making of Malvolio, with his smiles and yellow stockings, -and Sir Andrew, who gets no further than learning an assortment of -fine words for an interview that never comes off--a comic counterpart -to Iago’s miserable dupe, Roderigo. _The Merry Wives_ also shows the -influence of the Humour comedy. Slender is a true ‘country-gull,’ -nowhere more obviously than in his wooing, or preparations to woo, -sweet Anne Page. The adventures of Falstaff in pursuit of Mrs. Ford and -Mrs. Page are brilliantly executed examples of a kind of comic effect -which Shakespeare’s riper art elsewhere disdained. Officially required -to represent ‘Falstaff in love,’ he turned the laugh against the lover -by representing his ill-luck in pursuing the only ‘way of love’ he knew. - - -V - -Finally, as Shakespeare recognized for purposes of comedy certain -types of love-making alien to the ideal norm, so too, more rarely, -for the purposes of tragedy. Ideal love, as has been seen, occurs -constantly in the tragedies even where it does not directly affect or -participate in the tragic issues; as with France and Cordelia, Brutus -and Portia, Richard II and his queen, Coriolanus and Virgilia. But the -more penetrating sense of evil which becomes apparent in his tragic -period contributed to draw more prominently into the sphere of his art -the disastrous aspects of the relations between men and women. That he -refrained from exploiting in drama the more sinister forms of passion, -we have seen. But in some of his ripest and greatest work he drew love -with implications and under conditions, which sharply mark it off from -the ‘marriage of true minds.’ It is unstable, or lawless, or grounded -on illusion; and thus not merely succumbs easily to assault from -without, but directly breeds and fosters tragic ruin within. Even the -union of Othello and Desdemona, in every other respect a ‘marriage of -true minds’ which reaches for a moment (ii. 1) incomparable intensity -and beauty, is rendered fatally precarious by their ignorance of each -other. - -Love, like everything else which grows in Hamlet’s Denmark, is touched -with insidious disease. Ophelia is wonderfully imagined in keeping with -the tragic atmosphere, an exquisite but fragile flower of the unweeded -garden where evil things run to seed and good things wither. And her -love, wholly un-Shakesperean as it is, and therefore irritating to -many readers, bears within it the seed of tragedy both for Hamlet and -herself. It is ‘a power girt round with weakness.’ She never falters -in faithful devotion to him; but the ‘sweet bells,’ her father has -told her, are ‘jangled,’ and she consents both to be the instrument -of the king and Polonius’s ‘lawful espial’ (which may, please heaven, -restore him), and to deny his access and return his gifts. She stands -alone among Shakesperean heroines in renouncing her love at a father’s -bidding. We seem to approach for once the heroic renunciations of love -in the name of principle or country which impress us in Corneille -and Racine--in _Polyeucte_ or _Bérénice_. But no halo of sublime -self-sacrifice surrounds Ophelia’s renunciation, for her or for us. -It is merely a piteous surrender, which breaks her heart, overthrows -her delicately poised reason, and removes one of the last supports of -Hamlet’s trust in goodness. - -On the other hand, Shakespeare occasionally found his tragic love in -violent and lawless passion. We need not dwell on episodic incidents -like the rivalry in the love of Edmund which crowns and closes -the criminal careers of Goneril and Regan. In this case there was -little scope for the undoing of soul which is the habitual theme of -Shakesperean tragedy. But in _Measure for Measure_ an inrush of sensual -passion instantly shatters the imposing but loosely built edifice of -Angelo’s morality, and though the play was meant for comedy, and the -tragic point is thus (rather clumsily) blunted or broken off, the -spiritual undoing of him is discernible enough. Without a thought of -resistance he proceeds to act out the whole merciless catalogue of -vices which the poet of sonnet cxxix saw attending upon lust.[3] At the -same time it is clear that Isabel, with her cold austerity, is an even -greater anomaly among Shakespeare’s women. Their purity is not that of -a negative abstinence, but of whole-hearted devotion to the man they -love. - -In Cressida he drew a kind of tragic love as lawless as Angelo’s and -as sensual, but insidious and seductive instead of violent. Compared -with the profligate women of Restoration Comedy she has a certain -girlish air of grace and innocence. If she betrays Troilus for Diomede -it is with a sigh and a half wistful glance back at the deserted -lover: ‘Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on thee’ (V, ii. 107). -Though classed by the Folio editors--hesitatingly it would seem--with -the Tragedies, this play seems to set at nought the whole scheme of -Shakesperean tragedy. Neither Troilus nor Cressida has the grandeur -without which ruin is not sublime; and their love has not the heroic -intensity of those (like Heine’s _Asra_) _welche sterben wenn sie -lieben_. The only imposing figures are those of the great captains of -the Greek and Trojan camps, who are but slightly concerned with their -love. Nevertheless, the whole effect of the play is tragic, or falls -short of tragedy only because the gloom is more unrelieved. There -are no colossal disasters, plots, crimes, or suffering, nor yet the -stormy splendour which agony beats out of the souls of Othello, Hamlet, -Antony, or Lear, and which leaves us at the close rather exultant -than depressed. This tragedy is purely depressing because it strikes -less deep; the harms do not rend and shatter, but secretly undermine -and insidiously frustrate. Cressida is a symbol of the love which may -kindle valour for a moment, but in the end saps heroism and romance at -once, and which strikes the magnificent champions of Homeric story -themselves with a futility more tragic than death, the futility hinted -savagely in the Horatian _Troiani cunnus teterrima belli Causa_, and -superbly in Faustus’s great apologue to ‘the face that launched the -thousand ships.’ - -In _Antony and Cleopatra_, on the other hand, a type of love not in -its origin loftier or purer than that of Troilus and Cressida is -seen dominating two souls of magnificent compass and daemonic force. -Antony is held by his serpent of old Nile in the grip of a passion -which insolently tramples on moral and institutional bonds, private -and public alike; which brings the lovers to ruin and to death; and -which yet invests their fall with a splendour beside which the triumph -of their conqueror appears cold and mean. There is no conflict, no -weighing of love and empire, as great alternatives, against each other, -in the manner of Corneille; nor does Shakespeare take sides with -either; he neither reprobates Antony, like Plutarch, for sacrificing -duty to love, nor glorifies him, like the author of the Restoration -drama, _All for Love, or the World Well Lost_; still less does he seek -to strike a balance between these views. He is no ethical theorist -trying exactly to measure right or wrong, but a great poet whose -comprehensive soul had room, together, for many kinds of excellence -incompatible in the experience of ordinary men. That Antony’s passion -for Cleopatra not only ruins his colossal power in the state but -saps his mental and moral strength is made as mercilessly clear in -Shakespeare as in Plutarch. He is ‘the noble ruin of her magic.’ But it -is equally clear that this passion enlarges and enriches his emotional -life; in a sense other than that intended by the sober Enobarbus, - - A diminution in our captain’s brain - Restores his heart; (III, xiii, 198) - -and enlarged feeling opens up new regions of imagination and lifts him -to unapproached heights of poetry, as in the unarming-scene with Eros -(IV, xiv.) and the farewell speeches to Cleopatra (‘I am dying, Egypt, -dying,’ IV, xv.). And Cleopatra too, in the ‘infinite variety’ of her -moods, has momentary flickerings of genuine devotion of which she was -before incapable. Momentary only, it is true; the egoist, the actress, -the coquette, are only fitfully overcome; in her dying speech itself -the accent of them all is heard. The ‘baser elements’ are not expelled, -but the nobler ‘fire and air’ to which she dreams that she is resolved, -gleam for a fitful instant in her cry ‘Husband, I come,’ to yield a -moment later to jealous alarm lest Lear should have Antony’s kiss, and -vindictive satisfaction at having outwitted Cæsar. - - * * * * * - -Shakespeare’s poetry takes account of so vast a number of other things, -of so many other ways of living and aspects of life, that we hardly -think even of the author of _Romeo and Juliet_ as in any special -sense the poet of Love. Nor is he, if we mean by this that he thinks -or speaks of Love in the transcendent way of Dante, or Lucretius, or -Spenser, or Shelley. Love with them is part of the vital frame of the -universe. Lucretius (in spite of his atomist creed) saw it pervading -‘all that moves below the gliding stars, the sea and its ships, the -earth and its flocks and flowers.’ Dante saw it as the force which -not only draws men and women together, but ‘moves the Sun and the -other stars.’ Spenser saw it as ‘the Lord of all the world by right, -that rules all creatures by his powerful saw.’ Shelley saw it as the -sustaining force blindly woven through the web of Being. For such -heights of poetic metaphysic we do not look in Shakespeare. He is one -of the greatest of poets, and his poetry has less almost than any -other the semblance of myth and dream; its staple is the humanity we -know, its basis the ground we tread; what we call the prose world, -far from being excluded, is genially taken in. And precisely where -he is greatest, in the sublime ruin of the tragedies, love between -the sexes has on the whole a subordinate place, and is there most -often fraught, as we have seen, with disaster and frustration. So it -seemed to Keats when he turned from ‘golden-tongued Romance’ to ‘burn -through’ the strife of ‘damnation with impassioned clay’ in _King -Lear_. Shakespeare certainly did not, so far as we can judge, regard -sexual love (like some moderns) as either the clue to human life or as -in any way related to the structure of the universe. But if, instead -of these abstract questions, we ask whether any poet has united in a -like degree veracious appreciation of love in its existing conditions -with apprehension of all its ideal possibilities, we shall not dispute -Shakespeare’s place among the foremost of the poets of love. - - - - -II THE POETRY OF LUCRETIUS - - - - -II THE POETRY OF LUCRETIUS - - ‘Lucretius stands alone in the controversial force and energy with - which the genius of negation inspires him, and transforms into sublime - reasons for firm act, so long as living breath is ours, the thought - that the life of a man is no more than the dream of a shadow.’--LORD - MORLEY’S _Recollections_. - - -I - -THERE was a time when the title of this essay would have been received -as a paradox, if not as a contradiction in terms. Lessing, as is well -known, declared roundly that Lucretius was ‘a versifier, not a poet,’ -and Lessing is one of the greatest of European critics. It is easy, -indeed, to explain in part his trenchant condemnation. It reflects his -implicit acceptance of Aristotle’s _Poetics_--which he said was for him -as absolutely valid as Euclid, and therefore of Aristotle’s doctrine -that poetry is imitation of human action. Lessing’s insistence on -this doctrine was extraordinarily salutary in his day, and definitely -lowered the status of the dubious kinds known as descriptive, -allegorical, satirical, and didactic poetry, in a century too much -given to them all. That phrase of his about the imitation of human -action marked out a correct, well-defined, and safe channel for the -stream of poetry to pursue, and some of the slender poetic rills of -his generation improved their chance of survival by falling into it -and flowing between its banks. But Lessing did not reckon with the -power of poetic genius to force its own way to the sea through no -matter how tangled and tortuous a river-bed,--nay, to capture from -the very obstructions it overcomes new splendours of foam and rainbow -unknown perhaps to the well-regulated stream. In plain language, he -did not reckon with the fact that a _prima facie_ inferior form, such -as satire or didactic, may not only have its inferiority outweighed by -compensating beauties, but may actually elicit and provoke beauties not -otherwise to be had, and thus become not an obstacle, but an instrument -of poetry. Nor did he foresee that such a recovery of poetic genius, -such an effacement of the old boundaries, such a withdrawal of the -old taboos, was to come with the following century, nay, was actually -impending when he wrote. Goethe, who read the _Laokoon_ entranced, as -a young student at Leipzig, honoured its teaching very much on this -side of idolatry when he came to maturity. As a devoted investigator -of Nature, who divined the inner continuity of the flower and the leaf -with the same penetrating intuition which read the continuity of a -man, or of a historic city, in all the phases of their growth, Goethe -was not likely to confine poetry within the bounds either of humanity -or of the drums and tramplings, the violence, passion, and sudden -death, for which human action in poetic criticism has too commonly -stood. He himself wrote a poem of noble beauty on the _Metamorphosis of -Plants_ (1797)--a poem which suffices to show that it is possible to be -poetically right while merely unfolding the inner truth of things in -perfectly adequate speech.[4] We cannot wonder, then, that Lucretius -and the poem _On the Nature of Things_ excited in the greatest of -German poets the liveliest interest and admiration. On the score of -subject alone he eagerly welcomed the great example of Lucretius. But -he saw that Lucretius had supreme gifts as a poet, which would have -given distinction to whatever he wrote, and which, far from being -balked by the subject of his choice, found in it peculiarly large -scope and play. ‘What sets out Lucretius so high,’ he wrote (1821) to -his friend v. Knebel, author of the first German translation, ‘what -sets him so high and assures him eternal renown, is a lofty faculty -of sensuous intuition, which enables him to describe with power; in -addition, he disposes of a powerful imagination, which enables him to -pursue what he has seen beyond the reach of sense into the invisible -depths of Nature and her most mysterious recesses.’[5] But while Goethe -thus led the way in endorsing without reserve the Lucretian conception -of what the field of poetry might legitimately include, he contributed -to the discussion nothing, so far as I know, so illuminating or so -profound as the great saying of Wordsworth: ‘poetry is the impassioned -expression which is in the countenance of all science.’ For Wordsworth -here sweeps peremptorily away the boundary marks set up, for better or -worse, by ancient criticism--he knows nothing of a poetry purely of man -or purely of action: he finds the _differentia_ of poetry not in any -particular choice of subject out of the field of real things, but in -the _impassioned_ handling of them whencesoever drawn, and therefore -including the impassioned handling of reality as such, or, in the -Lucretian phrase, of _the nature of things_. - -What did he mean by _impassioned?_ Something more, certainly, than the -enthusiasm of a writer possessed with his theme, or even of one eager, -as Lucretius was, to effect by its means a glorious purgation in the -clotted soul of a friend. We come nearer when we recall the profound -emotion stirred in Wordsworth by ‘earth’s tears and mirth, her humblest -mirth and tears,’ or the thought, ‘too deep for tears,’ given him by -the lowliest flower of the field. Such passion as this is not easily -analysed, but it implies something that we may call participation on -the one side and response on the other. The poet finds himself in -Nature, finds there something that answers to spiritual needs of his -own. The measure of the poet’s mind will be the measure of the value -of the response he receives. A small poet will people Nature with -fantastic shapes which reflect nothing but his capricious fancy or his -self-centred desires. That is not finding a response in Nature, but -putting one into her mouth; a procedure like that of the bustling -conversationalist who, instead of listening to your explanation, cuts -it short with a ‘You mean to say’--whatever it suits him to suppose. -But the poet of finer genius will neither seek nor be satisfied with -such hollow response as this. If he finds himself in Nature, it will -not be his shallow fancies or passing regrets that he finds, but his -furthest reach, and loftiest appetency of soul. He will not properly -be said to ‘subdue things to the mind,’ as Bacon declared it to be -the characteristic aim of poetry to do, instead of, like philosophy, -subduing the mind to things. But he will feel after analogies to mind -in the universe of things which mind contemplates and interprets. - -Such an analogy, for instance, is the sense of _continuity_ -underlying the changing show of the material world, corresponding to -the continuity of our own self-consciousness through the perpetual -variations of our soul states. The doctrine of a permanent substance -persisting through the multiplicity of Nature, and giving birth to all -its passing modes, belongs as much to poetry as to philosophy, and owes -as much to impassioned intuition as to a priori thought. Under the -name of the _One and the Many_ the problem of Change and Permanence -perplexed and fascinated every department of Greek thought: it provoked -the opposite extravagances of Heracleitos, who declared change to -be the only form of existence, and of the Eleatics, who denied that -it existed at all; but it also inspired the ordered and symmetrical -beauty of the Parthenon and the Pindaric ode. ‘When we feel the poetic -thrill,’ says Santayana, ‘it is when we find fulness in the concise, -and depth in the clear; and that seems to express with felicitous -precision the genius of Hellenic art.’ - -A second such analogy is the discovery of _infinity_. Common sense -observes measure and rule, complies with custom, and takes its ease -when its day’s work is done; but we recognize a higher quality in the -love that knows no measure, in the spiritual hunger and thirst which -are never stilled. Therefore, at the height of our humanity, we find -ourselves in the universe in proportion as it sustains and gives scope -for an endlessly ranging and endlessly penetrating thought. The Stoics -looked on the universe as a globe pervaded by what Munro unkindly -calls _a rotund and rotatory god_; at the circumference of which all -existence, including that of space, simply stopped; common sense -revolts, but imagination is even more rudely balked, and we glory in -the defiant description of Epicurus passing beyond the flaming walls -of the world. Yet we are stirred with a far more potent intellectual -sympathy when the idea is suggested, say by Spinoza, that space and -time themselves are but particular modes of a universe which exists -also in an infinite number of other ways; or when, in the final cantos -of Dante’s _Paradiso_, after passing up from Earth, the centre, -through the successive ever-widening spheres that circle round it, -till we reach the Empyrean, the whole perspective and structure of the -universe are suddenly inverted, and we see the real centre, God, as -a single point of dazzling intensity, irradiating existence ‘through -and through.’ Then we realize that the space we have been laboriously -traversing is only the illusive medium of our sense-existence, and -without meaning for the Eternity and Infinity of divine reality. - -This example has led us to the verge of another class of poetic ideas, -those in which poetry discovers in the world not merely analogies -of mind, but mind itself. This is the commonest, and in some of its -phases the cheapest and poorest, intellectually, of all poetic ideas. -It touches at one pole the naive personation which peoples earth and -air for primitive man with spirits whom he seeks by ritual and magic -to propitiate or to circumvent. The brilliant and beautiful woof of -myth is, if we will, poetry as well as religion; the primitive and -rudimentary poetry of a primitive and rudimentary religion. Yet it -points, however crudely, to the subtler kinds of response which a -riper poetic insight may discover. If the glorious anthropomorphism of -Olympus and Asgard has faded for ever, the mystery of life, everywhere -pulsing through Nature, and perpetually reborn ‘in man and beast and -earth and air and sea,’ cries to the poet in every moment of his -experience with a voice which will not be put by, and the symbols -from soul-life by which he seeks to convey his sense of it, if they -often read human personality too definitely into the play of that -elusive mystery, yet capture something in it which escapes the reasoned -formulas of science, and justify the claim of poetic experience to be -the source of an outlook upon the world, of a vision of life, with -which, no less than with those reached through philosophy and religion, -civilization has to reckon. - -The poetic consciousness of soul has thus left a deep impress upon the -medium of ideas through which we currently regard both Nature and Man. -It has imbued with a richer significance and a livelier appeal those -analogies in Nature of which I spoke; turning the sublime but bare -conceptions of continuity and substance into Wordsworth’s _something -more deeply interfused_, or Shelley’s _Love ... through the web of -Being blindly wove;_ turning the abstraction of infinity into limitless -aspiration, or into that ‘infinite passion’ which Browning felt across -‘the pain of finite hearts that yearn.’ - -On the other hand, in its interpretation of Man, the poetic -soul-consciousness, so extraordinarily intense on the emotional and -imaginative side, has lifted these aspects of soul into prominence; -illuminating and sustaining everywhere the impassioned insight which -carries men outside and beyond themselves, in heroism, in prophecy, in -creation, in love; which makes the past alive for them, and the future -urgent; which lifts them to a vision of good and evil beyond that of -moral codes; to the perception that danger is the true safety, and -death, as Rupert Brooke said, ‘safest of all’; which in a word gives -wing and scope and power to that in man which endures, as the stream -endures though its water is ever gliding on, and makes us ‘feel that we -are greater than we know.’ - -I have tried to sketch out some of the ways in which a scientific -poetry is possible without disparagement to either element in the -description. Let me now proceed to apply some of these ideas to the -great poet of science who is our immediate subject. - - -II - -In this assembly it is unnecessary to recall the little that is told, -on dubious authority, of the life which began a little less than a -hundred years before the Christian era, and ended when he was not much -over forty, when Virgil was a very young man. All that is told of his -life is the story that he went mad after receiving a love-philtre, -composed the books of his great poem, _On the Nature of Things_ in his -lucid intervals, and finally died by his own hand. It is this tradition -which Tennyson with great art has worked up into his noble poem. We -need not here discuss the truth either of the tradition of madness or -of that of suicide. What is certain is that no poem in the world bears -a more powerful impress of coherent and continuous thought. While -the poets of his own time and of the next generation, though deeply -interested in his poetry and in his ideas, know nothing of the tragic -story which first emerges in a testimony four centuries later. - -Lucretius called his poem by the bald title _On the Nature of Things_. -But no single term or phrase can describe the aims which, distinct -but continually playing into and through one another, compose the -intense animating purpose of the book. We may say that it is at once -a scientific treatise, a gospel of salvation, and an epic of nature -and man; yet we are rarely conscious of any one of these aims to the -exclusion of the rest. In none of these three aims was Lucretius -wholly original. In each of them he had a great precursor among the -speculative thinkers and poets of Greece. His science roughly speaking -was the creation of Democritus; his gospel of salvation was the work of -Epicurus; and the greatest example of a poem on the nature of things, -before his, had been given by Empedocles, the poet-philosopher of -Agrigentum whom Matthew Arnold made the mouthpiece of his grave and -lofty hymn of nineteenth-century pessimism. In his own country his only -predecessor in any sense was Ennius, the old national poet who had -first cast the hexameter in the stubborn mould of Latin speech, to whom -he pays characteristically generous homage. - -The atomic system of Democritus, which explained all things in the -universe as combinations of different kinds of material particles, -was a magnificent contribution to physical science, and the fertility -of its essential idea is still unexhausted. It touched the problems -of mind and life, of ethics and art, only indirectly, in so far as -it resolved mind and all its activities into functions of matter and -motion. Epicurus, on the other hand, a saintly recluse, bent only -upon showing the way to a life of serene and cheerful virtue, took -over the doctrine of the great physicist of Abdêra, without any touch -of dispassionate speculative interest, as that which promised most -effectual relief from disturbing interests and cares, and especially -from the disturbance generated by fear of the gods and of a life -after death. He might have gone to the great Athenian idealists of -the fourth century, the immortal masters not only of those who know, -but of those who think and create, whether in science or in poetry -or in citizenship. But his aim was precisely to liberate from these -distracting energies, and allure a weary generation from the forum and -the workshop, even the studio of letters or of art, and the temples of -the gods, into the choice seclusion of his garden--the garden of a soul -at peace, fragrant with innocent and beautiful things. What Epicurus -added of his own to Democritus’ theory was an accommodation not to -truth but to convenience; and the measure of his scientific ardour is -given by his easy toleration of conflicting explanations of the same -phenomenon, provided they dispense with the intervention of the gods. -While the measure of his attachment to poetry is given by his counsel -to his disciples to go past it with stopped ears, as by the siren’s -deadly song. - -It was this scientific doctrine, adopted by Epicurus in the interest -not of science but of his gospel of deliverance from the cares -of superstition, that Lucretius took over with the fervour of -discipleship. He was not, like Pope in the _Essay on Man_, providing -an elegant dress for philosophic ideas which he only half understood -and abandoned in alarm when they threatened to be dangerous. He was the -prophet of Epicureanism, and it is among the prophets of the faiths by -which men live and die that we must seek a parallel to the passionate -earnestness with which he proclaims to Memmius the saving gospel of -Epicurus--to that same Memmius who a few years later showed his piety -to Epicurus’ memory by destroying his house. It was the hope of pouring -the light and joy of saving truth upon the mind of this rather obtuse -Roman, his beloved friend, that Lucretius laboured, he tells us, -through the silent watches of the night, seeking phrase and measure -which might make deep and hidden things clear.[6] But Lucretius felt -and thought also as a poet and in the temper of poetry. He was not -‘lending his pen’ to a good cause, nor turning Greek science into Latin -hexameters in order that they might be more vividly grasped or more -readily remembered. He was conquering a new way in poetry; striking -out a virgin path which no foot before his had trod. For Empedocles -had had far narrower aims. And he calls on the Muses for aid with as -devout a faith in his poetic mission in the great adventure as Milton -had when he summoned Urania or some greater Muse to be his guide while -he attempted ‘things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.’ What we admire -unreservedly in him, declares a great French poet who died only the -other day, Sully-Prudhomme, is the breath of independence which sweeps -through the entire work of this most robust and precise of poets. - -We see the temper of the poet at the outset, in the wonderful -transfiguration which the gentle recluse Epicurus undergoes in -the ardent brain of his Roman disciple. For it was of this enemy -of disturbing emotion, this quietist of paganism, this timid and -debonnaire humanitarian, that Lucretius drew the magnificent and -astonishing portrait which immediately follows the prologue of the _De -Rerum Natura_. The Lucretian Epicurus is a Prometheus--the heroic Greek -who first of mortals dared to defy and withstand the monstrous tyrant -Religion to her face. No fabled terror could appal him, no crashing -thunder, nor the anger of heaven; these only kindled the more the eager -courage of his soul, to be the first to break the bars of Nature’s -gates. So the living might of his soul prevailed; and he passed beyond -the flaming walls of the world and traversed in mind and spirit the -immeasurable universe; returning thence in triumph to tell us what can, -and what cannot, come into being; having trampled under foot Religion -who once crushed mankind, and lifted mankind in turn by his victory up -to the height of heaven. - -One might well surmise that a philosophy which a poet could thus -ardently proclaim was itself, after all, not without the seeds and -springs of poetry; and that Lucretius in choosing to expound it in -verse was not staking everything on his power of making good radical -defects of substance by effective surface decoration or brilliant -digressions. He recognized, no doubt, a difference in popular appeal -between his substance and his form, and in a famous and delightful -passage compares himself to the physician who touches the edge of the -bitter cup with honey, ensnaring credulous childhood to its own good. -So, he tells Memmius, he is spreading the honey of the Muses over his -difficult matter, that he may hold him by the charm of verse until -the nature of things have grown clear to his sight. But Lucretius is -here putting himself at the point of view of the indifferent layman, -and especially of the rather obtuse layman whose interest he was with -almost pathetic eagerness seeking to capture. One guesses that Memmius, -like the boy, was by no means reconciled to the wormwood because it was -prefaced with honey; and modern critics who, like Mommsen, condemn his -choice of subject as a blunder, come near to adopting the resentful -boy’s point of view. But in the splendid lines which immediately -precede, though they form part of the same apology to Memmius, the -poet involuntarily betrays his own very different conception of the -matter. The hope of glory, he says, has kindled in his breast the -love of the Muses, ‘whereby inspired I am exploring a virgin soil of -poetry hitherto untrodden by any foot. O the joy of approaching the -unsullied springs, and quaffing them, O the joy of culling flowers -unknown, whence may be woven a splendid wreath for my head, such as the -Muses have arrayed no man’s brows withal before; first because I am -reporting on a great theme, and undoing the tight knot of superstition -from the minds of men; and then because I convey dark matters in such -transparent verse, touching everything with the Muses’ charm.’[7] - -Here, in spite of the last words, Lucretius clearly feels that his -matter is something more than the wormwood which he overlays with -honey; it is a vast region of implicit poetry which he, first of poets, -is going to discover and annex; and he rests his claim to the poetic -wreath he expects to win, in the first place upon this greatness of -the subject matter itself, and secondly, not as the wormwood and -honey theory would suggest, on the ingenious fancy which decorates or -disguises it, but on the lucid style which allows it to shine in, as -through a window, upon the ignorant mind. - - -III - -Let us then consider from this point of view the subject of Lucretius. -This subject, as he conceives it, has two aspects. On the one side -it is negative;--an annihilating criticism of all the crude religion -founded upon fear--fear of the gods, fear of death and of something -after death; criticism delivered with remorseless power and culminating -in the sinewy intensity of the terrible line - - Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum, - -which transfixes once for all the consecrated principle of _tabu_ -everywhere dominant in the primitive faiths, the product of man’s -cowardice, as magic is the product of his pride. - -The other aspect is constructive; the building up of the intellectual -and moral framework of a worthy human life, by setting forth the true -nature of the universe, the history of life, and the development of -man; in other words, the story of his struggle through the ages, with -the obstacles opposed to him by the power of untamed nature, by wild -beasts, storms, inundations, by the rivalry and antagonism of other -men, and by the wild unreason in his own breast. Lucretius saw as -clearly as any modern thinker that man’s conduct of his life, whether -in the narrow circle of domestic happiness and personal duty, or in the -larger sphere of civic polity, must be based upon a comprehension of -the external world and of the past through which we have grown to what -we are; and making allowance for his more limited resources and his -more confined point of view, he carried it out with magnificent power. -So that if his poem remains in nominal intention a didactic treatise, -in its inner substance and purport it might better be described as a -colossal epic of the universe, with man for its protagonist and the -spectres of the gods for its vanquished foes; and wanting neither the -heroic exultations nor the tragic dooms, neither the melancholy over -what passes nor the triumph in what endures, which go to the making of -the greatest poetry. - -These two aspects--criticism and construction--are thus most intimately -bound together in the poem, but can yet be considered apart. And to -each belongs its own peculiar and distinct vein of poetry. On the -whole it is the former, at first sight so much less favourable to -poetic purposes, which has most enthralled posterity. For the voice of -Lucretius is here a distinctive, almost a solitary voice. The poets for -the most part have been the weavers of the veil of dreams and visions -in whose glamour the races of mankind have walked: but here came a -poet, and one of the greatest, who rent the veil asunder and bade men -gaze upon the nature of things naked and unadorned. And his austere -chaunt of triumph as he pierces illusion and scatters superstition, -has in it something more poignant and thrilling than many a song of -voluptuous ecstacy or enchanted reverie. For, after all, the passing -of an old order of things and the coming of a new has always at least -the interest of colossal drama, and cannot leave us unmoved, however -baneful we may hold the old order to have been, however we may exult -in the deliverance effected by the new. So Milton’s celebration of the -birth of Christ only reaches the heights of poetry when he is telling -of the passing of the old pagan divinities: - - The lonely mountains o’er - And the resounding shore, - A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; - From haunted spring and dale, - Edged with poplar pale, - The parting genius is with sighing sent; - With flower-inwoven tresses torn - The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thicket mourn. - -Through the Christian’s exultation there sounds, less consciously -perhaps, but more clear, the Humanist scholar’s sense of tragedy -and pathos. In this sense Milton’s Ode has affinity with poems like -Schiller’s _Gods of Greece_, where grief for the passing of the pagan -faith is untouched by Christian sentiment; but precisely its more -complex and subtle emotion raises Milton’s poem higher. In _Hyperion_, -even more, we are made to feel the pathos of the passing of the fallen -divinity of Saturn and his host; and Hyperion himself, the sun-god of -the old order of physical light, is more magnificently presented than -Apollo, the sun-god of the new order of radiant intelligence and song. -Lucretius, as we shall see, brings back the old divinity in a sublime -way of his own; but he feels the beneficence of the new order of -scientific vision and inviolable law too profoundly to have any sense -of pathos at the passing of the reign of superstition and caprice. -He is rather possessed with flaming wrath as he recalls the towering -evils of which that old regime had been guilty: the wrath of a prophet, -more truly divine in spirit than the divinities he assailed, as -Prometheus is more divine than Zeus. Again and again we are reminded, -as we read his great invectives, not of the sceptics mocking all gods -indiscriminately in the name of enlightened good sense, but of a Hebrew -prophet, chastising those who sacrifice to the gods of the Gentiles, in -the name of the God of righteousness who refuses to be worshipped with -offerings of blood. There is surely a spirit not far remote from this -in the indignant pity with which he tells, in a famous and splendid -passage, the sacrifice of Iphigenia at the divine bidding, as the price -of the liberation of the Grecian fleet on its way to Troy: - - How often has fear of the gods begotten impious and criminal acts! - What else was it that led the chieftains of Greece, foremost of men, - foully to stain the altar of Artemis with the blood of the maiden - Iphigenia? Soon as the victim’s band was bound about her virgin locks, - and she saw her father grief-stricken before the altar, and at his - side the priests concealing the knife, and the onlookers shedding - tears at the sight, dumb with fear she sank on her knees to the - ground. And it availed her nothing at that hour that she had been the - first to call the king by the name of father; for she was caught up by - the hands of men, and borne trembling to the altar; not to have a glad - wedding hymn sung before her when these sacred rites were over, but - to be piteously struck down, a victim, stained with her own stainless - blood, by the hand of a father in the very flower of her bridal years; - and all in order to procure that a happy deliverance might be granted - to the captive fleet. So huge a mass of evils has fear of the gods - brought forth! (I. 84-101.)[8] - -Thus the crucial proof of the badness of the old religions is derived -from the hideous violence done in their name to the natural and -beautiful pieties of the family. - -Yet, with all his fierce aversion for this baneful fear, Lucretius -feels profoundly how natural it is. His intense imagination enters -into the inmost recesses of the human heart, and runs counter, as it -were, to the argument of his powerful reason; riveting upon our senses -with almost intolerable force the beliefs which he is himself seeking -to dispel; so that though there is no trace of doubt or obscurity in -his own mind, his words need only to be set in a different context to -become a plea for that which he is using them to refute. Thus his very -derision of the Stoic doctrine of an all-pervading God is conveyed in -language of what one is again prompted to call Hebraic magnificence. -‘What power can rule the immeasurable All, or hold the reins of the -great deep? who can revolve the heavens and warm the earth with -ethereal fires? who can be everywhere present, making dark the sky and -thrilling it with clashing sound...?’ (V. 1234 f.) Do we not seem to -listen to an echo of the ironical questions of the Jahveh of the Book -of Job? - -There he feels only scorn for the believer, in spite of his involuntary -imaginative hold upon the belief. But in another passage we see the -poet himself shudder with the fear that his logic is in the act of -plucking up by the roots: - - When we gaze upward at the great vault of heaven, and the empyrean - fixed above the shining stars, and consider the paths of sun and - moon, then the dread will start into life within us lest haply we - should find it to be the immeasurable might of the gods which moves - the blazing stars along their diverse ways. For dearth of argument - tempts us to wonder whether the world was ever begotten, and whether - it be destined to perish when its ceaseless movements have worn it - out, or endowed with immortal life glide on perpetually, defying all - the might of time. And then what man is there whose heart does not - shrink with terror of the gods, whose limbs do not creep with fear, - when the parched earth trembles at the lightning stroke, and the roar - of thunder rolls through the sky! Do not the peoples shudder, and - haughty kings quake with fear, lest for some foul deed or arrogant - speech a dire penalty has been incurred and the hour be come when it - must be paid? For when the might of the hurricane sweeps the commander - of a fleet before it along the seas, with all his force of legions and - elephants, does he not approach the gods with prayers for their favour - and helping winds; and all in vain, for often enough none the less - he is caught in the whirlpool and flung into the jaws of death? So - utterly is some hidden power seen to consume the works of man, and to - trample and deride all the symbols of his glory and his wrath (V. 1204 - f.). - -But beyond the fear of what the gods may do to us on earth, lay another -more insidious and ineluctable fear--the dread of what may befall us -after death. It was a main part of Lucretius’s purpose to meet this by -showing that death meant dissolution, and dissolution unconsciousness; -but men continued to dread, and this is the reasoning, equally -inconclusive and brilliant, with which he confronts them: - - Therefore since death annihilates, and bars out from being altogether - him whom evils might befall, it is plain that in death there is - nothing for us to fear, and that a man cannot be unhappy who does not - exist at all, and that it matters not a jot whether a man has been - born, when death the deathless has swallowed up life that dies. - - Therefore, when you see a man bewail himself that after death his body - will rot, or perish in flames or in the jaws of beasts, his profession - clearly does not ring true, and there lurks a secret sting in his - heart, for all his denial that he believes there is any feeling in - the dead. For, I take it, he does not fulfil his promise, nor follow - out his principle, and sever himself out and out from life, but - unconsciously makes something of himself survive. For when as a living - man he imagines his future fate, and sees himself devoured by birds - and beasts, he pities himself; for he does not distinguish between - himself and the other, nor sever himself from the imagined body, but - imagines himself to be it, and impregnates it with his own feeling. - Hence he is indignant that he has been created mortal, nor sees that - there will not in reality be after death another self, to grieve as a - living being that he is dead, and feel pangs as he stands by, that he - himself is lying there being mangled or consumed. - -Then he supposes the dying man’s friends to condole with him: - - Now no more thy glad home shall welcome thee, nor a beloved wife, nor - sweet children run to snatch kisses, touching thy heart with secret - delight. No more wilt thou be prosperous in thy doings, no more be a - shelter to thy dear ones. A single, cruel day has taken from thee, - hapless man, all the need of life. So they tell you, but they forget - to add that neither for any one of these things wilt thou any longer - feel desire (III. 863). - - -IV - -So much then for the first aspect of Lucretius’s poem--the criticism of -the old religions. Most of the recognized and famous ‘poetry’ of the -book is connected, like the passages I have quoted, with this negative -side of his creed. But I am more concerned to show that a different -and not less noble vein of poetry was rooted in the rich positive -appetencies of his nature; in his acute and exquisite senses; in the -vast and sublime ideas which underlay his doctrine of the world; in -his intense apprehension of the zest of life; and, on the other hand, -penetrating, like an invisible but potent spirit, the texture of his -reasoned unconcern, his profound, unconfessed sense of the pathos -of death, his melancholy in the presence of the doom of universal -dissolution which he foresaw for the world and for mankind. - -Let us look first at the main constructive idea; the atomic theory -of Leucippus and Democritus, taken over by Epicurus and expounded by -Lucretius. - -For this theory was in effect, and probably in intention, a device -for overcoming that antithesis of the One and the Many, of Permanence -and Change, of which I have spoken. The Eleatics had declared that -pure Being was alone real, and denied Change and Motion; Heracleitus -declared that nothing was real but Change, and the only perpetuity -‘flux.’ The founder of atomism, Leucippus, showed that it was possible -to hold, in the phrase of Browning’s philosophic Don Juan, that there -is in ‘all things change, and permanence as well,’ by supposing that -shifting and unstable world of the senses, where all things die and -are born, to be composed of uncreated and indestructible elements. -Underlying the ceaseless fluctuations of Nature, and life as we see -them, lay a continuity of eternal substance, of which they were the -passing modes;--one of the greatest of philosophical conceptions, -Mr. Santayana has called it, but one also appealing profoundly to -the specifically poetic intuition which I have described. Whether -the permanent apprehended through the flux of sense be a spiritual -substance like Plato’s ideas, or Shelley’s ‘white radiance of -eternity,’ or whether it be the constant form and function of the -flowing river, as in Wordsworth’s Duddon sonnet; or whether, as here, -it be a background of material particles perpetually combining and -resolved, we have the kind of intuition which gives the thrill of -poetry; we discover ‘sweep in the concise, and depth in the clear,’ -infinite perspectives open out in the moment and in the point, and -however remote the temper of Spinozan mysticism may be, we yet in some -sort see things ‘in the light of eternity.’ - -In Lucretius this conception found a mind capable of being ravished -by its imaginative grandeur, as well as of pursuing it indefatigably -through the thorniest mazes of mechanical proof. The contagious fervour -which breathes through his poem is no mere ardour of the disciple -bent on winning converts, or the joy of the literary craftsman as -his hexameters leap forth glowing on the anvil; it is the sacred -passion of one who has had a sublime vision of life and nature, -and who bears about the radiance of it into all the work to which -he has set his hand. It is not because of anything that Lucretius -adds to Epicurus--in theory he really adds nothing at all--that the -impression produced by his poem differs so greatly from that of all -we know--in fragments and at second hand, it is true--of Epicurus’s -own writings. The ultimate principles are the same, but the accent is -laid at a different point. The parochial timidities of Epicurus have -left their traces on the Roman’s page, but they appear as hardly more -than rudimentary survivals among the native inspirations of a man of -heroic mettle and valour, Roman tenacity, and native sweep of mind. -He cannot quite break free from some speculative foibles which show -the Master’s shallow opportunism at its worst--such as the dictum that -the sun is about as large as it looks, a lamp hung a little above the -earth, and daily lighted and put out; but he becomes himself when he -lets his imagination soar into the infinities of time and space which -his faith opens out or leaves room for. It is a triumph of poetry as -well as of common sense when he scoffs at the Stoic dogma of a Space -which abruptly comes to an end; when he stations an archer at the -barrier and ironically bids him shoot his arrow into the nothingness -beyond. Or in more sombre mood, how grave an intensity he puts into a -common thought, like that of the end of life, by the sublimely terrible -epithet _immortal_ which he applies to death: - - Mortalem vitam Mors cum inmortalis ademit (III. 869). - -or into a mere reminder that birth and death are always with us, by -making us feel the endless concomitant succession through the ages -of funeral wailings, and the cry of the new-born child (II. 578). -He accepts without question the swerving of the atoms, devised by -Epicurus--child and man of genius at once--to refute the Stoic dogma -of necessity; but what possesses his mind and imagination is not these -intrusions of caprice, but the great continuities and uniformities of -existence, which follow from the perpetual dissolution and remaking -of life. ‘Rains die, when father ether has tumbled them into the lap -of mother earth; but then goodly crops spring up and trees laden with -fruit; and by them we and the beasts are fed, and joyous cities teem -with children and the woods ring with the song of young birds’ (I. 250 -f.). - -Only, as such passages show, Lucretius grasps these uniformities -and continuities not as theoretic abstractions, but as underlying -conditions of the teeming multiplicity and joyous profusion of -living Nature. His senses, imagination, and philosophic intellect, -all phenomenally acute and alert, wrought intimately together; and -he enters into and exposes the life of the individual thing with -an intensity of insight and a realistic precision and power which -quicken us with its warm pulse, and burn its image upon our brain, -without ever relaxing our consciousness that it is part of an endless -process, and the incidental expression of an unalterable law. For -him, indeed, as for Dante, individuality is an intrinsic part of law, -and law of individuality. Every being has its place and function, its -‘deep fixed boundaries’ (_terminus alte haerens_). The very stone, for -Dante, cleaves to the spot where it lies. And the Roman as well as -the philosopher in Lucretius scornfully contrasts with this Nature of -minute and ubiquitous law the fluid and chaotic world of myth, where -anything might become anything (cf. V. 126 f.). - - -V - -None the less, his conception of the nature of the process itself does -insensibly undergo a change. In the mind of an exponent so richly -endowed and so transparently sincere, the hidden flaw in his system -could not but at some point disturb its imposing coherence. Atomism -could not at bottom explain life, and life poured with too abounding a -tide through the heart and brain of Lucretius not to sap in some degree -the authority of his mechanical calculus, and to lend a surreptitious -persuasiveness to inconsistent analogies derived from the animated -soul. Without ostensibly disturbing the integrity of his Epicurean -creed, such analogies have, in two ways, infused an alien colour into -his poetry and alien implications into his thought. In the first -place, he feels, as such abounding natures will, that life--‘the mere -living’--is somehow very good, in spite of all the evils it brings in -its train, and death pathetic in spite of all the evils from which -it sets us free. When he is demonstrating that the world cannot have -been made by gods, he set forth its grave inherent flaws of structure -and arrangement with merciless trenchancy--_tantâ stat praedita culpâ_ -(V. 199); and like Lear, he makes the new-born child wail because he -is come into a world where so many griefs await him. And no one ever -urged with more passionate eloquence that it is unreasonable to fear to -die. None the less, phrases charged with a different feeling about life -continually escape him. He speaks of the _praeclara mundi natura_ (V. -157). To begin to live is to ‘rise up into the divine borders of light’ -(I. 20). And secondly, despite his philosophical assurance, incessantly -repeated, that birth and death are merely different aspects of the same -continuous mechanical process, and that nothing receives life except by -the death of something else, ‘Alid ex alio reficit natura, nec ullam -Rem gigni patitur, nisi morte adiuta aliena’ (I. 264, etc.), he cannot -suppress suggestions that the creative energy of the world is akin to -that which with conscious desire and will brings forth the successive -generations of Man. And so, in the astonishing and magnificent opening -address, the poet who was about to demonstrate that the gods lived -eternally remote from the life of men, calls upon Venus, the legendary -mother of his own race, as the divine power ever at work in this -teeming universe, the giver of increase, bringing all things to birth, -from the simplest corn blade to the might and glory of the Roman Empire: - - Mother of the Roman race, delight of gods and men, benign Venus, who - under the gliding constellations of heaven fillest with thy presence - the sea with its ships and the earth with its fruits, seeing that by - thy power all the races of living things are conceived and come to - being in the light of day; before thee, O goddess, the winds take - flight, and the clouds of heaven at thy coming; at thy feet the brown - earth sheds her flowers of a thousand hues, before thee the sea breaks - into rippling laughter, and the sky rejoicing glows with radiant light - (I. 1 f.). - -So grave and impassioned an appeal cannot be treated as mere rhetorical -ornament. If we call it figure, it is figure of the kind which is not -a ‘poetical’ substitute for prose, but conveys something for which -no other terms are adequate. Lucretius, the exponent of Epicurus, -doubtless intended no heresy against the Epicurean theology; but -Lucretius, the poet, was carried by his vehement imagination to an -apprehension of the creative energies of the world so intense and acute -that the great symbol of Venus rendered it with more veracity than all -that calculus of atomic movements which he was about to expound, and by -which his logical intellect with perfect sincerity believed it to be -adequately explained. - -Far less astonishing than his bold rehabilitation of the goddess of -Love is his fetishistic feeling for the Earth, the legendary mother of -men. For him too, as for primeval myth, she is the ‘universal mother,’ -who in her fresh youth brought forth flower and tree, and bird and -beast; from whose body sprang finally the race of man itself; nay, -he tells us how the infants crept forth, ‘from wombs rooted in the -soil,’ and how, wherever this happened, earth yielded naturally through -her pores a liquor most like to milk, ‘even as nowadays every woman -when she has given birth is filled with sweet milk, because all that -current of nutriment streams towards the breast’ (V. 788 f.). - -It is true that elsewhere Lucretius speaks with rationalistic -condescension of the usage which calls the Earth a mother and divine, -as a phrase like Bacchus for wine or Ceres for corn, permissible so -long as no superstitious fear is annexed to it (II. 652 f.). But -it is plain that the Earth’s motherhood had a grip upon his poet’s -imagination quite other than could be exerted by any such tag of poetic -diction. Doubtless the fervour with which he insists on it--‘Therefore -again and again Earth is rightly called Mother, seeing that she brought -forth the race of men and every beast and bird in its due season’--is -not wholly due to poetic motives. He is eager to refute the Stoic -doctrine that men were sprung from heaven. But the poet in him is, all -the same, entranced by the sublimity of the conception he is urging, -and he describes it with an afflatus which dwarfs that Stoic doctrine, -and makes the splendid legend of Cybele the Earth Mother, elaborated by -the Greek poets, seem puerile with all its beauty. ‘In the beginning -Earth hath in herself the elements whence watersprings pouring forth -their coolness perpetually renew the boundless Sea, and whence fires -arise, making the ground in many places hot, and belching forth the -surpassing flames of Ætna. Then she bears shining corn and glad -woodlands for the support of men, and rivers and leaves and shining -pastures for the beasts that haunt the hills. Wherefore she is called -the mother of the gods and mother of beasts and men’ (II. 589 f.). - -This all-creating Earth is far enough no doubt from the benign Nature -of Wordsworth, who moulds her children by silent sympathy. But it is -not so remote from the Earth of Meredith, the Mother who brings Man -‘her great venture’ forth, bears him on her breast and nourishes him -there, but ‘more than that embrace, that nourishment, she cannot give.’ - - He may entreat, aspire, - He may despair, and she has never heed. - She drinking his warm sweat will soothe his need, - Not his desire. - -Meredith too sees man, in dread of her, clutching at invisible powers, -as Lucretius’s sea-captain in the storm makes vows to the gods. And -Meredith’s thought that man rises by ‘spelling at’ her laws is no less -Lucretian. But Meredith’s story of Earth is full of hope, like his -story of man. It is perpetual advance. With Lucretius it is otherwise. - -For the Earth is not only our Mother; she is our tomb (II. 1148 f.). -And the eternal energy of creation is not only matched by the eternal -energy of dissolution, but here and now is actually yielding ground to -it. The Earth, so prolific in her joyous youth, is now like a woman -who has ceased to bear, ‘worn out by length of days’ (V. 820 f.). In -the whole universe birth and death absolutely balance, the equation -of mechanical values is never infringed; the universe has no history, -only a continuous substitution of terms. But each living thing has -a history, it knows the exultation of onset and the melancholy of -decline; and its fear of death is not cancelled by the knowledge that -in that very moment, and in consequence of that very fact, some other -living thing will be born. And thus Lucretius, feeling for our Earth -as a being very near to us, and with which the issues of our existence -are involved, applies the doctrine to her without shrinking indeed, but -not without a human shudder. The Earth had a beginning, and ineluctable -reason forces us to conclude that she will have an end, and this not -by a gradual evanescence or dispersion, but by a sudden, terrific -catastrophe, as in a great earthquake, or world conflagration (V. 95 -f.). - -And he feels this abrupt extinction of the Earth and its inhabitants to -be tragic, notwithstanding that extinction is, by his doctrine, only -the condition of creation, and that at the very moment of her ruin, -some other earth will be celebrating its glorious birth. Earth has for -him a life-history, a biography, and he forgets that she is strictly -but a point at which the eternal drift of atoms thickened for a time -to a cluster, to be dispersed again. Thus we see how this mechanical -system, ardently embraced by a poet, working freely upon him, and -itself coloured and transformed by his mind, stirred in him two -seemingly opposed kinds of poetic emotion at once: the sublime sense of -eternal existence, and the tragic pathos of sudden doom and inexorable -passing away. - -Hence the _melancholy_ that in Lucretius goes along with an enormous -sense of life. To say that he puts the ‘Nevermore’ of romantic -sentimentality in the place of that dispassionate ‘give and take’ of -mechanics would do wrong to the immense virility which animates every -line of this athlete among poets. Of the cheap melancholy of discontent -he knows as little as of the cheap satisfaction of complacency, or -of that literary melancholy, where the sigh of Horace, or Ronsard, -or Herrick, over the passing of roses and all other beautiful things -covers a sly diplomatic appeal to the human rosebud to be gathered -while still there is time. No, the melancholy of Lucretius is like -that of Dürer’s ‘Melancholia,’ the sadness of strong intellect and -far-reaching vision as it contemplates the setting of the sun of time -and the ebbing of the tides of mortality; or like Wordsworth’s mournful -music of dissolution, only to be heard by an ear emancipated from -vulgar joys and fears; or like the melancholy of Keats--the veiled -goddess who hath her shrine in the very temple of delight--the _amari -aliquid_, in Lucretius’s own yet more pregnant words, which lurks in -the very sweetness of the flower. - -Thus our ‘scientific poet’ appears in an extraordinary if not unique -way to have united the functions and temper and achievement of science -and poetry. He ‘knew the causes of things,’ and could set them forth -with marvellous precision and resource; and the knowledge filled him -with lofty joy as of one standing secure above the welter of doubt -and fear in which the mass of men pass their lives. To have reached -this serene pinnacle of intellectual security seemed to his greatest -follower Virgil a happiness beyond the reach of his own more tender and -devout genius, and he commemorated it in splendid verses which Matthew -Arnold in our own day applied to Goethe: - - And he was happy, if to know - Causes of things, and far below - His feet to see the lurid flow - Of terror and insane distress - And headlong fate, be happiness. - -There is, it may be, something that repels us, something slightly -inhuman, in this kind of lonely happiness, and Lucretius does little -to counteract that impression when he himself compares it, in another -famous passage, to the satisfaction of one who watches the struggle -of a storm-tost ship from the safe vantage-ground of the shore. Yet -Lucretius is far from being the lonely egoist that such a passage -might suggest; his poem itself was meant as a helping hand to lift -mankind to his own security: he knew what devoted friendship was, -and we have pleasant glimpses of him wandering with companions among -the mountains,[9] or sharing a rustic meal stretched at ease on the -grass by a running brook.[10] Lucretius like his master had no social -philosophy, and it is his greatest deficiency as a thinker; but he was -not poor in social feeling. His heart went out to men, as a physician, -not coldly diagnosing their disease, but eager to cure them. - -And so his feeling for Nature, for the universe of things, though -rooted in his scientific apprehension, is not bounded by it. He seizes -upon the sublime conceptions which his science brought to his view--the -permanent substance amid perennial change, the infinity of space and -time--and his vivid mind turns these abstractions into the radiant -vision of a universe to which the heaven of heavens, as the old poets -had conceived it, ‘was but a veil.’ But he went further, and shadowed -forth, if half-consciously and in spite of himself, the yet greater -poetic thought, of a living power pervading the whole, drawing the -elements of being together by the might of an all-permeating Love. And -thus Lucretius, the culminating expression of the scientific thinking -of Democritus and of the gospel of Epicurus, foreshadows Virgil, whom -he so deeply influenced, and prophesies faintly but perceptibly of -Dante and of Shelley; as his annihilating exposure of the religions -founded upon fear insensibly prepared the way for the religions of hope -and love. - - - - -III MOUNTAIN SCENERY IN KEATS - - - - -III MOUNTAIN SCENERY IN KEATS - - -THE ‘love of mountains’ which plays so large a part in the poetry of -the age of Wordsworth, and has so few close analogies in that of any -other country or any earlier time, offers matter of still unexhausted -interest to the student of poetic psychology. This is not the place -to consider how it happened that any mass of boldly crumpled strata, -on a certain scale, became in the course of the eighteenth century -charged with a kind of spiritual electricity which set up powerful -answering excitements in the sensitive beholder. Gray already in 1739 -expressed the potential reach and compass of these excitements in our -psychical life when he called the scenery of the Grande Chartreuse -‘pregnant with religion and poetry’--a thought which Wordsworth’s -sublime verses on the Simplon, sixty years later, only made explicit. -Not all the mountain-excitement of the time was of this quality; and -we can distinguish easily enough between the ‘picturesque,’ ‘romantic’ -mountain sentiment of Scott, to whom the Trossachs and Ben Venue spoke -most eloquently when they sounded to the pad of a horseman’s gallop, -and the ‘natural religion’ of Wordsworth, to whom the same pass wore -the air of a ‘Confessional’ apt for autumnal meditation on the brevity -of life. In the younger poets of the age mountain sentiment is less -original and profound than in Wordsworth, less breezily elemental than -in Scott. The mountain poetry of Wordsworth concurred, as an explicit -stimulus to mountain sentiment, with the inarticulate spell of the -mountains themselves, transforming in some degree the native feeling -and experience of almost all mountain-lovers of the next twenty years, -even when they were of the calibre of Coleridge, Byron, and Shelley. -Yet even where the Wordsworthian colour is most perceptible, as in _The -Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni_, in _Alastor_, _Mont Blanc_, and in the -Third Canto of _Childe Harold_, the younger poet has seen his mountains -with his own eyes and through the glamour of his own passions, -impregnated them with his own genius and temperament. Shelley’s -mountains are no longer the quiet brotherhood of Grasmere, with a -listening star atop, but peaks of flamelike aspiration, or embodied -protests against men’s code of crime and fraud; Byron’s are warriors -calling joyously to one another over the lit lake across the storm. For -all these poets--even for Scott when he _was_ a poet--mountain scenery -was not so much new matter to be described as a new instrument of -expression, a speaking symbol for their own spiritual appetencies and -ideal dreams. Of its importance for the poetry of any one of them there -cannot be a moment’s doubt. There remains, however, another poet, the -youngest, the shortest-lived, but in some respects the most gifted -of the whole group. On a general view Keats appears to be sharply -distinguished, in regard to the characteristic here in question, from -all the rest. Mountains and mountain sentiment seem to have a quite -negligible place in his poetry. It may be worth while to consider how -far this is really the case. - - -I - -If we look to the sources of his experience, Keats was more nearly -secluded from the stimulus of mountain scenery than any of his -compeers. By the outward circumstances, of his birth and breeding -he was in reality the ‘cockney poet’ of later derisive criticism. -During the whole formative period of youth he hardly encountered even -‘wild’ scenery; what lay about him in his infancy was at best the -semi-suburban meadow and woodland landscape of Edmonton, or the ‘little -hill’ (of Hampstead) on which he ‘stood tiptoe’ to command a wider -view. Before the summer of 1818 there is no sign that either ‘mountain -power’ or ‘mountain mystery’ had any meaning for him. He deeply admired -Wordsworth, and regarded _The Excursion_ as one of the three things -to rejoice at in that age; but it was Wordsworth as an interpreter of -human life, the poet who ‘thought into the human heart’ (to Reynolds, -May 1818), rather than the mountain lover. There is no clear trace as -yet in his earlier poetry of Cumberland fells; there is none whatever -of the great mountain mythology of Wordsworth. No menacing peak had -ever towered up between him and the stars, no far-distant hills had -sent an alien sound of melancholy to his ear. Not that he owes nothing -as a poet to the mythic rendering of mountains. On the contrary, up to -this date, all his imagining of mountains, in the stricter sense, is -derived from, or at least touched with, myth. Only it is the myth of -classic legend, not of modern ‘natural religion.’ Had not the ‘lively -Grecians’ inhabited a ‘land of hills,’ these would hardly have entered -even as largely as they do into the enchanted scenery of _Endymion_; -and on the whole it is a scenery of woods and waters, flowery glades -and ocean caverns, not of Olympian heights. But if Keats’s experience -of nature is still limited, it is used to the full. _Endymion_, at -first sight a tissue of exquisite dreams, is full of the evidence -of his no less exquisite perception of the living nature within his -reach. From the very outset we are aware that the ‘things of beauty’ -he loved best and knew most intimately in the natural world were woods -and flowers and streams. There is no mention, in that opening survey, -of hills, and when they come perforce into the story they are arrayed -as far as may be in the semblance of these beloved things. ‘A mighty -forest’ is ‘outspread upon the sides of Latmus’ (i. 62); in the summons -to the Shepherds, the highland homes are touched vaguely and without -interest (‘whether descended from beneath the rocks that overtop your -mountains’), while he lingers with evident delight upon the ‘swelling -downs’ - - ... where sweet air stirs - Blue hare-bells lightly and where prickly furze - Buds lavish gold. (i. 201.) - -as later, no less daintily, upon the - - ... hill-flowers running wild - In pink and purple chequer. (ii. 286.) - -The ideal dwelling for Endymion and his ‘swan of Ganges’ will be under -the brow of a steep hill, but they will be embowered in ivy and yew, -and the hill itself, like their bridal couch, will be ‘mossy’--the -haunting character of the Keatsian woodland and its ‘winding ways’ (iv. -670). - -On the other hand, some of the hills in _Endymion_, like ‘fountain’d -Helicon,’ are purely legendary, and the higher and bolder ones derive -their characters from the tales of Olympus or Cyllene. Between nature -and classic myth there was for Keats no trace of the disparity which -so deeply offended Wordsworth; his imagination passed without thought -of discord from one to the other, or blended them together; it was -probably the Nature poet yet more than the Christian in Wordsworth -who responded so coldly (‘A pretty piece of paganism’) when the young -poet brought his train of Bacchanals ‘over the light-blue hills.’ -It is of Arcadian boar-hunts that we have to think when Endymion on -the mountain-heights will ‘once more make his horn parley from their -foreheads hoar’ (i. 478), or sees the thunderbolt hurled from his -threshold (ii. 203); it is an Arcadian shepherd whose ‘pipe comes clear -from aery steep’ (iii. 359). And it is at least no English mountain -of whose ‘icy pinnacles’ we have a momentary and here quite isolated -glimpse. - - -II - -But while the mountain-drawing in _Endymion_ is on the whole vague and -derivative, there are hints that Keats was already becoming alive to -the imaginative spell of great mountains, to their power in poetry, and -for his poetry. When he imagines the moonlit earth, he sees it partly -in delicate miniature like the image of the nested wren, who takes -glimpses of the moon from beneath a sheltering ivy-leaf, but this is -coupled with a picture of Miltonic grandeur and tumult: - - Innumerable mountains rise, and rise, - Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes. (iii. 59.) - -He was already on the way to that clear recognition of his need of -great mountains which speaks from his famous explanation of the motives -of the northern tour which he undertook, with Brown, in the summer of -1818--the crucial event of his history from our present point of view. -‘I should not have consented to myself,’ he wrote to Bailey, ‘these -four months tramping in the highlands, but that I thought that it -would give me more experience, rub off more prejudice, use me to more -hardship, identify finer scenes, load me with grander mountains, and -strengthen more my reach in Poetry, than would stopping at home among -books, even though I should read Homer.’[11] The passage has great -psychological value, for it shows how closely involved his nascent -apprehension of mountains was with the other spiritual appetencies -urgent within him in these months. To be ‘loaded with grander -mountains’ he thought of as an integral part of an inner process of -much wider scope, of which the common note was to be the bracing and -hardening of a mind which had not yet won complete control of its -supreme gift of exquisite sensation. The ‘grander mountains’ were to -be only one of the bracing forces, but it is clear that he felt this -new force, under whose sway he was for a while about to live, akin to -others which his letters show to have been alluring him during these -months. The bare rugged forms of the mountains he was now to explore -accorded subtly for him with the hardihood and endurance of the -climber, and not less with the severity of the epic poet, who, like -Milton, preferred ‘the ardours to the pleasures of song,’ or who, like -Homer, allowed us fugitive but sublime glimpses of the mountains which -looked down upon the scene of his Tale. When Keats and Brown came down -upon the town of Ayr, they had before them ‘a grand Sea view terminated -by the black Mountains of the isle of Arran. As soon as I saw them -so nearly I said to myself: How is it they did not beckon Burns to -some grand attempt at Epic?’[12] Keats perhaps thought of the Isle of -Tenedos, which similarly dominates the plain of Troy across a reach of -sea; ‘You would lift your eyes from Homer only to see close before you -the real Isle of Tenedos,’ he was writing to Reynolds in a different -context on the same day. That one peaked Isle should stand out in -Keats’s mind from all the other imagery of Homer, and that he should -wonder at the failure of another to beget new Iliads in the unhomeric -Burns, shows with much precision how his literary passion for the -Homeric poetry was now quickened and actualized by the visible presence -of grand mountains. - -It is needless (though not irrelevant) to dwell here upon other -kindred features of the expanding horizons which came into view for -Keats in this momentous year: the resolve to renounce his ‘luxurious’ -art for philosophy and knowledge;[13] and the disdain for women, for -effeminate characters, for the pleasures of domesticity. In each -case the urgency of this passion for what he felt more bracing, more -intellectually fortifying, more masculine, found vent, for a time, in -language too peremptory and exclusive to be true to the needs of his -rich and complex nature.[14] Philosophy would, had he lived, assuredly -have ministered more abundantly to his poetry, but _Lamia_ shows how -far she was from becoming its master, or its substitute; the Miltonic -ardours of _Hyperion_ were to be qualified in the renewed but chastened -and ennobled ‘luxury’ of _St. Agnes’ Eve_ and the _Odes_. The man who -wrote: ‘the roaring of the wind is my wife and the stars through the -windowpane are my children,’ would yet have found a place for noble -womanhood within his ‘masculine’ ideal, had not a tragical influence -intervened. And, similarly, the traces of his mountain experience fade -after 1818, a new order of symbols, more congenial at bottom to the -ways of his imagination, asserts or reasserts itself in his poetry; and -it is hardly an accident that in the revised _Hyperion_ of a year later -we approach the granite precipices and everlasting cataracts of the -original poem by way of a garden, a temple, and a shrine. - - -III - -For, evidently, it is in _Hyperion_, if anywhere, that we have to seek -the afterglow of that experience of ‘grander mountains’ which, in -June, he had set out to encounter. We must not indeed look in poetry -of this quality for those detailed reproductions of what he had seen -which Wordsworth condemned as ‘inventories’ in Scott, but which are -not strange either to the lower levels of his own verse. Even in the -letters written for the entertainment of a sick brother Keats rarely -describes; and constantly, to others, he breaks off impatiently when -he has begun. ‘My dear Reynolds--I cannot write about scenery and -visitings.’ His impressions come from him in brief, sudden, unsought -phrases; he left it to the methodic Brown to give the enchanting and -‘picturesque’ detail of mountains and valleys ‘in the manner of the -Laputan printing-press.’ ‘I have been among wilds and mountains too -much to break out much about their grandeur,’ he writes a little later -to Bailey. But there is no doubt of the impression. He had hoped that -his experience would ‘load’ him with grander mountains; and, in fact, -as he goes on to tell, ‘The first mountains I saw, though not so large -as some I have since seen, _weighed_ very solemnly upon me.’ And Brown -tells us that when Windermere first burst upon their view, ‘he stopped -as if stupefied with beauty.’[15] - -Their actual experiences of mountain-climbing were few. Weather checked -them at Helvellyn, and expense at Ben Lomond; but in the ‘bleak air -atop’ of Skiddaw, as Lamb had called it, ‘I felt as if I were going to -a Tournament.’ What he felt about the Arran mountains we have seen. -Ailsa Craig--the seafowl-haunted ‘craggy ocean pyramid,’ evoked ‘the -only sonnet of any worth I have of late written.’ They found the north -end of Loch Lomond ‘grand to excess,’ and Keats made a rude pen-and-ink -sketch of ‘that blue place among the mountains.’ But their greatest -experience was doubtless the climb on Ben Nevis, on 2 August. The -chasms below the summit of Nevis seemed to him ‘the most tremendous -places I have ever seen,’ ‘the finest wonder of the whole--they appear -great rents in the very heart of the mountain, ... other huge crags -rising round ... give the appearance to Nevis of a shattered heart or -core in itself.’ - -The plan of a poem on the war of the gods and Titans was already -shaped or shaping in his mind when Keats set out for the north. As -early as September 1817 he had had in view ‘a new romance’ for the -following summer; in keeping with the new aspirations which that -summer brought, the ‘romance’ was now to be an epic. The most potent -influence governing the execution, that of Milton, is familiar, and -does not directly concern us here. Still less can we consider the -possible effect of companionship with those three little volumes of -Cary’s _Dante_, the single book taken with him on this tour.[16] But -while the spell of _Paradise Lost_ is apparent in the cast of the plot, -above all in the debate of the Titans, and in the style, an influence -to which Milton’s is wholly alien asserts itself in the delineation of -the Titanic ‘den’ itself. Clearly based upon the idea of an Inferno, -this ‘sad place’ where ‘bruised Titans’ are ‘chained in torture,’ is -yet full of traits which recall neither Milton nor Dante, but rather -one of those amazing chasms on Nevis, which seemed to be the very -‘core’ of the great mountain. He had, even, as he looked down into that -vaporous gulf, actually thought of the image of Hell. Milton’s Hell -is a plain of burning earth vaulted with fire and verging on a sea of -flame[17]; if there is a hill (i. 670) it is a volcano, belching fire, -or coated with a sulphurous scurf. The Keatsian Inferno is genuinely, -what he calls it, a ‘den,’ a yawning mountain dungeon overarched with -jutting crags, floored with hard flint and slaty ridge, and encompassed -by a deafening roar of waterfalls and torrents. A shattered rib of -rock, with his iron mace beside it, attests the spent fury of Creus. -Enceladus lies uneasily upon a craggy shelf. To render the spectacle -of the ruined and almost lifeless bodies lying ‘vast and edgeways,’ he -calls in a definite reminiscence, the ‘dismal cirque’ of Druid stones -near Keswick. He has felt too the silence of the mountains in the -pauses of the winter wind, though he speaks of it only to contrast it -with the organ voice of Saturn preceding the expectant murmur of his -audience of fallen divinities (ii. 123).[18] The darkness, too, in -which they languish is not eternal and ordained like that of Milton’s -Hell; the coming of the Sun-god will invade it with a splendour like -the morn and - - ... all the beetling gloomy steeps, - All the sad spaces of oblivion, - And every gulf, and every chasm old, - And every height, and every sullen depth, - Voiceless, or hoarse with loud tormented streams, - And all the everlasting cataracts, - And all the headlong torrents, far and near, - Mantled before in darkness and huge shade, (ii. 358) - -will stand revealed in that terrible splendour. - -It is clear that in this great passage Keats has deliberately invoked -the image of a sunrise among precipitous mountains; and these lines -assure him a lasting place amongst our poet interpreters of mountain -glory. We must beware, as we have seen, of overstressing the element -of realism in the poem. Keats was not _describing_ mountain scenery, -English, Scotch, or any other, but using certain aspects of it, which -had been vividly brought home to him as he climbed or trudged, to -render poetic inspirations of far richer compass and wider scope. Much -of the detail of this Titan prison belongs as little to his British -mountain experience as do the Titans themselves. Iapetus grasps a -strangled serpent; Asia, dreaming of palm-shaded temples and sacred -isles, leans upon an elephant tusk. We are conscious of no discord, -so pervading is the impress of a single potent imagination, whatever -the material it employs. But it is not immaterial to note that, as -Professor de Sélincourt has pointed out, Keats did alter the original -draft of Hyperion’s coming in such a way as to give it a close -resemblance to a sunrise among the mountains, omitting two lines which -preceded the last but one quoted above: - - And all the Caverns soft with moss and weed, - Or dazzling with bright and barren gems. - -The former of these lines may be described as a momentary reversion -to the tender ‘mossy’ luxuriance of the _Endymion_ scenery, like the -‘nest of pain’ (ii. 90), which, however, he allowed to stand.[19] Its -excision, in the final version, marks Keats’s sense of the incongruity -of that earlier symbolism with the sterner matter in hand, as does the -transformation of the dreamy, pastoral Oceanus of the earlier poem -into the master of Stoic wisdom, able ‘to bear all naked truths, and -to envisage circumstance, all calm,’ who offers his bitter balm to the -despairing Titans, in the later. - -_Hyperion_, we know, was left a fragment, and with deliberate purpose. -The mighty shade of Milton, he came to feel, deflected him from his -proper purpose in poetry. It is less important, but not less true, that -his passing vision of grand mountains was not in complete consonance -with his genius, and that his brief anthem of mountain poetry had in it -something of the nature of a _tour de force_. The mountains were for -him neither strongholds of faith nor sources of sublime consolation. -Even in the letters written in their presence he could speak somewhat -impatiently, as we have seen, of ‘scenery’ compared with life and men. -And if he places his ruined Titans in this wild den among the crags and -torrents, it is because there was something in him, deeper than his -reverence for Wordsworth or for mountain grandeur, which felt the very -savagery of the scene, its naked aloofness from everything human, to be -in accord with the primeval rudeness of an outdone and superseded race. -It is not for nothing that, when the scene changes from the old order -to the new, we are transported from Hyperion’s sun-smitten precipices -to the sea-haunted lawns and woodlands of Delos, where the young Apollo -is seen wandering forth in the morning twilight - - Beside the osiers of a rivulet, - Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale. - -Do we not hear in this the home-coming accents, as of one who has -escaped from barbarous Thynia and Bithynia, and tastes the joy that is -born - - ‘cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino - labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum’? - -Keats had, in effect, come home. - -Yet the deflection, if it strained, also braced; and if in the -following months his imagination, when he is most inspired, moves once -more habitually among mossy woodland ways and by enchanted waters, the -immense advance in robustness of artistic and intellectual sinew which -distinguishes the poet of the _Nightingale_ and _Autumn_ from the poet -of _Endymion_ was gained chiefly in that summer of enlarged ideals and -experience, of which the mountain vision was a small but a significant -and symbolical part. - - - - -IV GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO - - - - -IV GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO - - -MAZZINI, the most prophetic figure of the nineteenth century, -declared in a famous passage his confidence in the European mission -of his country. ‘The Third Italy,’ destined to be born of the long -agony of the struggle with Austria without and the papacy within, -was not merely to be a nation, restored to unity and independence; -it was to intervene as an original voice in the complex harmony of -the European nationalities, contributing of its own inborn genius -something distinctive and unique. ‘We believe devoutly that Italy has -not exhausted her life in the world. She is called to introduce yet -new elements in the progressive development of humanity, and to live -with a third life. It is for us to begin it.’ Were Mazzini to return -to life to-day, how far would he regard his prophecy as fulfilled? -Beyond question his lofty idealism would find much to disapprove and -to regret. He would find a Third Italy, which has committed grave -excesses in the name of her recovered nationhood. But he would also -find a nation whose present rulers have shown more capacity for -Mazzinean internationalism than any other European government. And he -would find, also, in the Third Italy, a real renascence, a genuine -rebirth of genius and power, and this in ways so individual as to -justify in a rare degree the anticipation that Italy would give -something vitally her own to the new Europe. Open any serious Italian -book to-day, and you will note a kind of intellectual concentration, -a girding up of the loins of speech and thought, in striking contrast -with the loose-tongued volubility of most Italian writing, in verse -or prose, of the mid-nineteenth century. You note also a new tone of -critical mastery and conscious equality. Italy in the last century was -still the ‘woman-people,’ the pathetic beauty, languid still after -the gentle torpor of two centuries, and whose intellectual life, with -some brilliant isolated exceptions, faintly reflected that of the -more masculine nations north of the Alps. To-day she has not only -critically mastered all that Europe has to give, she sits in judgment -upon us, and the judgment she pronounces has again and again been of -that fruitful kind which disposes of old difficulties by revealing a -larger law. Benedetto Croce, who in his review, the _Critica_, brings -the literature of Europe, weighed and measured, to his reader’s doors, -has in his original philosophic work subjected her philosophic systems -to a searching revision, and has succeeded in some measure to their -authority.[20] A thinker less known, even to cultivated Italians, -Aliotta, has surveyed in a book of singular penetration and philosophic -power, the ‘idealistic reaction against science’ in the nineteenth -century. And when we look to creative literature, we find in this Third -Italy, together with a profusion of those fungoid growths of which the -modern age has in the West been everywhere prolific, a group of poets, -of powerful temperament and dazzling gifts, to whom no predecessor, -in Italy or elsewhere, offers more than a distant resemblance. One -of these, after pouring forth poems, dramas, novels, in prodigal -abundance for thirty years, became the most vociferous, and possibly -the most potent, of the forces that drove Italy into the war, and was -until lately the idol of the whole Italian race. Even to-day, after -the sorry collapse of his adventure, the man in whom Europe, irritated -and impatient, sees only a sort of Harlequin-Garibaldi, impudent -where his predecessor was sublime, and florid where he was laconic, -is still, for multitudes of his countrymen, the hero-poet who took -the banner of _Italianità_ from the failing or treacherous hands of -diplomats and statesmen, and defended it against the enemy without -and the enemy within, with the tenacity of maturity and the ardour of -youth. Certainly, one who is beyond all rivalry the most adored poet, -in any country, of our time, who has fought for Italy with tongue -and pen and risked his life in her service, and whose personality -might be called a brilliant impressionist sketch of the talents and -failings of the Italian character, reproducing some in heightened but -veracious illumination, others in glaring caricature or paradoxical -distortion--such a man, as a national no less than as a literary -force, claims and deserves close study. - -Before entering, however, upon the detail of his life and work, let -me assist our imagination of Gabriele d’Annunzio by quoting from the -vivid description given by Mr. James Bone of a meeting with him at -Venice in the summer of 1918. The poet, fifty-six years old, was then -at the height of his renown; Fiume was still unthought of. His great -exploit of flying over Vienna and dropping leaflets inviting her in -aureate imagery to make peace was on every tongue. The gondoliers -took off their hats as they passed his house on the Grand Canal, and -he had to register all his letters to prevent their being abstracted -as souvenirs. Mr. Bone was talking with the airmen at an aerodrome on -one of the islands in the lagoons; when ‘Conversation died instantly -as an airman, very different from the others, came hurrying towards -us a rather small, very quick, clean-cut figure, wearing large smoked -glasses and white gloves with the wrists turned down.... The nose was -rather prominent, complexion not dark but marked a little, the whole -profile very clear, making one think not of a Renaissance Italian but -of a type more antique, an impression accentuated by his rather large, -beautifully shaped ear, very close to the head. The body denied the age -that was told in the face, for all its firmness. One’s first impression -was of a personality of extraordinary swiftness and spirit still at -full pressure, remorselessly pursuing its course “in hours of insight -willed.”... The whole surface of d’Annunzio’s personality suggested -a rich, hard fineness, like those unpolished marbles in old Italian -churches that gleam delicately near the base where the worshippers have -touched them, but above rise cold and white as from the matrix.... -There was something of the man of fashion in the way he wore his -gloves, and in his gestures, but nothing one could see of the national -idol aware of itself.’[21] - - -I - -The soldier-poet-man-of-fashion, who wore his fifty-six years thus -lightly, was born, in 1862, at Pescara, the chief--almost only--town -of the Abruzzi, then one of the wildest and rudest provinces of Italy. -Its valleys, descending from the eastern heights of the Apennines to -the Adriatic, were inhabited by an almost purely peasant population--a -hardy, vigorous race, tenacious of their primitive customs, and -little accessible to cultural influences. The Church enjoyed their -fanatical devotion, but only at the price of tacitly accepting many -immemorial pagan usages disguised by an unusually transparent veil -of Catholic ritual; while the Law occasionally found it expedient -to leave a convicted murderer (as in the _Figlia di Iorio_) to be -executed by an angry multitude according to the savage methods their -tradition prescribed. The little haven of Pescara--one of the few -on Italy’s featureless Adriatic coast--was the centre of a coasting -traffic with the yet wilder Dalmatian seaboard, a traffic which like -all ancient sea-faring, pursued its economic aims in an atmosphere of -superstitious observance, mystical, picturesque, and sometimes cruel. -In the poetic autobiography (‘The Soul’s Journey’) which occupies the -first _Laude_ (1903), d’Annunzio sketches vividly his boyhood’s home in -this Abruzzan country overlooking the sea. Of the persons who composed -this home, of family affections, we have only momentary retrospective -glimpses. We hear of the father, long dead when he wrote, from whom -he derived his iron-tempered muscles; and of the mother, who gave him -his insatiable ardour of will and desire. The three sisters seem to -have been like him; the face of the second sister resembled his own -‘mirrored in a clear fountain at dawn.’ All that stood between them, -he says, was their innocence and his passion. There was, too, an -old nurse, to whom in her serene old age, when she had retired to a -mountain hamlet, the poet addressed some tenderly beautiful stanzas, -contrasting his own stormy career with her idyllic peace as she ‘spins -the wool of her own flocks while the oil holds out.’[22] - -But of household drama, such as dominates the experience of most -children, little seems to have existed for this child. Certainly it -vanishes completely, in the retrospect of the man of forty, beside -the drama enacted with prodigious intensity of colour, animation, and -passion, by his imperious senses. The contrast is here acute between -d’Annunzio and his co-heir of the Carduccian tradition, Pascoli, whose -poignant memories of childhood, instead of being effaced by the energy -of his sense-life, permeate it through and through, giving a ‘deep -autumnal tone’ to almost every line he wrote. He spoke in later life -of his ‘profound sensuality’ as a gift which had brought him poetic -discoveries denied to colder men, and this is no doubt true if by -‘sensuality’ we understand, as we ought, that d’Annunzio is prodigally -endowed with all the senses, that eye and ear feast on the glory and -the music of the world and live in its teeming life, that his lithe -body thrills with the zest of motion, that imagery is the material -of his thinking and the stuff of his speech; and that the passion of -sex, so acutely and perilously developed in him, is just one element -in this prodigal endowment of his entire sense-organism, itself a main -source of the artistic splendour of his work. In the early pages of the -_Viaggio_ we see the young boy drinking in with a kind of intoxication -the simple sights and sounds of the farm--the rhythmic fall of the -flails on the threshing-floor, the pouring of the whey from the churn, -the whirr of the spool in the loom, the scampering of wild ponies with -streaming manes over the hillside; or again, out at sea, the gorgeous -scarlet or gold sails scudding before the wind, each with its symbolic -sign. Even the inanimate world became for his transfiguring senses -alive; ‘it was a lying voice,’ he cries, ‘that declared that Pan is -dead.’ The mere contrasts of things, the individual self-assertion -shown by a tree, for instance, in not being a rock, produced in him -an excitement analogous to that which made Rupert Brooke, in his -own words, ‘a lover’ of all kinds of common things for being just -definitely and unmistakably what they were. So that a conception -apparently so thin and abstract as ‘difference’ can assume for him the -shape and potency of an alluring divinity: ‘Diversity,’ he cries, ‘the -siren of the world! I am he who love thee!’ - -And then, with adolescence, came the passion of sex; for d’Annunzio no -shy and gradual discovery, but a veritable explosion, before which all -obstacles, moral and material, vanished into air. He tells it with the -frankness of a child of the South, and the self-conscious importance -of an egoist for whom the events of his own physical history could -only be fitly described in terms of epic poetry, with its contending -nationalities and ruined or triumphant kings. ‘O flesh!’ he cries, -‘I gave myself up to thee, as a young beardless king gives himself -up to the warrior maid who advances in arms, terrible and beautiful. -She advances victorious, and the people receive her with rejoicing. -Astonishment strikes the gentle king, and his hope laughs at his -fear.’[23] And from the first this new passion allies itself with the -rest of his sense-organism, irradiating eye and ear and imagination, -‘giving to every power a double power,’ as Biron says in _Love’s -Labour’s Lost_. ‘Thou wast sometimes as the grape pressed by fiery -feet, O flesh, sometimes as snow printed with bleeding traces; I seemed -to feel in thee the twisting of trodden roots, and to hear the far-off -grinding of the axe upon the whetstone.’ The young erotic was already -growing towards that observant psychologist of eroticism who pervades -so many gorgeous but repulsive pages of his novels. - -He was also growing, more slowly and as yet invisibly, to other and -more notable things. In the first published poems of the boy of -eighteen, and the second, _Canto Novo_, two years later, there is not -much more than the reflexion of this intense and pervading ‘sensuality’ -(in the large meaning above indicated), in a speech moulded upon -the diction and rhythms of Carducci. The great master, then at the -height of his fame, had still to do much of his most splendid work. -D’Annunzio, who never ceased to revere him, was to become his principal -inheritor; but the heir added so much of his own to the bequest that -he can only at the outset be regarded as his disciple. The elder -poet’s influence was in any case entirely salutary. The classical -severity and nobility of style which distinguish the _Rime Nove_ and -the _Odi Barbare_ from the florid and facile romantic verse of the -day, contributed to temper the dangerous luxuriance of d’Annunzio, -and to evoke the powers of self-discipline and tenacious will which -lay within; while Carducci’s exultation in radiance and clarity, his -noonday view of life, his symbolic sun-worship and his hatred of all -twilight obscurantism and moonlight nebulosity, equally enforced the -more virile strain in d’Annunzio, the ‘stalk of carle’s hemp’ which, -far more truly than in Burns, underlay the voluptuous senses. - -This background of harder and tougher nature was already manifested -when d’Annunzio, a few years later, turned to tell in prose some -stories of his native province. There is little in the _Novelle della -Pescara_ of love, less of luxury or refinement; we see the Abruzzan -village folk at feud, fanatical and ferocious, the women inciting the -men, the Church in its most ceremonial robes blandly but helplessly -looking on. _The Idolators_ tells how the men of a certain village -plan to set the bronze statue of their saint upon the church altar of -another neighbouring village. They assemble at night and march through -the darkness with the image on a cart. In the other village the men -await them in force, and a savage battle takes place in the church, -ending in the rout of the assailants with much slaughter, and the -ignominious mutilation of the image of their patron saint. And all -this grim matter is told in a style admirably strong and terse, bold -and sharp in outline, direct and impersonal in statement, untouched -by either delicate feeling or weak sentimentality. D’Annunzio’s -sensuality asserts itself still, as always; but it appears here as a -Rubens-like joy in intense impressions; now a copper-coloured storm -sky, now a splash of blood, betrays his passion for the crude effects -of flame and scarlet, most often where they signify death or ruin. He -imagines voluptuously as always, but his voluptuousness here feeds not -in the lust of the flesh, but in the lust of wounds and death. When -he describes the fighting in the church, he spares you as little as -Homer; you are not told merely that a man was stabbed, you are made to -see the blade shear away the flesh from the bone. His men are drawn -with the same hard, pungent stroke, and a visible relish for scars, -gnarled features, frayed dress, and all the maimings and deformities, -which tell not of weakness or decay, but of battles recent or long -ago, the blows and buffets received in the tug with fortune. There is -little trace of sybarite effeminacy in the painting of old Giacobbe, -for instance, the leader of the insurgents, a tall, bony man, with bald -crown and long red hairs on nape and temples, two front teeth wanting, -which gave him a look of senile ferocity, a pointed chin covered with -bristles, and so forth. - -D’Annunzio was intrinsically of the Abruzzan race; the tough hardy -fibre of the peasant folk was his; and it was the deep inborn -attachment to his blood and kin which produced, twenty years later, his -greatest work, as a like attachment lifted Mr. Shaw, almost at the same -moment, to the rare heights of _John Bull’s Other Island_. But much had -to happen to the young provincial before he could thus discover to the -full the poetry of his province. - - -II - -In the early eighties d’Annunzio had come to Rome. The little circle -of young Carduccians in the capital welcomed the poet’s brilliant -disciple, who was soon to outdistance them all in sheer splendour -of literary gift. More important, however, than any literary or -personal influence--for his hard encasing shell of egoism made him -extraordinarily immune to the intrusion either of alien genius or -of friendship or love--was the deep impression made upon the young -Abruzzan by the splendour, the art glories, and above all the historic -import of Rome. ‘The Abruzzi gave d’Annunzio the sense of _race_‘, -says an excellent critic, ‘Rome gave him the sense of _history_.’ The -magical effect of Rome had hitherto been rendered most vividly in the -poetry of other peoples, to whom it was a revelation, or a fulfilment -of long aspiration, of the ‘city of their soul,’ in Goethe’s _Roman -Elegies_, _Childe Harold_, or _Adonais_. How overwhelming to an -imaginative Italian the sight and living presence of Rome could be may -be judged from the magnificent _Ode_ of Carducci. The Englishman who is -thrilled as he stands in the Forum, or by the mossy bastions of our own -Roman wall, may faintly apprehend the temper of a citizen of the ‘Third -Italy’ who felt his capital, newly won from the Popes, to be once more -in living continuity with the city of Cæsar. Both the nobility and -the extravagance of Italian national feeling have their root in this -sense of continuity with antique Rome, and this is to be remembered in -estimating the perfervid _Italianità_ of d’Annunzio, the most striking -example both of the sublime idealism and of the childish extravagance -which it is able to inspire. - -The work of the next years abounded in evidence of the spell which Rome -had laid upon his sensuous imagination. He poured forth novels and -poems, both charged with an oppressive opulence of epicurean and erotic -detail, but saved for art by the clear-cut beauty of the prose, and by -frequent strokes of bold and splendid imagination. - -Andrea Sperelli in _Il Piacere_ (1889) and Tullio Hermil in -_L’Innocente_ (1892), are virtuosos in æsthetic as well as in erotic -luxury, and the two allied varieties of hedonism reflect and enforce -one another. Sperelli is artist and connoisseur, of unlimited resources -and opportunities, and neither he nor his mistress could think love -tolerable in chambers not hung with precious tapestry and adorned with -sculptured gold and silver vessels, the gift of queens or cardinals of -the splendour-loving Renascence. No doubt there is irony in the picture -too; the native stamina in d’Annunzio resists complete assimilation to -the corrupt aspects of the luxury he describes, and he feels keenly the -contrast between the riotous profusion of the ‘new rich’ of the new -Rome and the heroism and hardships of the men of the _Risorgimento_ who -had won it. - -The poetry of this period is less repellent because its substance, -though not definitely larger or deeper, is sustained and penetrated -by the magic of a wonderfully winged and musical speech. His _Elegie -Romane_ (1892)--a rare case of his emulating another poet--are inferior -in intellectual force to Goethe’s, which yet have as lyrics an almost -pedestrian air in comparison with the exquisite dance of the Italian -rhythms. Here is one of d’Annunzio’s, in some approach to the original -elegiacs. He has listened to a service in St. Peter’s: - - Thro’ the vaulted nave, that for ages has gathered so vast a - Human host, and of incense harboured so vast a cloud, - Wanders the chorus grave from lips invisible. Thunders - Break from the organ at times out of its hidden grove. - Down thro’ the tombs the roar reverberates deep in the darkness; - The enormous pillars seem to throb to the hymn. - High enthroned the pontifical priests watch, blessing the people. - At the iron gates angels and lions keep guard. - How majestic the chant! From its large, long undulations - Rises one clear voice with a melodious cry. - The voice mourns, alone; in his cold vault does he not hear it, - Palestrina? Alone the voice mourns, to the world - Uttering a sorrow divine. Does the buried singer not hear it? - Does not his soul leap up, bright on the heights of heaven? - Even as a dove makes wing aloft unto golden turrets? - The voice mourns, alone; mourns, in the silence, alone. - -The sonnets of the _Isottèo_ and _Chimera_ (1885-8) show a -concentration rare in the later history of the Italian sonnet. And -any reader who thinks d’Annunzio incapable of writing of love without -offence may be invited to try the charming idyll of Isaotta Guttadàuro. -Scenery and circumstances, to be sure, are sumptuous and opulent as -usual. The simple life and homely persons traditional in idyll are -remote; but poetry did not absolutely fly from Tennyson’s touch when -he turned from his Miller’s and Gardener’s daughters to put Maud in a -Hall; and neither does she retire from d’Annunzio’s Isaotta, in her -noble mansion. The lover stands at sunrise in the ‘high hall garden’ -under her window and summons her in a joyous morning song to come -forth. It is late autumn, the house is silent, but the peacocks perched -on the orange trees hail the morning in their raucous tones. The -situation is that of Herrick’s May morning song to Corinna; but though -Herrick loved jewels and fine dresses not a little, the contrast is -piquant between the country simplicity of his Devonshire maids and men, -and the aristocratic luxury of Isaotta. ‘Come, my Corinna, come! Wash, -dress, be brief in praying’--bids Herrick; but no such summary toilette -will serve the Italian. Isaotta will rise from her brocaded bed, -and her white limbs will gleam in a marble bath, as her maid pours -amber-scented water on them, while the woven figures of the story of -Omphale look on from the walls. At length Isaotta comes out on to her -vine-wreathed balcony and playfully greets _messèr cantore_ below. She -is secretly ready, we see, to surrender, but makes a show of standing -out for terms. They will wander through the autumnal vineyards, and if -they find a single cluster still hanging on the poles, ‘I will yield -to your desire, and you shall be my lord.’ So they set out in the -November morning. The vineyards, lately so loud with vintage merriment -and song, are now deserted and still. Not a cluster is to be seen. She -archly mocks him: ‘What, has subtle Love no power to give you eyes?’ -They meet peasant women going to their work, and one of them asks him, -‘What seekest thou, fair sir?’ And he replies: ‘I seek a treasure.’ A -flight of birds rises suddenly across their path with joyous cries; -they take it as a sign, and gaze at each other, pale and silent. Then -unexpectedly he sees before him a vineyard flaming in full array of -purple and gold, and a flock of birds making a chorus in its midst. “‘O -lady Isaotta, here is life!’ I cried to her with rapt soul; and the -chorus of songsters cried over our heads. I drew her to the spot, and -she came as swift as I, for I held her firmly by the hand. Rosy was the -face she turned away from me, but fair as Blanchemain’s when she took -the kiss of Lancelot, her sovran lover, in the forest. ‘O Lady, I keep -my pact; for you I pluck the fatal untouched cluster.’ Then she gave me -the kiss divine”. - - -III - -The last word of the Isaotta idyll--_sovrumano_--rendered above -‘divine,’ was an early symptom of a development of formidable -significance in the prose and poetry of d’Annunzio during the next -twenty years. The ‘Superman’ had not yet been discovered when he was a -boy, but the spirit to which _sovrumanità_ appeals had from the first -run in his blood. His passion for sensation, for strong effects, for -energy, even for ferocity and cruelty, was the concomitant of a genius -that strove to shatter obstacles, to bend others to its will, and -reshape its experience, as the opposite genius of Pascoli submissively -accepted experience, hearing in all its vicissitudes reverberations of -the mournful memories in which his soul was steeped. When d’Annunzio -accordingly, in the early nineties, discovered the work of Nietzsche, -he experienced that liberation which comes to every man who meets with -a coherent exposition of the meaning of his own blind impulses, and a -great new word for his confused and inarticulate aims. In Nietzsche he -found a mind more congenial to him perhaps than any other he had known, -more even than that of his master Carducci, but, unlike his, congenial -mainly to what was most perilous and ill-omened in himself. He loftily -admitted the German his equal, a great concession, and when Nietzsche -died, in 1900, wrote a noble dirge ‘to the memory of a destroyer,’--of -the _Barbaro enorme_ ‘who lifted up again the serene gods of Hellas on -to the vast gates of the Future.’ - -When d’Annunzio wrote these words the Hellenic enthusiasms, nourished -by his acute sense of beauty in a nature utterly wanting in the -Hellenic poise, had won, partly through Nietzsche’s influence, an -ascendancy over his imagination which made it natural for him to render -the Superman in Hellenic terms. The serene gods of Hellas symbolized -for him the calmness of absolute mastery, of complete conquest, all -enemies trampled under foot or flung to the eternal torments of Erebus. -This mood detached him wholly from Shelley, and Byron, and the young -Goethe. They had gloried in Prometheus, the spirit of man struggling -against supreme deity on its Olympian heights, and finally overthrowing -it; whereas d’Annunzio, like the riper Goethe, adores the secure -serenity of Olympus. ‘O Zeus, Father of Serene Day, how much fairer -than the chained and howling Iapetid seemed in thy eyes the silent -mountain and its vast buttresses fresh with invisible springs.’ And -besides Prometheus, Zeus has another enemy, Christ--the foe of beauty, -and lord of the herd of slaves with their slave-morality of pity and -submission. ‘O Zeus, he cries, I invoke thee, awaken and bring on the -Morrow! Make the fire of heaven thy ploughshare to plough the Night! -Thou only canst purify Earth from its piled-up filth.’ - -We are not to look in all this for even so much of definite ethical or -philosophic content as we find in Nietzsche. If Nietzsche was a poet -imagining in philosophic terms rather than a philosopher, d’Annunzio -was hardly capable of abstract thought at all. On the other hand, -Nietzsche could still less rival d’Annunzio in creative faculty, and -the series of d’Annunzian characters inspired or touched by the spirit -of Nietzschean _sovrumanità_ may be set against the richer intellectual -and spiritual substance of _Zarathustra_. No doubt this influence was -in the main disastrous for him; Nietzsche’s heady draught intoxicated -his brain with visions of colossal and ruthless power, begetting images -of supermen and superwomen magnificent in stature and equipment, in -the glory of their flame-like hair, and the crystalline beauty of -their speech, but wholly unreal and impossible. Nevertheless, there -were fortunate moments when the vision of power was constrained by a -human and moving story to work within the limits of humanity. And these -moments, though few, atoned for much splendid futility. - -Moreover, his vision of power came to include, at moments, the bridling -of his own infirmities. There was always the making of a soldier in -the Abruzzan before he became one. He was capable of an asceticism -amazing to those who know only the hothouse atmosphere of his novels. -Some of his most sumptuous prose and verse was poured forth in the -naked seclusion of monastic cells, or in wild peasant houses far from -civilization; and only the most iron industry could have achieved the -enormous bulk of his work.[24] Hence he can put into the mouth of -Claudio Cantelmo, in the _Vergini_, these evidently autobiographic -words: ‘After subduing the tumults of youth, I examined whether -perchance ... my will could, by choice and exclusion, extract a new -and seemly work of its own from the elements which life had stored up -within me.’ There is a glimpse here of a finer psychological and a -deeper ethical insight than we often find in d’Annunzio, and it might -have led a man of richer spiritual capacity to a loftier poetry than he -was ever to produce. - -But on the whole the clue thus hinted was not followed up, and the -tough nerve which might have nourished the powerful controlling will -of a supreme artist, often served only to sustain those enormities of -the ferocious and the grandiose which make dramas like _Gloria_ and _La -Nave_ mere examples of the pathology of genius. - -We touch here the crucial point. For these extravagances were not mere -momentary aberrations. They were but the more pronounced manifestations -of fundamental deficiencies in the man, which in their turn impoverish -and dwarf the poet. D’Annunzio, in one word, is wanting in humanity; -and because of his shallow and fragmentary apprehension of the human -soul, his vision of power and beauty discharges itself in barren -spectacles of brute energy and material splendour, for which he cannot -find psychological equivalents in grandeur or loveliness of character. -Shakespeare’s huge personalities--Othello, Lear, Antony--are human in -every trait, however much they transcend our actual experience of men. -D’Annunzio tries to make violent actions and abnormal passions produce -the illusion of greatness of soul, and disguises his psychological -poverty by the sustained coruscations of his lyric speech. - -In the meantime novels and poems and dramas poured forth. The prolific -later nineties saw the famous novel _Fuoco_ (1900), a picture of -Venetian splendour as gorgeous as that of Rome in _Piacère_, but -touched with the new joy in power; and the dramas _Sogno d’un Mattino -di Primavera_ (1897), _Gioconda_, and _Città Morta_ (1898). In the -last named d’Annunzio’s vision of power assumes an audacious and -original form. It is here the power of the vanished past to stretch -an invisible hand across the centuries and strike down youth and -life. The result is a tragedy that reproduces as nearly as a modern -dramatist may the horror excited in ancient spectators by the doom -of the House of Atreus. Nothing indeed could be less Greek than the -structure and persons of the play. Leonardo, a young archæologist, -is excavating in the ruins of Mycenæ. With him are his sister, Beata -Maria, and their friends Alessandro and Anna his wife, a cluster of -human flowers, full of living charm and sap, transplanted into the -‘dead city.’ But the dead city is not merely dead; it is mysteriously -fraught with the power of the vanished past to control the present and -the future. Its mouldering ruins are the arena of a struggle between -Death and Life, in which death triumphs and life receives the mortal -blow. Leonardo, obsessed with the _Oresteia_, is haunted at night by -visions of terrific blood-stained figures, and has no thoughts by day -but of penetrating the secrets of their tombs. Alessandro, full of the -joy of life, seeks to detach him from these preoccupations. ‘I hoped -he would have come with me and gathered flowers with those fingers -of his which know nothing but stones and dust,’ and he is drawn to -Beata Maria, herself the very genius of glowing youth, ‘the one live -thing, says her friend Anna, in this place, where all is dead and burnt -... it is incredible what force of life is in her ... if she were -not, none of us could live here, we should all die of thirst.’ ‘When -Beata Maria speaks, he who hears forgets his pain, and believes that -life can still be sweet.’ She herself is devoted to the brother whose -passion seems to estrange him so far from what she loves. She shares -his Hellenic ardour, and innocently recites Cassandra’s prophecy in the -_Agamemnon_, with Cassandra’s wreath on her golden locks, of ‘an evil, -intolerable to the nearest kin, and irreparable, preparing in this -house.’ Anna, struck with mysterious fear, stops her; but the ominous -words have been spoken, and foreshadow a real doom. Beata Maria, the -unconscious Cassandra, will suffer Cassandra’s fate. The indestructible -virus of the dead city will poison the glory of youth. The incestuous -passion which desolated the House of Atreus is not extinguished in the -crumbling dust of their tombs. A horrible infection seizes Leonardo. He -struggles vainly with an impure passion for his sister. In only one way -can his love be purified, a way grievous for him, and yet more grievous -for her. She must die; and he slays her among the tombs of the ‘dead -city’ which has thus again laid upon the living its mortal hand. - -The conclusion outrages our feelings, and betrays d’Annunzio’s glaring -deficiency in sympathetic power. Whatever pity we feel for Leonardo -in his miserable plight is dispelled by his cynical purchase of the -purity of his own emotions at the price of his innocent sister’s death. -Here, as in other cases, d’Annunzio’s fundamental want of passion, -and the strain of hard egoism which pervaded the movements of his -brilliant mind, gravely injured his attempts in tragic poetry. Death -was doubtless the only solution; but it must be another death--one that -would have saved the ‘purity’ of Leonardo’s emotions by ending them -altogether. Leonardo, however, has the ruthless energy of the Superman, -and the innocent life must be crushed that he may rise. - - -IV - -Yet d’Annunzio’s vision of power, his appetency of enormous and -abnormal things, was now to assume a new form. The grandiose dream of -the Superman expands into the dream of the Super-nation. The discovery -of Rome had taught him something of the pride of citizenship, and more -than the nascent pride of nationality. But in the last year of the -century he underwent an experience which turned this nascent emotion -into a passion, and the poet himself into a prophet and preacher in -its service, an ‘announcer’ as he was fond of saying, of the cause and -creed of _Italianità_. - -He had as yet seen nothing of Europe beyond the Alps. In 1900 he made -an extensive tour, but in no tourist spirit. An Italian had no need -to go abroad for beauty of nature or of art, and d’Annunzio’s keen -eyes were turned in quite other directions--to the great Transalpine -nations with their vast resources and their high ambitions; and he -measured their several capacities for success in the conflict which -he, among the first, saw to be impending. He was impressed by the -threatening growth of Germany, and by ‘the extraordinary development -of race-energy’ in England. Everywhere the force of nationality was -more vehement than ever before. ‘All the world is stretched like a bow, -and never was the saying of Heracleitos more significant: “The bow is -called Bios (life), and its work is death.”’ - -But where was Italy in this universal tension of the national spirit? -Where was _her_ strung bow? How was _she_ preparing to hold her own -with the great progressive nations of the North? D’Annunzio flung down -these challenging questions in his eloquent pamphlet, _Della coscienza -nazionale_ (1900). To the foreign observer the trouble with Italy did -not seem to be defective ambition. She had rather appeared to take -her new rôle as a great Power too seriously, blundering into rash -adventures abroad when she ought to have been spreading the elements of -civilization at home. But d’Annunzio had seen the race for empire in -the North, and his call to Italy was the call of an imperialist; a call -for unity of purpose, for concentration of national wealth and strength -in the interest of a greater Italy, mistress of the Adriatic, if not of -the Mediterranean. It was the beginning of a new phase of d’Annunzio’s -career. He was henceforth a public man, whose voice, the most resonant -and eloquent then to be heard in Italy, counted, as poetic voices so -rarely do, in the direction of public affairs. He entered Parliament, a -proclaimed disciple in policy of Crispi, the Italian Bismarck. - -How did these enlarged ideals affect d’Annunzio’s work in poetry? -In part, as has been hinted, disastrously. The enlarged ideals lent -themselves with perverse ease, in a mind already obsessed with -_sovrumanità_, to a mere megalomania, a rage for bigness, only more -mischievous in practice, and nowise better as literature, because it -was conveyed in terms of navies and transmarine dominions. He had -already in his fine series of _Odi Navali_ (1893) fanned to some -purpose the naval ambitions of his country. He now sounded a loftier -note, suited to the vaster horizons of an Italian Mediterranean. These, -for instance, are some stanzas from the opening hymn or prayer prefixed -to his colossal naval tragedy, _La Nave_ (1908): - - O Lord, who bringest forth and dost efface - The ocean-ruling Nations, race by race, - It is this living People by Thy grace - Who on the Sea - Shall magnify Thy name, who on the Sea - Shall glorify Thy name, who on the Sea - With myrrh and blood shall sacrifice to Thee - At the altar-prow. - Of all Earth’s oceans make Our Sea, O Thou! - Amen! - -The fourth book of the _Laudi_ is a lyric celebration in this spirit, -of the Tripoli adventure ‘beyond the sea.’ But megalomania was happily -not the whole result. The older and deeper instincts planted or -quickened in d’Annunzio by his earlier experience--the feeling for -race and for historic continuity--coalesced with the new and vehement -passion of nationality, communicating to it, in moments of vision, -something of their human intimacy, and undergoing in their turn an -answering enlargement of range and scope. If his _Italianità_ was -something more significant than a resonant cry for more ships and -territory, it was because it drew warmth and insight from the home -sentiment for his Abruzzan province deep-rooted in the poet’s heart; -while the Abruzzan province, in its turn, was seen in the larger and -grander setting of the Italian people and the Roman race, but without -the distorting nimbus of megalomaniac dreams. This fortunate harmony -found expression chiefly in certain poems of the years shortly before -and after the beginning of the new century, the golden period of -d’Annunzio’s production. To these years belong his two most notable -attempts to give to Italy a tragic poetry built upon Italian history. - -In the material for tragic poetry no country was richer, but it had -been left to the genius of foreign dramatists to give world-wide fame -to the stories of Romeo and Juliet, Beatrice Cenci, and Torquato Tasso. -Alfieri, the greatest of Italian tragic poets, had devoted his austere -art almost solely to classical subjects; and his _Don Garzia_ and -_Congiura de’ Pazzi_, with Niccolini’s _Arnaldo da Brescia_, Monti’s -_Galeotto Manfredi_, and Manzoni’s _Conte di Carmagnola_ and _Adelchi_ -stood almost alone, as remarkable Italian tragedies on Italian themes. -In the story of Francesca of Rimini, d’Annunzio found to his hand a -native tragic subject of the first order, not yet touched by a tragic -poet of genius, Italian or other. That it had been made his own by -the supreme poet of Italy hardly disturbed d’Annunzio, deeply as he -revered the poet whose words, in the fine phrase of his Dante Ode, -clothed Italy like the splendour of day. He was not going to challenge -comparison with Dante’s marmoreal brevity. And the poet of Pescara had -some title to regard this story of the adjacent Adriatic sea-board -of Rimini and Ravenna, as his by right. But the story itself has -also exerted its moderating control upon the natural prodigiosity of -his invention, so that in his Francescan tragedy it is possible to -recognize a general conformity to traditional technique. - -It is even possible that Shakespeare’s handling of his Italian tragedy -may have afforded a hint. The ruin of Romeo and Juliet results from the -feud of the rival houses. The ruin of d’Annunzio’s Francesca and Paolo -is similarly rooted ultimately in the feud of Guelf and Ghibelline. Her -father, a great Guelf captain, has sold her to the lord of Ravenna, as -the price of support against the Ghibellines. But when her hand is thus -plighted, she has already seen his brother Paolo, with his feminine -beauty and luxuriant locks, pass under her window, and the seed of -their passion is sown. Francesca has grown up ‘a flower in an iron -soil,’ and love throughout is set in a frame of war. But she would be -no d’Annunzian heroine if she did not respond to the call of life and -light. When about to leave Rimini on her marriage she replies to the -pleading of her devoted young sister who cannot live without her, ‘I am -going, sweet life, where thou canst not come, to a deep and solitary -place, where a great fire burns without fuel.’ Fire is d’Annunzio’s -haunting symbol for terrible and splendid things, a symbol, too, for -the strange union of cruelty and beauty in his own mind and art, and -it does not here forecast only the Inferno flames in which she will -move with Paolo so lightly before the wind. In the palace at Ravenna -we see her among her ladies, chafing at her dull seclusion, while the -Ghibelline siege rages without. A Florentine merchant displays his -gorgeous wares before them, a feast of scarlet and gold. Presently -Francesca has climbed to the tower where her husband’s brothers are -on guard. Bolts and arrows crash against the walls or through the -loophole. A cauldron of Greek fire stands ready for use. Francesca, to -the horror of the soldiers, fires it, and breaks into wild ecstasy at -the ‘deadly beauty’ of this ‘swift and terrible life.’ A moment later a -bolt pierces the curls of Paolo. She thinks he is wounded, and clasps -his head. In that embrace he stammers the first word of love. ‘They -have not hit me, but your hands have touched me, and have undone the -soul within my heart!...’ _Francesca_: ‘Lost! Thou art lost!’ Thus, -again, Francesca’s fate, like Juliet’s, is provoked by the irrelevant -feud of parties without. But presently the same irrelevant feud thrusts -the lovers apart. Paolo is sent as General of the Guelf forces to -Florence. Francesca in his absence reads the Lancelot romance with her -ladies. But Paolo, unable to endure his exile, posts back to Ravenna, -and rushes to her chamber. The romance of Lancelot lies open on the -lectern. The place where the reading stopped is marked; it is where -Galeotto is urging Lancelot’s suit upon Ginevra. They bend over the -book together. The following dialogue replaces Dante’s single pregnant -line: - - _Pa._ Let us read a page, Francesca! - - _Fr._ Look at that swarm of swallows, making a shadow - On the bright water! - - _Pa._ Let us read, Francesca. - - _Fr._ And that sail that is glowing like fire! - - _Pa._ (_reading_). ‘Assuredly, - Lady,’ says Galeotto, ‘he does not dare, - Nor will he ask ye anything of love, - Being afraid, but I ask in his name, and if - I did not ask, you ought to seek it, seeing - You could in no wise win a richer treasure.’ - And she says-- - (_drawing Francesca gently by the hand_) - Now do you read what she says, - Be you Ginevra. - - _Fr._ (_reading_). And she says: ‘Well I know it, and I will do - What you command. And Galeotto said: - Grammercy, lady; I beg that you will give him - Your love....’ - (_she stops._) - - _Pa._ Read further! - - _Fr._ No, I cannot see - The words. - - _Pa._ Read: ‘Certainly ... - - _Fr._ Certainly,’ she says, - ‘I give it him, but so that he be mine - And I utterly his, and all ill things - Made good’ ... Paolo, enough. - - _Pa._ (_reading with a hoarse and tremulous voice_). - ‘Lady, he says, much thanks; now in my presence - Kiss him, for earnest of true love’--You, you! - What says she now? What now? - (_Their pale faces bend over the book, so that their cheeks - almost touch._) - - _Fr._ (_reading_). She says: ‘Why should - He beg it of me? I desire it more - Than you....’ - - _Pa._ (_continuing with stifled voice_). ‘They draw apart. - And the Queen sees - The Knight dare go no further. Then she clasps him - About the chin, and with a long kiss kisses - His mouth....’ - (_He kisses her in the same way. When their mouths separate - Francesca reels, and falls back on the cushions._) - Francesca! - - _Fr._ (_with hardly audible voice_). - No, Paolo! - -The sequel is too long drawn out, and is marred by the duplicity of -all the persons concerned. Malatestino’s sleuth-hound cunning brings -about the husband’s vengeance, but his strategy is animated only by -ferocious hatred of the lovers, not by any care for justice. By his -contrivance the rough soldier, who has never suspected his own wrongs, -returns prematurely from the march, and thunders at the lovers’ chamber -door: ‘Open, Francesca!’ The wretched Paolo tries to escape through -a trapdoor, but is dragged up by the hair to be slain. But Francesca -rushes to clasp him, and the husband’s sword pierces her. _Francesca da -Rimini_, though a brilliant drama, with innumerable beauties of detail, -misses, like the _Dead City_, the quality of great tragedy. Of the -principal characters Francesca alone excites a fitful sympathy, while -Paolo’s effeminacy provokes a contempt which diminishes our compassion -for the woman whose love he has won. These coward ‘heroes’ who leave -their mistresses in mortal peril, or slay their sisters, or see their -brides borne to execution in their place, seem to haunt the egoist -imagination of the poet, to the grievous hurt of his work. Yet when all -is said, _Francesca_ is one of the most arresting, though dramatically -by no means one of the best, plays produced in Europe during the first -decade of the century. - -If the _Francesca_ owed much to the stimulus and the control of a -great historic and literary tradition, the rarer beauty of _La Figlia -di Iorio_ (1904) was nourished on the old intimate passion for his -Abruzzan race and home. In language the more moving, because in -d’Annunzio so seldom heard, he dedicated ‘To the land of Abruzzi, to -my Mother, to my Sisters, to my Brother in exile, to my Father in his -grave, to all my Dead, to all my People between the Mountains and the -Sea, this song of the ancient blood.’ It betokened, indeed, no mere -recurrence to the scenes and memories of his childhood, but a recovery, -through them, of the more primitive sensibilities and sympathies which -the complexities of an ultra modern culture had obscured or submerged. -The shepherds and peasants of this ‘pastoral tragedy’ live and move in -an atmosphere fanatically tense with the customs and beliefs of their -catholicized paganism; but no believing poet ever drew the ritual of -rustic unreason with more delicate sympathy, or rendered its wild -prayers and incantations in more expressive and beautiful song. For -the poetry is not exotic or imposed; like the songs of peasants in -opera, it is found and elicited. The young shepherd, Aligi, is drawn -into a kind of mystic relationship to Mila di Codra, a witch-maiden -dreaded and abhorred over the whole countryside. But a bride has been -chosen for him by his family, and the scene opens on the morning after -their nominal bridal. Aligi’s three sisters are seen kneeling before -the old carved oak chest, choosing her bridal robes, and vying with -each other in joyous morning carols. A band of scarlet wool is drawn -across the open door, a crook and a distaff lean against it, and by -the doorpost hangs a waxen cross as a charm against evil spells. Aligi -looks on in dreamy distraction, his thoughts far away. The women of -the neighbouring farms come in procession bearing gifts of corn -in baskets on their heads. An unknown girl follows in their train. -Presently angry cries are heard in the distance. The reapers are in -pursuit of Mila, whose spells have spoilt their harvest; they have -seen her enter the house, and now they clamour at the door for her -surrender. The frightened women tremble, but Mila has crouched down -on the sacred hearth, whence it would be sacrilege to remove her, and -Ornella, the youngest of the sisters, who alone secretly pities Mila, -draws the bolts. The storm of menace grows louder, till Aligi, roused -from his dreamy absorption by the taunts of the women, raises his hand -to strike the suppliant on the hearth. Immediately the horror of his -sacrilege seizes him, he implores her pardon on his knees, and thrusts -his guilty hand into the flame. Then he hangs the cross above the door -and releases the bolts. The reapers rush in, but seeing the cross, draw -back in dismay, baring their heads. Aligi has saved his ‘sister in -Christ;’ but his guilt is not effaced. - -In the second Act, Aligi and Mila are living together, as brother and -sister, in a mountain cavern. He would fain go with his flocks to Rome -to seek dissolution of his marriage; but she knows that happiness is -not for her, and she will not hurt him with her passionate love. But -in his home they know only that the witch-maiden has decoyed the son -away from his mother and his virgin bride; Ornella, the compassionate -sister, is thrust out of doors, and now the father, who had returned -home only after the reapers had gone, arrives at the mountain cavern -in Aligi’s absence, and peremptorily summons Mila. She holds him -defiantly at bay. He is about to seize her, when Aligi appears on the -threshold. In the great scene which follows the Roman authority of the -Abruzzan father over the son overpowers for the moment even the lover’s -devotion. Not softened by Aligi’s humble submission, Làzaro binds him, -flogs him savagely, and turns upon Mila, now wholly in his power. -At the moment when he has seized her Aligi breaks free, rushes upon -his father, and kills him. The third act opens with the mourning for -Làzaro, in long-drawn lyric dirges. Then harsher and fiercer notes are -heard, and Aligi, deeply penitent, appears black-robed and bound, borne -by the angry mob to bid farewell to his mother before being led to the -parricide’s death. ‘To call you mother is no more permitted me, for my -mouth is of hell, the mouth that sucked your milk, and learnt from you -holy prayers in the fear of God. Why have I harmed you so sorely? I -would fain say, but I will be silent. O most helpless of all women who -have suckled a son, who have sung him to sleep in the cradle and at the -breast, O do not lift this black veil to see the face of the trembling -sinner....’ The crowd tries to comfort her in its rough way, and the -mother gives her son the bowl of drugged wine. Suddenly, confused -cries are heard in the rear, and Mila breaks her way impetuously -through the throng. ‘Mother, sisters, bride of Aligi, just people, -justice of God, I am Mila di Codra. I am guilty. Give me hearing!’ -They call for silence, and Mila declares that Aligi is innocent, and -she the murderer. Aligi protests: ‘Before God thou liest.’ But the -crowd eagerly turns its fury upon the dreaded sorceress who owns her -guilt, and the cry goes up: ‘To the flames! To the flames!’ Aligi -protests again, but with growing faintness, as the deadening potion -masters and confuses his brain; till at length, when the bonds have -been transferred from his limbs to Mila’s, he lifts up his hands -to curse her. At this felon stroke her spirit breaks down. With a -piercing shriek she cries: ‘Aligi, Aligi, not thou, thou canst not, -thou must not!’ She is hurried away to the stake, only Ornella crying -aloud: ‘Mila, Mila, Sister in Jesus, Paradise is for thee,’ while Mila -herself, now full of the d’Annunzian exultation in glorious ruin, goes -to her death crying: ‘Beautiful Flame, Beautiful Flame!’ - -A brief résumé such as this inevitably brings into undue emphasis -the melodramatic elements of the plot. Yet it is the most human and -natural, as it is the most beautiful, of d’Annunzio’s dramas. For the -strangest things that happen in it are no mere projections of the -poet’s inspired ferocity or eroticism, as so often elsewhere, but are -grounded in the real psychology of a primitive countryside. We see its -fear, love, hatred, now mysteriously mastered by superstitious awe, now -breaking rebelliously from its control, now wrought by its mystic power -to else inexplicable excesses. - - -V - -But even the finest dramatic work of d’Annunzio makes clear that his -genius is fundamentally lyrical. The greatest moments of _La Figlia -di Iorio_ and _Francesca_ are uttered in a vein which thrills and -sings; while, on the other hand, these moments are often reached by -summary short cuts, not by the logical evolution of great drama. And -it is fortunate that while he continued to be allured by drama--giving -in particular a very individual rendering of the tragedy of Phædra -(1909)--d’Annunzio’s most serious and ambitious poetry took the form -of a festival of sustained song, the _Laudi_ (1903 onwards). We have -already quoted from the picture of his childhood drawn retrospectively, -in the opening book, by the poet of forty. But these passages, though -not at all merely episodic, hardly disclose the deeper sources of -inspiration in this series of lyric cycles. ‘Praises,’ he calls -them, ‘Praises of the Sky, of the Sea, of the Earth, of its Heroes.’ -The glory of earth, and sea, and sky had drawn more majestic praise -from the poet of the 123rd Psalm, though in his naïve Hebrew way he -‘praised’ only their Maker, not these ‘wonderful works’ themselves. -D’Annunzio’s ‘praise’ expresses simply the ravishment of acute -sensibilities in the presence of the loveliness and sublimity of -Nature and the heroism of man, an emotion Greek rather than Hebraic. -Our poet is perhaps the least Hebraic of all modern poets of genius; -and if his barbaric violence alienates him almost as completely from -the Hellenic temper, he is yet akin to it by his inexhaustible joy in -beauty. And in these years of the _Laudi_ Hellas had become more than -ever the determining focus about which his artistic dreams revolved, -the magnet to whose lure even the barbarian in him succumbs. The -first book, called _Maia_, after the mother of Hermes, describes -the poet’s spiritual journey to the shrine of that god of energy and -enterprise, whose Praxitelean image, the most magnificent expression -of radiant virility ever fashioned by the chisel, had not long -before been unearthed at Olympia. It is a journey of discovery, and -d’Annunzio invokes for it the symbolism of the last voyage of the -Dantesque Ulysses to seek the experience that lay ‘beyond the sunset.’ -D’Annunzio turns his prow east, not west, but he, too, is daring peril -in the quest of the unknown. A splendid Proem in _terza rima_, ‘To -the Pleiads and the Fates,’ takes us to a rocky promontory by the -Atlantic shore, where, on a flaming pyre, the helm of the wrecked ship -of Ulysses is being consumed--the fiery consummation which crowns most -of d’Annunzio’s heroic careers. The modern venturer, too, must disdain -safety, not like Galileo turning back into the secure haven, but -fronting the pathless sea of fate with no anchor but his own valour. -The sequel does not, it is true, accord completely with this Ulyssean -vision. Symbolic imagery is interwoven, in this ‘spiritual journey,’ -to the ruin of poetic coherence, with scenes from an actual voyage to -Greece, leaves from a tourist’s notebook, incidents of steamer-life, -games and talk on board, sketches of fellow-passengers, the squalor and -vice of Patras. Presently the ship reaches Elis, and then, as we enter -the ruins of Olympia, the great past, human and divine, rises up before -us. Pericles, Alcibiades, Themistocles obliterate the tourist memories, -and the poet holds high colloquy with Zeus, and offers up a prayer, -nine hundred lines long, to Hermes--a lurid picture of the future of -humanity, as d’Annunzio imagined it, wrought by the genius of Energy -and Enterprise, Invention and Will; a future dominated by men of rocky -jaw, who chew care like a laurel leaf, precipitate themselves on life, -and impregnate it relentlessly with their purposes,--a significant -image, for the d’Annunzian Hermes is fused with Eros (v. 2904). Eros -was, indeed, indispensable, it might well be thought, to a quite -satisfying d’Annunzian divinity. Yet in the fine colloquy with Zeus, -which precedes, he touches a deeper note, rare with him, of desperate -and baffled struggle with his own ‘vast sensuality.’ He begs Zeus for a -sign. ‘I am at war with many monsters, but the direst are those, ah me! -which rise within me from the depths of my lusts.’ ‘Thou wilt conquer -them,’ replies Zeus, ‘only if thou canst transform them into divine -children.’ - -The monsters, nevertheless, continued to haunt his later art. But -happier moods were interposed, when he found relief from their urgency -in poetic communing with the passionless calm of Nature and of the dead -things that cannot die. - -Such moods in the second and third books of the _Laudi_, _Elettra_ -and _Alcione_, both mainly written before the _Maia_. The _Alcione_, -in particular, is the record of a true ‘halcyon’ season--of hours or -moments--in the poet’s stormy course. It opens, indeed, with a savage -denunciation--in perfectly handled _terza rima_--of the demons, within -and without, that he has striven with. But now for a while he calls a -truce: - - Washed clean from human foulness in cool springs, - I need but, for my festival, the ring - Of the ultimate horizons of the earth. - The breezes and the radiant air shall weave - My new robe, and this body, purged from sin, - Shall dance, light-hearted and alert, within! - -Air and light and water do indeed play a large and significant part -in this benign experience, and in the poetry which renders it. Water, -we know, had peculiar allurements for his imagination; but now the -obsession of fleets and arsenals is overcome, and he looks out over the -wide levels of the Arno mouth, where fishing boats with their hanging -nets are seen, transfigured in the effulgence of the west, like cups -or lilies of flame upon the water; or ‘on a June evening after rain,’ -when ‘the gracious sky, tenderly gazing at her image in the earth she -has refreshed, laughs out from a thousand mirrors.’ The solidity of the -material world seems to remain only in its most delicate and attenuated -forms--the crescent moon ‘slender as the eyebrow of a girl,’ the -lean boughs and tapering leaves of the olive, the seashore sand, not -‘ribbed’ as Wordsworth put it, but delicately traced like the palate -or the finger-tip. The poet is visibly striving through these frail -and delicate things to escape his obsession into a realm of spirit he -divines, but cannot reach: - - A slender wreath suffices, with few leaves, - Lest it with weight or any shadow burden - The gracious thoughts of dawn! - -This is the language of no sensualist, but of a mystic. And d’Annunzio -in these poems again and again approaches the poetic mysticism of -Wordsworth, and of Shelley and Dante. As he watches the dewy loveliness -of evening, the earth seems to dissolve in the ‘infinite smile,’ which -for Shelley ‘kindled the universe’;[25] and for the Italian it is the -smile of Beatrice. In the child, who hardly exists for him before, the -poet of pitiless virility now sees not only ‘the father of the man,’ -but the soul implicitly aware of the Truth we only guess at: - - The immense plenitude of life - Is tremulous in the light murmur - Of thy virginal breathing, - And Man with his fervours and griefs. - - * * * * * - - Thou art ignorant of all, and discernest - All the Truths that the Shadow hides. - If thou questionest Earth, Heaven answers, - If thou speak’st with the waters, the flowers hear.[26] - -There are hints, perhaps reminiscences, of Wordsworth here; but -d’Annunzio’s more obvious affinity is doubtless with Shelley, whose -Roman grave he saluted in an ode of lofty eulogy and sculptured grace. - -The lyric eloquence of _Alcione_ undoubtedly recalls the rush of -Shelley’s music and the æthereal liquidity of his style. Yet they -touch across a gulf of profound disparity. D’Annunzio, for all his -preoccupation with air and light and water, never, either as man or -as artist, escapes the earth. The hard stuff of his egoism is never -really transmuted in the flame of love; nor does the clear and delicate -precision of his style ever really dissolve in radiant suffusion. -D’Annunzio’s nature-world, like Shelley’s, is peopled with imagined -shapes, in which the myths of old Greece are created anew. But here -too their divergence asserts itself. Shelley’s Prometheus is not -really earth-born, and his Asia is the hardly embodied symbol of the -ideal passion of his own soul. While d’Annunzio’s Triton and Dryad are -recognizably akin to the sea or woodland life they spring from, hued -like the salt deep, and full of the sap of earth. D’Annunzio is the -greater artist, Shelley the finer and the rarer soul. - -But these gracious idylls were, as has been hinted, an episode. -Nature could not replace man; beyond ‘earth’ and ‘sea’ and ‘sky,’ the -‘heroes,’ and especially the heroes and heroic memories of Italy, -called for his ‘praise.’ Here, he felt, was the home of his spirit. The -gracious valley of Arno might be - - A cradle of flowers and dreams and peace; - But the cradle of my soul - Is the crashing chariot’s furrow - In the stone of the Appian Way. - -The _Elettra_, the second book of the _Laudi_, is mainly devoted -to the memories of these vanished glories. The resonant herald -of the Third Italy wanders, for instance, among the ‘Cities of -Silence’--decayed, half grass-grown capitals of vanished dukes and -extinct republics--Ferrara, Pisa, Pistoja; oldest and grandest of all, -Ravenna, the ‘deep ship’s hull, heavy with the iron weight of empire, -driven by shipwreck on the utmost bounds of the world.’[27] Of the -sequence of lyrics on the great enterprise of Garibaldi’s ‘Thousand,’ -_La Notte di Caprera_, it is enough to say that it is worthy of being -put beside Carducci’s Ode. After a quarter of a century Garibaldi’s -glory was no whit dimmed. On the contrary, Italians who knew how many -gross blots defiled the Italy he had helped to win, saw Garibaldi as -a figure of ideal splendour and purity on the further side of a foul -morass. The bitter disillusion of such minds is powerfully painted in -the moving piece: ‘To One of the Thousand.’ An old Garibaldian sailor -brings his broken anchor-cable to the ship cordwainer to be mended. He -looks on, sombre, dejected, silent, but thinking what he does not say; -and his thoughts are like this: - - The anchor-sheet is broken: let it be. - No hope of mending. Give it up, go home! - Turn into scourges, cordsman, and halter-nooses - Thy bitter twine. - Vilely supine lies the Third Italy, - A harlot-people put to basest uses, - And in her holy oak-grove’s shadow, Rome - Pastures her swine.[28] - -But Rome, the eternal City, could only obscure her destiny, not efface -it; disillusion founded on her moments of self-oblivion was itself the -vainest of illusions. That is the faith of the new Italian Renascence, -and d’Annunzio, the fiercest chastiser of her oblivious fatuities, -attains his loftiest note of ‘praise’ in the Ode which prophetically -arrays Rome in glory as the future centre of the embodied Power of Man. - -It is based on the legend, told by Ovid,[29] of the ship of the Great -Mother, stranded in the Tiber mud, and drawn to shore by the Vestal -Virgin Claudia Quinta. The opening stanzas tell the story--the dearth -in the city, the Sibylline oracle’s counsel to bring the image of the -Mater Magna, the arrival of her ship in the river, the stranding in -the mud, the vain efforts of the entire city to extricate it, until -a Vestal Virgin, without an effort, draws it to bank. Then the poet -interprets the symbolic legend: - - So, O Rome, our Rome, in its time - - * * * * * - - Shall come from far-off seas, - Shall come from the deep, the Power - Wherein alone thou hast hope. - So, O Rome, our Rome, in its hour, - A heroic Maid of thy race - Shall draw Her within thy walls. - Not a vessel immovably stuck - In the slimy bed, not an image - Once worshipped in foreign fanes, - Shall her pure hand draw to the shore; - But the Power of Man, but the holy - Spirit born in the heart - Of the Peoples in peace and in war, - But the glory of Earth in the glow - Divine of the human Will - That manifests her, and transfigures, - By works and deeds beyond number, - Of light, and darkness, of love - And hatred, of life and death; - But the beauty of human fate, - The fate of Man who seeks - His divinity in his Creature. - Since in thee, as in an imperishable - Imprint shall the Power of Man - Take form and image ordained - In the market-place and the Senate - To curb the dishonour of Men. - - * * * * * - - O Rome, O Rome, in thee only, - In the circle of thy seven hills, - The myriad human discords - Shall find their vast and sublime - Unity. Thou the new Bread - Shalt give, and speak the new Word. - - All that men have thought, - Dreamed and endured, achieved - And enjoyed, in the Earth’s vast bound, - So many thoughts, and dreams, - So many labours and pangs, - And raptures, and every right won - And every secret laid bare, - And every book set open - In the boundless circuit of Earth.... - Shall become the vesture of thee, - Thee only, O Rome, O Rome! - Thou, goddess, Thou only shalt break - The new Bread, and speak the new Word! - -On this note, the climax of his boundless national faith, we will leave -d’Annunzio. We are apt to think that the tide of humanity has ebbed -decisively away from the city of the seven hills, and that wherever its -sundered streams may be destined finally to flow together in unison, -the Roman Forum, where the roads of all the world once met, will not -be that spot. Yet a city which can generate magnificent, even if -illusory, dreams is assured of a real potency in human affairs not to -be challenged in its kind by far greater and wealthier cities which the -Londoner, or the New Yorker, or even the Parisian, would never think of -addressing in these lyrical terms. - -Few men so splendidly endowed as d’Annunzio have given the world so -much occasion for resentment and for ridicule. His greatest gifts lend -themselves with fatal ease to abuse; his ‘vast sensuality’ and his iron -nerve sometimes co-operate and enforce one another in abortions of -erotics and ferocity. But the same gifts, in other phases, become the -creative and controlling elements of his sumptuous style. His boundless -wealth of sensuous images provides the gorgeous texture of its ever -changing woof. But its luxury is controlled by tenacious purpose; the -sentences, however richly arrayed, move with complete lucidity of aim -to their goal; the surface is pictorial, but the structure is marble. -Thus this Faun of genius, as he seems under one aspect, compounded -with the Quixotic adventurer, as he seems under another, meet in one -of the supreme literary artists of the Latin race; a creator of beauty -which, however Latin in origin and cast, has the quality that strikes -home across the boundaries of race, and has already gone far to make -its author not merely the protagonist of the Latin renascence, but a -European classic. - - - - -V - -IS THERE A POETIC VIEW OF THE WORLD? - - - - -SUMMARY - - View of the World, or ‘World-view,’ defined. Distinction of - _religious_ and _philosophical_ World-views. The present essay - attempts to define and describe a _poetic_ World-view.--I. - Character of poetic experience. Types of belief about Man and - Nature to which it predisposes. Though rarely detached from - religious or philosophical presumptions, it habitually modifies - them, and the method here proposed is to study, in some salient - examples, the character and direction of these modifications (p. - 150).--II. (i) Modifications of _religious_ World-views by the - poetic inspirations of Personality and Love. HOMER. ÆSCHYLUS. - DANTE (p. 156).--III. (ii) Modifications of _philosophical_ - World-views: (_a_) Materialistic schools. Epicureanism and - LUCRETIUS. Poets of Pessimism: LEOPARDI (p. 169).--IV. (_b_) - ‘Objective idealisms.’ Stoic pantheism and VERGIL. WORDSWORTH. - SHELLEY. Philosophic doctrine of ‘Nature’ in WORDSWORTH, and - in GOETHE. SPINOZA and GOETHE (p. 184).--V. (_c_) ‘Subjective - idealisms.’ ‘Mind’ in the philosophers and in the poets of - the age of WORDSWORTH. The poets subordinate (1) the rational - to the emotional and imaginative factors of soul: WORDSWORTH, - BLAKE, SHELLEY, and (2) moral categories to a good ‘beyond good - and evil.’ Of this poetic ethic the most vital constituent is - Love; and Love, comprehensively understood, will be an intrinsic - element of every World-view won through poetic experience (p. - 198). - - - - -V - -IS THERE A POETIC VIEW OF THE WORLD? - - -‘VIEW of the World’ is a clumsy phrase for an idea which itself has -for most of us an unattractive flavour of pedantry. This latter -impression is hardly removed by a knowledge of the part which, under -the neater and more expressive, term _Weltanschauung_, it has played -in German literary study. _Weltanschauung_ is the indispensable final -chapter without which no German biography, the confidential disclosure -without which no German friendship, is complete. A _Weltanschauung_ or -‘World-view,’ in its full scope, comprehends ideas about life of quite -distinct categories; it touches metaphysics and science, ethics and -æsthetics; it offers an answer to Faust’s question ‘what it is that at -bottom holds the world together,’ but also to the practical questions, -what is the end of action and how we ought to act. - -Historically, we know, the answers to these questions occur, in great -part, as successive steps in continuous or closely-connected processes -of thought. But between these continuous processes yawn gulfs which no -argument can bridge. From Bacon through Hobbes to Locke we can trace -something like a connected development. But between Hobbes and his -contemporary Boehme there is a cleavage due not to bad reasoning on -either side, but to a radical difference in the kind of experience from -which the reasoning in the two cases set out. And the history of belief -indicates that there are at least two types of elemental experience -which thus generate ideas about the world, and to which two great -classes of World-view in essence correspond. These may be distinguished -as the _religious_ and the _philosophical_. In the first, thought is -dominated by the consciousness of a power or powers distinct from man, -controlling his fate, protecting his country or his tribe, determining -his moral code, his scheme of values, and his expectations after death. -From the crudest fetishism and animism to the loftiest theism, a living -relation to such a Power is the root fact from which the religious -World-view takes its origin and derives its character. - -On the other hand, we find a vast and complex body of conceptions of -the world which do not originate in intercourse with a divine Power, or -in the fear or hope which such a power may inspire, but in the effort -to give a finally and universally valid account of experience. - -Naturally, neither these nor any other type of World-view, if such -there be, are mutually exclusive in substance and content. Religion -may reach the conclusions of philosophy, and philosophy those of -religion, each by a path strictly its own. Historically, the two -attitudes to life have intimately interacted; and if the religious type -has on the whole shown less power of resistance to the penetration -of ideas of the opposed type, on the other hand modern philosophy, -in particular, has often built upon, and not seldom with, ideas -first begotten not by speculative curiosity, but by the rapture or -the agony of God-intoxicated or demon-haunted souls. The eternal war -of Ormuzd and Ahriman still echoes in the Hebraic intensity of our -distinction between good and evil; and the visionary ecstasies of the -mystics were of account in the evolution of philosophic pantheism. -And, similarly, the edifices of theology have borrowed fortifying -buttresses or indispensable pillars from ideas evolved by scientific -reason or a purely secular interpretation of good. Aristotle, applied -and interpreted by Aquinas, became one of the masters, not only of -those who know, but of those who believe. Nevertheless, the two types -have, on a comprehensive survey, stood distinctly apart; and their -ramifications appear to dominate between them the entire field of -belief and speculative thought. - -Is it possible, nevertheless, to distinguish a third type of -‘World-view’ analogous to these? In other words, is there any -third kind of experience, distinct from that of either religion or -philosophy, yet involving an apprehension of reality comparable in -originality, and possibly in importance, with theirs? The present essay -is based upon the view that such an experience is given in and by -poetry.[30] - - -I - -For the specific experience which comes to a poet through poetry, -however it may be interwoven with religious or philosophic ideas, has a -radically different psychological origin and character. It is equally -intense and absorbing, but it is not determined by conscious relation -to an outer power, and it seeks to express rather than to explain. It -is neither transfigured fear or hope, nor yet a logical process. In -the making of a poem there may be even a conscious detachment from -actuality, and the poet may float free in a dream world, apparently -without thought of the world which he inhabits. The poetic may well -be thought to differ from the religious or the philosophic types of -experience less in inducing any specific way of contemplating reality -than in liberating us from the necessity or desire to contemplate it at -all. - -Yet it is certain that the poet’s detachment, even in his most ethereal -dream-flights, from reality, is only apparent. In all the spontaneous -and seemingly arbitrary movement of his mind among its crowding ideal -shapes, reality through his stored-up experience is at work, quietly -weaving a thousand subtle filiations between the poem and the life -of men at large. _Othello_ is much farther from ‘actuality’ than the -poor novel on which its story was based; but it is penetrated with the -vision of life, of which Cinthio’s tale caught so feeble and fugitive -a glimpse. What distinguishes poetic from religious or philosophic -apprehension is not that it turns away from reality, but that it lies -open to and in eager watch for reality at doors and windows which -with them are barred or blind. The poet’s soul resides, so to speak, -in his senses, in his emotions, in his imagination, as well as in -his conscious intelligence; and we may provisionally describe poetic -apprehension as an intense state of consciousness in which all these -are vitally concerned. In so far as a particular outlook upon the world -is founded upon a particular type of experience, a poet’s World-view -will be radically affected by his senses, emotions, imagination. The -flower which Wordsworth contemplated on the bank or by the lake, and -that other which Tennyson with his more curious scrutiny plucked from -the crannied wall, could stir these poets’ intellect and heart to the -depths; and their apprehension, as poets, of God and man, of Nature, of -Duty, would have been different without it. - -But in any case, it will be said, even if we grant that poetic -experience tends to induce some way of regarding reality, it cannot -possibly induce any constant or definable way, if elements of mind so -infinitely diverse, so individual, as emotion and imagination, are -vitally concerned in the process. That energizing of mind released -from the control of actuality, which we call imagination, that free -following out of trains of suggestion called up by emotion, takes the -colour, at every step, of the individual make of the poet’s nature, -and the individual cast of his experience. In so far as a World-view -is strictly poetic in origin, the conclusion might seem hard to resist -that there may be as many poetic World-views as there are poets. And it -is true that the individual quality of the poet will always cleave to -whatever is strictly poetic in his thinking. But even so, it may be -possible to determine typical directions in which poetic apprehension -tends to engender or to sway belief, and to modify ideas imbibed in -education or accepted on authority. - -Thus, it may be provisionally laid down that a view of the World -reached through poetic experience will tend to accentuate those -aspects of Man and Nature, and those ways of regarding them, which -offer most scope, analogy, or sanction, to this type of experience. -Where the senses play a vital part, and are yet vitally implicated -with passion and ideas, there will be little disposition to doctrines -which either brand the senses as evil or illusory, or erect them into a -sufficing faith. The logical intellect, its processes and conclusions, -will receive a respectful but distant salute, while the irrational -elements of life are accepted as its needful ingredients or even as -a supreme source of its worth. Love, which tramples on reason, and, -in the great words of à Kempis, warmly glows like a flame beyond all -measure, may be called in some sense the natural religion of the poet. -The mysterious love of man and woman, in particular, irrelevant to -most of the problems of philosophy, and regarded by religion chiefly -as a dangerous disturbing force, is one of the perennial springs of -poetry, and one of the shaping analogies of poetic thought. And the -same impassioned insight which gives significance to this love exalts -also all those other energies of the soul which carry men out of and -beyond themselves. Poetry is naturally heroic; it has presided over the -cult of the hero, as religion and philosophy over those of the saint -and the sage; it has rewarded him with enchanting secular Paradises, -Elysian fields, Isles of the Blest, and Temples of Fame. Poetry is -disposed to magnify human nature; the transition from Aeschylus, who -painted men greater than they were, to Euripides, who drew them after -life, is also a decline in the intrinsic temper of poetry, if in that -alone. And because of its bent to think greatly of man, it makes for -the assertion, in the great sense, of _freedom_--of man’s freedom to -be himself. Neither the shibboleths of political freedom nor those -of free thought have always, it is true, found response among poets. -Their part has rather been to keep alive in mankind the temper which -treats outward obstacles not as the soul’s constraints, but as its -opportunities; the faith that iron bars do not make a cage, and that -you may be bounded in a nutshell, and yet not only count yourself, but -be, a king of infinite space. - -In the interpretation of Nature, poetic experience works creatively -or selectively on similar lines. To those wonderful deposits of the -imagination of the past, the myths of extinct faiths, from which -theology and philosophy have long withdrawn their sanction, or on which -they have laid their taboo, the poets have habitually been very tender. -And when they felt as poets, the image drawn from a myth has never had -merely decorative value, or served merely as a ‘poetic synonym’ for the -exact term. It expressed something in the poet’s vision not otherwise -to be put into words. If the glorious anthropomorphism of Olympus and -Asgard has faded for ever, the mystery of life everywhere pulsing -through Nature, and perpetually reborn in ‘Man and beast and earth and -air and sea,’ cries to the poet with a voice which will not be put by; -and the symbols by which he seeks to convey his sense of it, if they -read personality too definitely into the play of that elusive mystery, -yet capture something in it which escapes the reasoned formulas of -science. - -Hence many great philosophic ideas about the universe which, without -ascribing life or mind to it, might seem projected from our inner, -rather than gathered from our outer, experience, have powerfully -appealed to poets. The antithesis of the One and the Many, which -fascinated and fertilized every phase of Greek thought, had one of its -roots in the acute Greek feeling for continuity through change, which -is equally manifest in the Parthenon and in the Pindaric Ode, and to -a less degree in all art and poetry wherever the sense of rhythm is -present at all. ‘When we feel the poetic thrill,’ says Santayana, ‘is -it not that we find sweep in the concise, and depth in the clear?’ That -felicitously expresses the genius of Hellenic art in particular; but -it also marks off the specifically poetic apprehension of Oneness as a -‘something deeply interfused’ in and through the living multiplicity -of the world, alike from the mystic vision of a One whose splendour -dissolves the reality of things, and from the vision of Peter Bell, for -whom nothing but ‘things’ exists. Yet even this pregnant Oneness has -commonly gathered, in the poetic conception of the universe, the higher -and richer attribute of soul-life. It has become a living and working -Nature vitally implicated in every organ and filament, or Mind diffused -through every limb, or Love, or Beauty, or Power, woven through the -woof of it, or the splendour of God irradiating it through and through. - - -When we turn, as is proposed in what follows, from these general -considerations to watch the actual operation of poetic apprehension in -concrete examples, we naturally encounter some serious difficulties. -Poetic apprehension may be as distinct and definable as we will, but -it can rarely be caught acting _in vacuo_. Poets are men; they are -usually citizens; they are often penetrated with some form of religious -or philosophical faith. It is inevitable, in such cases, that their -strictly poetic experience should be coloured or even overridden by -ideas proper to their possibly more habitual or more deeply established -persuasions. In poets like Goethe and Shelley, deeply concerned with -the issues of life outside poetry, philosophic and poetic impulses and -data may well seem inextricably mingled. Even Blake and Whitman, who -perhaps come nearer than any other moderns to shaping out a poetic -World-view for themselves, evidently worked, as poets, under a deep -bias of revolutionary dogma, which made them unjust to some aspects -of poetry itself. And with poet-exponents of great theological or -philosophical systems, like Lucretius or Dante, it may well appear idle -to seek to catch the moment when the runnel of poetry carved out a -watercourse of its own, instead of falling into and moving along with -the great tide of Epicurean or Catholic thought. Yet we attach some -meaning to our words when we distinguish periods in which the poetic -element in a poet’s nature was more potent than at others. When we -say, for instance, that in Shelley the poetic apprehension after 1812 -worked itself progressively free from an alien philosophy; or that in -Wordsworth, from about the same date, it became progressively overlaid -by a theology almost equally alien; or that in Dante’s _Convito_, -the poet of the _Vita Nuova_, who will finally recover dominance in -the _Commedia_, has yielded much ground to the scholastic thinker. -Distinctions so clearly felt and sharply drawn cannot be groundless. -What is here proposed is to examine whether any typical character or -direction can be discovered in the modifications which the data of -religious or philosophical beliefs and ideals have undergone in certain -commanding poet natures. In that case we might possess some of the -material for answering the question I have been bold enough to suggest -in the title of this paper. - - -II - -I begin with examples in which these data are derived from _religion_; -and, in the first place, from religion still untouched by philosophic -reflection. Without rashly assuming the solution of unsolved or -insoluble problems, one may venture to assert that the Homeric epics -owe their present form neither to purely religious awe nor merely to -conscious and deliberate artistry, but to a poetic apprehension of -the world operating upon the data of the savage cults and rituals, -the animism, totemism, and magic, which anthropology is gradually -deciphering under the palimpsest of their obliterating splendour. With -some aspects of the process we are not here concerned. If ‘Homer,’ as -many modern scholars suppose, disliked human sacrifice and similar -barbarities, and tempered or effaced the record of them, he reflects -the growing efficacy of civilized, but not necessarily of poetic, -ideas. It is otherwise with the transformation, whatever its precise -nature and history, which put the defined character and rich personal -accent of the Homeric Olympus in place of the psychological fluidity -and incoherence of primitive religion. For the childhood of poetry the -change possibly involved a loss. A world where there are no barriers, -or none which magic cannot dissolve, where gods and men and beasts pass -over into one another without resistance or demur, where everything can -be done and had if the right formula be pronounced and the due charm -applied--such a world is the home and habitat of the fairy tale; but -its facile instability must be overcome before a mature poetry, no -less certainly than before a mature science, can arise. The Homeric -outlook upon the world had as a religion grave flaws, which merited -the strictures of later moralists; but it had also, as a religion, -magnificent qualities to which they rarely did justice. His deathless -figures permanently raised the status of man and the ideals of human -achievement; and every line of the poetry is instinct with an assurance -of the glory of the world and the goodness of life, and the nobility -of heroic emprise, and of reverence and of pity, which justly made his -book the Bible of later Greece. - -Yet it is plain that even Homer reflects or finds reflection in but -a limited tract of the Greek mind; that there were many deeper, as -well as darker, currents in the Greek way of apprehending the world, -of which that radiant mirror shows no trace. Humanity had triumphed -over the superhuman as well as over the subhuman, clarity over -mystery as well as over confusion. The Ionian thinkers of the sixth -century swept away the fables of Olympus, fastened on the problem of -substance, and proclaimed the sublime discovery that the All is One. -The Orphic cults and the Thracian orgies of Dionysus betrayed by the -widespread and intimate hold which they won in Greek life, refined -and humanized as they doubtless were, that religion in Greece too -included the riot of intoxicated rapture as well as clear-eyed piety; -the Bacchic frenzy, which carries men beyond themselves, as well as -temperate self-reverence and self-control. Both these new elements -enriched and uplifted, if at some points they also impoverished and -degraded, Greek mentality and the Greek apprehension of the world, -religious, philosophic, and poetic alike. The philosophic apprehension -of unity reacted on religion, and the two strains coalesced in the -sublime theism of Cleanthes’ hymn. The Dionysiac rapture reacted on -philosophy--without it should we have had the great doctrine proclaimed -in the _Phædrus_, of the divine vision won through madness and love? -And both reacted upon poetry--above all on tragedy, with its stringent -ideal of unity, maintained and manifested through all the phases and -moods of conflict, and the alliance, disclosed in its very structure, -of Apolline clarity and order with the lyric exaltation of Dionysus. -But the matter of tragedy shows yet more evidently the larger and -deeper World-view which poetry has now won. In passing from Homer to -Aeschylus we enter an atmosphere in which the gods are hardly ever -visible, but which is laden and tense with the sense of divine things. -His persons, it was said, are more than human; certainly his gods are -sometimes--like the Zeus of the _Prometheus_--less than divine. But the -Aeschylean universe has outgrown Olympus without having dispossessed -it. A soul of immense reach and depth, apprehending life from many -sides, but always with a sense of vast issues and inexhaustible import, -here interprets the old stories of man’s relations with the gods, and -leaves us with a new vision of the possibilities and responsibility -of man. His tragic conflicts call incommensurate forces into play, -and their apparent solution leaves yet larger problems unsolved. The -story of Prometheus ended with his reconciliation to Zeus; and this -doubtless expressed the poet’s deliberate intention and design. The -modern world has remembered Prometheus, not for his final surrender -or appeasement, but as the assertor and embodiment of something in -man which stands over against the gods he recognizes, and not only -endures unflinchingly all that their utmost anger can inflict, but -arraigns them himself before a law of Justice higher than their own. -Æschylus, we know, was a devoutly religious man, and never dreamed of -surrendering his reverence for the divine because of the crimes of the -gods. Possibly, as Wilamowitz has suggested, he believed that divinity -itself had passed through a youth ‘full of foolish noise’ to become -with ripening years a righteous God and Father, worthy at length of -universal reverence. Reverence for such an erring divinity is hardly -distinguishable from forgiveness; in any case it foreshadows, if it -does not announce, the clear recognition of human responsibility. And -that recognition is already dominant in the mature work of Æschylus. -The traditional superstitions which still entangled the Greek mind--the -doctrine of an irresistible fate, or of a divine jealousy attending -human greatness--dissolve under the scrutiny of his terrible insight. -Man is free even in his crimes, and the greater because he is free. -Clytaemnestra chooses and wills as freely as Lady Macbeth; she is as -little the helpless victim of the curse of Atreus as the other of the -Witches’ spell. It needed a great poet thus to embrace in his vision -of life things incompatible to common sense. ‘Whether Æschylus is -greater,’ declares the penetrating interpreter to whom I have referred, -‘when he uplifts our hearts by the full tones of surrender to the -divine, or when he thrills us with the terrible acts and sufferings -of human freewill, every one must decide for himself from his own -experience; but let no one say that he understands the poet until he -has known them both.’[31] The poet’s eye, ‘glancing from heaven to -earth, from earth to heaven,’ overcomes the antinomies of theological -dogma; and herein lies one of the most signal services which poetic -apprehension has rendered to thought, and not least to religion. - - -To pass from Æschylus to Dante is to watch operations of poetic -intelligence in which only the environment, the material, and the -instruments of expression are profoundly changed. The words just quoted -of the Greek might apply without the alteration of a syllable to the -Florentine; and if ever poet saw earth and heaven at once it was he. -But the theological World-view which he found was more authoritatively -established, more intellectual in its philosophical substance, and more -rich and beautiful in its human appeal. The fresh fountain of religious -feeling, still abundantly flowing, was fortified and entrenched within -a vast structure of elaborated dogma, for which councils and saints -had supplied the architects and the masons, and ancient philosophy -the stones. Within this imposing edifice, nevertheless, Dante, with -complete conviction, found and made his home. No one now questions the -absoluteness of Dante’s Catholic faith, and we should seek in vain -for any rebellious upsurging of the poet in him against the starkest -of scholastic abstractions. On the contrary, his wonderful gift of -style continually finds the material for poetry in the most seemingly -arid regions. Sometimes the result is merely an astonishing _tour de -force_; but often we become aware that Dante has not only invented but -discovered, and that many a dogma which has the air of being the mere -husk of religion is in reality the imperfect, stammering utterance -through which religious passion sought to make itself articulate. -Dante, in short, makes us feel in these constructions of the intellect -the language of the soul. - -To do this needed something more than devout belief. It needed the -imaginative intuition of a poet. The poetry of Dante was distinguished -from that of his older contemporaries above all by being just this -intense soul-vision put into words. ‘I simply write down what Love -within dictates.’[32] Psychological veracity never fails him. Allegory, -in so many hands a tissue of personified abstractions, becomes, in -his, a living image of humanity. Symbolic meanings and applications -interweave and encircle it, but the core is real. His vision is only -on the surface a description--necessarily speculative--of the fortunes -of souls after death; its substance, as he tells us, is ‘man of his -freewill choosing good or evil here.’ The human denizens of his hell -and purgatory and paradise have undergone no inner change; they are the -men he had known, in their spiritual habits as they lived; and their -fate, when Dante is thinking most as a poet and least as a theologian, -is a continuation of their crucial actions. That Paolo and Francesca -are immersed in unquenchable flames satisfies the theological idea of -retribution; Dante inflicts on them the more searching penalty of being -for ever locked in the embrace of their illicit love. And how often, -when he thinks he is devoutly following out to the last consequence the -Church’s dogma of eternal punishment, he is unconsciously testifying -to the poet’s sublime faith in the soul of man as stronger than death -and hell. ‘Who is he,’ asks Dante, looking upon Capaneo (_Inf._ xiv. -46), ‘who seems not to heed the flame, but lies fiercely unsubdued by -the fiery vein?’ Or the yet greater picture of Farinata (_Inf._ x. 85), -defiantly erect where the rest grovel in agony, ‘as if he held hell -in great disdain.’ Even the criminals whom the poet most abhors, and -thrusts into the very depths of the abyss, even the traitors guilty of -the death of Cæsar or of Christ, he allows still to show greatness of -soul; Brutus, champed to a bloody foam in the jaws of Lucifer, is still -the Stoic philosopher, and though he writhes in agony, utters not a -word (_Inf._ xxxiv. 66). And how wonderfully in the great Ulysses scene -(_Inf._ xxvi) the poet takes the pen out of the hand of the theologian, -and, forgetting the ‘fraud’ for which the captor of Troy is doing -penance in hell, compels us to listen entranced to his tale of that -last voyage, beyond the sunset, of the old wanderer, still insatiable -of experience, who had kindled his shrinking comrades by bidding them -‘Consider of what seed ye are sprung; ye were not made to live like -the brute beasts, but to follow after virtue and knowledge.’ Strange -words to issue from the quenchless flames of hell! But Dante goes -beyond this. For the sake of the heroism of Cato, he flatly violates -the theological categories which condemned him to hell, and makes -him the guardian of Purgatory.[33] As for the rest of the ‘virtuous -heathen,’ he cannot indeed transfer them from the hell to which the -Church has assigned them--a hell much more ferocious than any of which -they had dreamed--to Elysium. But he does what he may, and he provides -for them within the precincts of hell an Elysium of green lawns and -running streams, ‘the one place in the Inferno where there is light and -air’ (_Inf._ iii). The theological ethic of sin is thus unconsciously -crossed, again and again, by the poetic ethic for which ‘good’ means -greatness of soul. - -Moreover, with a depth of spiritual insight strangely in contrast with -the vulgar notion of punishment which dictated the theological hell, -Dante has asserted, even in this realm of iron necessity, the freedom -of man. The inmates of hell are not convicts condemned and punished for -sins long since repented of: they are there of their own motion and by -their own will; and if there is no hope there, it is not because God -has no mercy, but because they cannot repent. The souls in Purgatory -are held there by no compulsion; they desire nothing but to be purified -of their sins, and the moment they desire to mount to Paradise, that -moment they are free. - -It would be strange, then, had Dante, with all his sense of supreme -cosmic forces, not stood for the faith that man is yet the ‘captain of -his soul.’ There he is at one with Æschylus and Milton, and the other -great theological poets of the West. Man’s ‘freedom’ is a root idea of -the Comedy; and not merely because its purpose was to show him ‘in the -exercise of freewill,’ determining his fate hereafter. Dante went much -farther than this. A devoted Catholic and citizen, and eager to welcome -the authority both of Church and State, he was driven by the corruption -of the one and the anarchy of the other to seek ‘another way’--the way -of spiritual self-help with the aid of philosophy and theology, along -which he is led by Vergil and Beatrice. The great farewell words with -which Vergil leaves him in the Earthly Paradise, ‘I crown and mitre -thee king and bishop over thyself,’ express with thrilling power the -individualist--nay, the revolutionary--side of his thought. He would -not have been the great poet he was if it had been the only side. -Dante’s reverence for Vergil and for Beatrice is of the very substance -of his self-assertion; he has crowned and mitred himself by taking them -for his guides, and the result is the great poetic cosmos eloquent -beyond all the other masterpieces of the world of devout discipleship, -and yet instinct in every line with the ardour of a soul ‘voyaging -through strange seas of thought alone.’ - -But the name of Beatrice points to another aspect of Dante’s work on -which the impress of the poet in him is yet more unmistakably set. -Measured by the range and compass of thought, and by the richness and -delicacy of feeling, which the term in his usage conveys, Dante is the -first, as he is the greatest, of the poets of Love. His poetry recovers -and renews, or at the least suggests and recalls, all the varieties of -intellectual and emotional experience for which philosophy, religion, -and romance had, before his time, found in ‘Love’ the final expression, -or the speaking symbol. The cosmic love (φιλία) by which Empedocles -had first interpreted the universal phenomena which we still, hardly -less anthropomorphically, know as ‘attraction’; the passion for another -human being (ἔρως) in which the author of the _Phædrus_ and the -_Symposium_ discovered one of the sources of the divine exaltation -which emancipates men from their human limits, and endows them with -the vision of reality; the love of God for man, and of man for God -(ἀγάπη), proclaimed as the very core of Christianity in the Fourth -Gospel--these three types of love, all denoted for Dante by _Amor_, -_amore_,[34] were conjoined in his experience with a fourth, distinct -from all, though nearly allied to the second: the romantic love of -woman which had been the chief inspiration of the poetry of Provence, -and which, however sublimated and spiritualized, is enshrined in the -_Vita Nuova_. To say that Dante’s mind, equally powerful in analysis -and in synthesis, confounds these distinctions would be unjust; but it -would be equally untrue to assert that their associations are never -blended. Christian philosophy had itself absorbed the first; cosmic -attraction then reappeared in a sublime apotheosis, as the love which -draws all the universe towards God, and by which God, as its source, -‘moves the sun and the other stars.’ And if Dante, in his treatise on -poetry,[35] distinguishes himself from the poets of ‘love’ as a poet of -‘morals,’ or ‘righteousness,’ he also, as we saw, ascribes his whole -power as a poet to his writing what love dictated in his heart. Man in -virtue of his freedom has power to misuse Love, and Dante everywhere -scornfully contrasts the higher and the baser love. Nay, all sin which -can be ‘purged away’ he regards as due to ‘love’ wrongly used; the -whole population of Purgatory is there because it loved unwisely, or -loved indifferent things too well, or right things too little. But the -harm here, for Dante, arises not from love, but from the application to -it of the evil material in man’s nature--‘as a foul impress may be set -upon the most precious wax.’[36] - -Something of the idealizing atmosphere which Christianity and Plato -had thrown about love thus always colours it in Dante’s mind. But it -is also subtly touched with that other idealizing force which not -Christianity but the poets had recognized, which Christian ethics had -contemptuously tolerated or scornfully tabooed. Dante had known the -love of woman in many forms. Longing for the absent wife and child -had consumed his flesh and his bones in exile;[37] and his virginal -adoration of Beatrice sprang from no coldness of the blood. The power -of womanhood to lift men to supreme heights of vision and fortitude, -which he had divined through Beatrice and sung in the great canzone -of the _Vita Nuova_,[38] no more passed out of his faith than did her -image from his memory. Nor was it for nothing that his master Vergil -had forgotten the political and imperial purpose of his poem in making -Dido the most moving heroine of antiquity. If the Comedy is a great -scheme of salvation, it is also a great song of womanhood such as, he -said, no man ever sang before; and if we say that Beatrice is there -a symbol for Theology, that is doubtless true: but a thousand phrases -remind us how much she symbolizes besides; and the look ‘in the eyes -of Beatrice,’ which draws Dante upward through the circling spheres of -Paradise to the beatific vision, attests also his faith in the power of -the lover’s adoration to lift a man out of his humanity (_trasumanar_), -and make him ‘joyful even in the flames.’ - -Thus Dante, though he counted himself not among the poets of love, but -among the poets of ‘righteousness,’ is one of the inspiring sources -of the modern poetry which invests the love of man and woman with -the ideal attributes which philosophy and religion had proclaimed -in other forms of love, but had ignored or repudiated in this. In -Spenser--Platonist, Christian, and lover at once--the fusion of the -three strains is complete; his great hymns to Love, who - - is lord of all the world by right, - And ruleth all things by his powerful saw, - -prelude his even greater hymn of marriage. Even Chaucer perhaps learnt -from Dante that amazed awe with which, in the opening lines of one of -his earliest Italianate poems, he contemplates the ‘wonderful working’ -of love.[39] The Petrarchists and Sonneteers went far to reduce the -expression of this love to hollow phrase-making. But with Romanticism -it found fresh and original utterance, and its status in the world has -never been more loftily affirmed than by Celtic Romanticizing poets -of to-day. ‘I say that Eros is a being!’ declares one of the finest -spirits among them. ‘It is more than a power of the soul, though it is -that also. It has a universal life of its own.’[40] - - -III - -The power of personality and the glory of love: these have emerged from -our discussion thus far as the things in life whose appeal to poetic -intelligence was most potent in modifying the substance or changing -the perspective of a World-view derived from religion. We have now to -examine, in a fashion unavoidably even more fragmentary and summary, -the reaction of another series of poetic minds upon the more complex -and abstruse World-views of _philosophy_. - -It is necessary for the purpose to adopt a rough grouping of -philosophic systems, and I take the following division into three -fundamental types, based with qualifications upon one proposed by -Wilhelm Dilthey in the essay already referred to. - -To the first belong the naturalistic schools, from Democritus to Hobbes -and the Encyclopedists, deriving their philosophical conceptions -directly or indirectly from an analysis of the physical world, and -commonly disdaining or ignoring phenomena not to be so explained. To -the second type of thinkers the objective world is still the absorbing -subject of contemplation; but it is approached not from the side -of physics, but from the side of self-conscious mind; it is felt, -not as material for causal investigation, but as responsive to the -human spirit, now as living Nature, now as immanent God, now as a -progressively evolving Absolute. Here, with various qualifications, we -may class Heraclitus, the Stoics, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel. In the third -type, the focus of interest and the determining source of philosophic -ideas is the self-conscious mind itself. It feels profoundly its own -energy and power of self-determination; and it regards the objective -world not as deeply at one with it, responsive to its feeling, -accessible to its thought, but rather as a threatening power against -which it must vindicate its spiritual freedom and build its secure -spiritual home. In the philosophies of this type, personality--which -the first type ignored and the second reduced to an organ of a world -process--became the fundamental condition of our experience, as with -Kant and Fichte, or a transcendent personal God shaping the universe to -his mind, as with the Plato of the _Timæus_. - -If we now consider these three types in relation to our problem, -it seems evident that the second and the third are naturally more -congenial to poetry than the first. Yet we know that one of the -greatest of Roman poets made it the work of his life to expound the -atomic Naturalism of Epicurus to an unreceptive Roman world. - -The naturalism of Democritus and Epicurus, though framed purely in the -interest of scientific explanation, and hostile both to poetry and -to religion as commonly understood, was potentially a great poetic -discovery, the disclosure of a Worldview wholly novel and of entrancing -appeal to the poetic apprehension. The sublime perspectives of an -illimitable universe, the permanent oneness underlying the changing -shows of sense: these were contributions of philosophy to a poetic -outlook of which no poet had yet dreamed, and which it was reserved for -the greatest of philosophic poets to make explicitly his own. - -But the new way which Lucretius was the first to tread was not to be -pursued. He had for many ages no successors. His difficult conquest -of poetry from a mechanical system, designed to explain, not to -inspire, was only to be emulated by a poet of combined intellectual -and imaginative grasp comparable with his own. On the whole, the -science and the poetry of Lucretius, after that moment of intense -incandescence, fell apart. Vergil, who as a young man saw the rising -of this magnificent lonely star in the Roman firmament, and of all his -contemporaries perhaps alone understood its significance, honoured the -discoverer of the causes of things, but his own philosophy was of a -cast easier to harmonize with the idealisms of poetry. From the side of -science, Gassendi and the physicists of the seventeenth century valued -the Lucretian exposition of atomist theory as a welcome supplement to -the fragments of Democritus and Epicurus. But before the nineteenth -century scientific materialism was never again allied with great poetic -power. The eighteenth century saw an immense advance in the scientific -reconstruction of our beliefs about the world, but its nearest -approaches to the negations of Lucretius were conveyed only in the -prose of a D’Holbach or a Hume, while its most brilliant English poet, -far from wrestling, like his friend Berkeley, with the new spectre of -materialism raised by the triumphs of Newton, afforded himself and -his readers complete satisfaction by decorating the easy harmonics of -deism in the _Essay on Man_. The immense quickening of imaginative -power which marked the decades immediately before and after the close -of the century widened the chasm between poetry and any mechanical view -of the world. If at certain points (as in Shelley’s and Coleridge’s -early chemical ardour, and Goethe’s momentous biological researches) -poets make fruitful approaches to science, it was because they found -in science itself an apparent release from the mechanical point of -view, a clue to their ultimate faith (however differently expressed) -in a divine, benignant Nature. The recovery of imagination told, in -philosophy as in poetry, for the most part, is a wonderful idealization -of the universe, culminating in Hegel’s evolution of the Absolute and -in Wordsworth’s awe before the Mind of Man--conceptions which must be -discussed in a later section. - -But in some very distinguished poetic minds the recovery of imaginative -power led to no idealization of the world. It rather enabled them -to present with a peculiar poignant intensity a world stripped bare -of ideal elements, in which goodness and hope are alike illusory, -and Nature is either a dead mechanism or a cruel, implacable and -irresistible alien Power. Leopardi, Schopenhauer, Leconte de Lisle, and -(on a lower plane) James Thomson, were the most conspicuous examples -in the nineteenth century of poetic genius (for Schopenhauer’s work -is a colossal poem of pessimism) absorbed in the contemplation of a -universe as denuded as that so passionately embraced by Lucretius, of -love or hope for man. - -A situation analogous to that of Lucretius arises, therefore, in their -case. Their world offered no foothold to the optimist: was it equally -bare of support for the poet? Bacon’s assertion that poetry submits -the shows of things to man’s desires might imply that; but Bacon (who, -incidentally, thought slightly of Lucretius) ignores the poetry born of -a conviction that the shows of things are finally unalterable by man’s -desires, and it is Leopardi, even more than Lucretius, who has shown -us how sublime the poetry which rests on this lonely stoicism may be. -One might even, in certain moods, be tempted to attach a yet higher -value to the temper of this lonely heroism, which faces a blankly -hostile universe utterly without support, than to that which exults in -conscious Oneness with a universe pervaded by Love or Beauty, by benign -Nature or God. The loneliness of Prometheus is more moving as poetry -than his rapturous union with Asia. Why is this? - -I take it that it is because the lonely Prometheus, the heroic striver -with a loveless world, makes us more vividly aware of the Spirit of -Man, and that what moves us most in the great poetry is the revelation -of the Spirit of Man even more than the revelation of the glory of -the universe. We have seen that these two are natural poles of poetic -faith, that is, conclusions upon which the thinking of any poet who -thinks as a poet, will tend to converge; and if he is thwarted in the -one aim he will fall back with the more energy upon the other. - -Now this vivid consciousness of spirit, whether shown in heroism or in -love, is ultimately inconsistent with a creed which strips the universe -of all ideal elements; and where this is in possession, undermines and -disintegrates it. The ‘Everlasting No’ yields ground to the Everlasting -Yea; or negation itself is impregnated with divinity, as when Leconte -de Lisle glories in his _néant divin_. To imagine heroism intensely -is to be convinced that whatever else is illusory, heroism is not an -illusion, that the valour of man has a kinship and support somehow, -somewhere, in the nature of things. And if heroism is not an illusion, -human society is no illusion either. For the heroic struggler with -infinite odds is no longer alone; the army of saints and martyrs -are with him; and it was the poet for whom loneliness opened ways -into infinity beyond any companionship who cried to one such heroic -struggler, fallen in the fight-- - - Thou hast great allies. - Thy friends are exultations, agonies, - And Love, and Man’s unconquerable mind. - -I propose to illustrate the working of the forces which thus qualified -a creed of negations, from the impressive case of Leopardi. - -In Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) we have a poet in whom astonishing -power and wealth of mind were united to a complete rejection of the -theological and philosophical apparatus of consolation. The mental -revolution which left him in early manhood entirely denuded of the -beliefs in which he had been reared, was final, and left no trace of -reaction or regret, of hesitation or doubt. An absolute calm of secure -conviction marks the entire subsequent course of his short life. Few -men who have ‘found religion,’ once for all, have been brought by it -into an anchorage so secure from inner or outer assault as this man who -at twenty-two discovered that religion was a dream. - -With supernatural belief fell from him also every form of secular faith -and hope for man. Religion was but one among the crowd of cherished -illusions which cheat men with the expectation of happiness. Human -happiness was always founded on illusion, and the pursuit of it was -therefore vain. Hence all the organized energies of civilization, -the activities of business or politics, of science or art, of the -professions, of state administration, counted in his eyes at best as -distractions which blinded those who engaged in them to the deadly -vision of truth. For himself these distractions and the relief they -brought were impossible, for he had seen the truth; and the remorseless -analysis which shattered the basis of illusion on which they rested, -sapped the impulse to share in them. Of the state, and the patriotisms -which bind its members together, he was as sceptical as Ibsen, without -sharing his idealizing homage to the man who stands alone. In the -_Storia del Genero Umano_ he makes Jove introduce the diversities of -peoples and tongues among men, seeds of emulation and discord, and send -forth among them the ‘phantoms’ known by the names of Justice, Virtue, -Glory, and Love of Country. ‘Humanity’ itself was an illusory bond, and -the ‘nations’ of the world were ultimately its individual men. - -Yet Leopardi does not denounce crime. Man is for him more unhappy -than criminal; and his evil qualities are to be laid to the charge -of the Nature that made him. He is more sinned against than sinning, -and Leopardi’s profound pity, if often derisive and scornful, never -passes into invective. His passionate upbraidings of his countrymen in -the boyish canzone _Italy_, like his ardent aspiration after national -glory for his country and poetic fame for himself, disappear from the -melancholy calm of the _Bruto Minore_ and the _Ginestra_. - - A great and potent spirit - Shows itself in enduring, nor will add - Fraternal hatred, worst of evils, to its griefs - By blaming Man for them, but lay the charge - On the true culprit,--Mother of mankind - By right of birth, and Stepmother in heart. - -‘Nature,’ which planted us in this earth, exposed us from birth till -death to malign afflictions and lured us into constant pursuit of -illusive aims, is responsible for the wrongs which men inflict upon -one another in the vain chase; and Leopardi’s nearest approach to the -passion of humanity which inspired Shelley, a few years earlier, is -the cry of appeal to men which breaks from him, after uttering this -indictment of Nature, to band themselves together against her: - - Her count the foe, and against Her, - Believing that man’s race, as is the truth, - Was foreordained to be in league, - Count all mankind as born confederates, - And embrace all with unfeigned love, - Rendering and expecting strong and ready succour - In the changing perils and the anguishes - Of the common warfare.[41] - -Man in the grip of Nature is like the anthill crushed by a -chance-falling apple, and the lava field of Vesuvius, covering extinct -cities, where but the broom plant sheds a forlorn fragrance, aptly -symbolizes the desolate earth he is doomed to tread. While this earth -itself, a vanishing film of vapour in the universe, traverses by its -insignificance his dream of immortality. And his humorous irony sports, -in the prose dialogues, with this annihilating disparity between man’s -pretensions and the truth.[42] - -Yet the effect of Leopardi’s work--and especially of his poetry--is -at many points subtly to rectify his desperate view of the world. He -cannot suppress the uprush of pity for those whose career in it is -prematurely cut short, however his reason may persuade him that they -are fortunate.[43] The noble pathos of the Attic grave monuments, -representing, for instance, a young girl in the act of taking leave -of her friends, overpowers the reflections of his philosophy, and he -wrestles in moving verses with the enigma: - - Ah me! why at the end - Of paths so grievous, not ordain at least - A happy goal? But rather robe in gloom - And terror that for which through life - We long as the sole refuge from our woes, - And show us, yet more dread than the stormy sea, - The port we make for? - -A portrait of a beautiful woman, carved also upon her tomb, overwhelms -him with the wonder of beauty and the paradox of its conversion into -dust: - - Ah, human nature, how, - If utterly frail thou art and vile, - If dust thou art and ashes, is thy heart so great? - If thou art noble in part, - How are thy loftiest impulses and thoughts - By so ignoble causes kindled and put out?[44] - -Not less acutely he feels the paradox of artistic creation. Like Abt -Vogler he contemplates the ‘palace of music’ reared by the performer’s -hand: - - Desires infinite - And visions sublime - It begets in the kindled thought, ... - Where along a sea of delight the spirit of man - Ranges unseen, as some bold swimmer - For his diversion the deep.... - -But a single discord shatters this paradise in a moment. Abt Vogler’s -creation is not shattered; he has played to the end, and put the last -stone in its place. But it has vanished, and he calls in, to save it, -his high doctrine of the eternity of created beauty. Leopardi has no -such faith, and he puts the doctrine to a severer test by dissolving -the spell of beauty before it is complete. Yet he feels as acutely -as Browning the marvel of the musical creation, and that its abrupt -dissolution does not cancel the significance of its having been there -at all. He does not openly confess that significance, but it stirs in -him a tormenting sense of anomaly. - -He comes nearer to such confession when he speaks of love. His -own experience of love was that of a virginal passion; the ideal -exaltations which make every lover something of a poet had their way -in this great poet unclouded by vulgar satiety. He knows well enough -that love arrays the woman, for the lover, in ideal charms not her own; -but instead of lamenting or deriding this illusion, as illogically -he should have done, he glories in it. Love, like music, ‘reveals -the mystery of unknown Elysiums,’[45] but these ‘lofty images’ are -accessible only to the man; woman cannot understand them; for such -conceptions there is no room in her narrow brow. The stern derider of -illusions has here no praise for the sex which sees things as they are: -the unconscious idealist in Leopardi takes the side of the ‘illusions.’ - -And his way of speaking about Love elsewhere is less that of the -pessimist philosopher than of the Platonist poet who sees in it a clue -to real vision. The pessimist in him does full justice to the havoc -wrought in the world in Love’s name; but after the gods had watched -the working of the lower love, their cynical gift, Jove sent down -another Love, ‘child of Venus Urania,’ in pity of the noble hearts who -were worthy of it, yet rarely permitting even to them the happiness it -brings as ‘surpassed in too small a measure by that of heaven.’[46] -Love above all else irradiates the waste of life, it is ‘the source of -good, of the highest joy found in the ocean of existence’; it alone -holds equal bliss for man with Death, which for ever allays his ills. -‘Love and Death’ are twin brothers, and the fairest things on the earth -or under the stars.[47] Even the memory of love can make ‘abhorred old -age’ endurable, and send a man willingly to the scourge or the wheel, -as the face of Beatrice could make her lover ‘happy in the flames.’[48] -Hence Love makes the heart ‘wise,’ for it inspires men with the -contempt of life: - - ‘For no other lord do men face peril - With such alacrity as for him.’ - Where thou dost help, O Love, courage is born - Or wakens; and, against its wont, mankind - Grows wise in action, not lost in idle thought.[49] - -This is not the language of pessimism; and this ‘wisdom’ inspired by -love, which reconciles men to courageous death, is something quite -other than the calculation that death is a release from life’s ills. -That is the suicide’s wisdom, not the hero’s. Leopardi’s conception of -Love has taken up nobler elements than his pessimism could supply; he -describes a Triumph of Love over Death, not a shrewd perception that -Death is the easiest way out, or even a blessed port after stormy seas. - -Yet Love in its noblest form was given, he knows, but to few; and -he himself had known it only as a fleeting experience. He knew as a -continual possession, on the other hand, his own intellectual nature, -the sovran thought which stripped off the illusive shows of things and -disclosed to him the naked horror of reality undisguised, but filled -him none the less with the exultation of power, and the lofty joy which -belongs to discovery even of a tragic truth. - -Such exaltation finds its most powerful expression in the great hymn -to ‘Thought the Master.’ His restless and piercing intellect was a -double-edged instrument. It was not the source of his pessimism, but -it furnished the remorseless analysis of the glories and shows of life -which gave its air of inevitable logic to his temperamental despair. -Yet the exercise of the instrument was itself a vivid joy, and, like -love, created for the wielder a lonely earthly paradise within the -vast waste of this earthly hell.[50] There he wanders, in an enchanted -light, which blots out his earthly state; thither he returns from -the dry and harsh converse with the world as from the naked crags of -the Apennines to a joyous garden smiling afar. Is this ‘terrible but -precious gift of heaven’ also an illusion? Perhaps; but it is one ‘by -nature divine,’ and capable of possessing us with the secure tenacity -of truth itself, as long as life endures.[51] - -In any case it created for him definite and wonderful values in the -world which detracted dangerously from the consistency of his faith in -the world’s fundamental badness. ‘Thought’ was the only civilizer; by -thought mankind had actually risen out of their primeval barbarism;[52] -it was the sole agent in advancing the public welfare. His towering -disdain for the frivolity and utilitarianism of his own age sprang from -no mere excess of self-esteem; it was the scorn of one whom ‘thought’ -had lifted to a standpoint of ideal excellence beside which all alien -impulses seemed intolerable.[53] It armed him with a magnanimity which -the sight of any cowardly or ignoble act stung to the quick, which -laughed at danger or at death,[54] which could endure with resolute -Stoicism and antique valour the passage through the miseries of -life.[55] - -But thought had its peculiar joys also, less equivocal than these. It -fed on the sublimity even of the desolate world, on the loneliness of -nature, on the infinity of the starry depths. In the lines on ‘The -Infinite’ he describes a favourite haunt--a lonely hill, from which -the horizon is on all sides cut off. ‘There I sit and gaze, fashioning -in thought boundless distances, superhuman silences, and profoundest -rest.... In this immensity my thought is drowned, and shipwreck in that -ocean is a joy.’ - -And converse with thought gives him, too, the vision of ideal beauty--a -vision which quickens the ecstasy of his most rapturous moments. It -is no pallid dream; the fairest face he meets seems but a feigned -image of its countenance, a derivative streamlet from the one sole -source.[56] That ideal beauty is his lady, but he had never seen her -face, for nothing on the earth is like her, or were it like in feature, -or in voice, it would be less in beauty.[57] Leopardi is here very -near to Shelley. The visionary ideal of beauty and love was not less -vividly present to him; but the sterner temper of his pessimism was -less easily persuaded that it had projected itself into the being of -any earthly Emilia. The ‘Intellectual Beauty’ of Shelley’s hymn had -its seat and stronghold in a like glow of inner vision, but its ‘awful -loveliness’ was more abundantly hinted or disclosed in the world of -nature and of man, giving ‘grace and truth to life’s unquiet dream,’ -and luring the sensitive poet on to the pursuit of a thousand fugitive -embodiments of its eternal essence. Leopardi’s language, marmoreally -clear-cut and austere, seems to bear the impress of a mind powerfully -self-contained, exempt from all seductions of the senses, even of -colour and melody, calm with the resolution of despair. Shelley’s -language, dissolving form and outline in an ethereal radiance, seems -the mirror of a self-diffusive genius which saw all things through -the veil of its own effulgence. Leopardi has been called ‘the most -classical of the romantics’; Shelley was in some sense the very soul of -romanticism. But as this very comparison implies, the romantic temper -glowed in both. In both, the long travail of existence was crossed -by the exultations of the visionary and the idealist. With Leopardi, -martyred in his prime by painful disease, the gloomy shades closed in -more and more impenetrably upon the world of man and nature, and death -was happy because it was the end of life. With Shelley the universe -grew more and more visibly transfigured by a spirit deeply responsive -to his own; all things worked and moved in beauty, and were woven -through and through with love. In Leopardi’s more tenacious intellect -the negations of a corroding criticism were less easily overcome. -But nature, which had armed his brain with that corroding criticism -flung across it also the rapturous delight in beauty, in love, in the -creative energy of thought itself, and there were moments when poetry -transported him beyond the iron limits of his creed, to the belief that -love and beauty and thought are neither illusory nor the sources of -illusion, but signs and symptoms of an ideal reality. - - -IV - -The poetry of negations strives instinctively towards fuller -affirmation: that is the purport of our survey hitherto. We have seen -in a previous essay how Lucretius the poet saw this mechanical universe -through a transfiguring atmosphere of passion and pathos, attachment, -regret, not dreamt of in his philosophy.[58] And there are signs enough -that had that philosophy admitted, what it fiercely denied, those -ideas of a living and personal or even divine Nature, or of a universe -pervaded by God, which respond to poetic apprehension at the point -where the Epicurean naturalism left it, as it were in the lurch, he -would have eagerly embraced them. - -Now it was precisely those ideas of life and personality present -in Nature, or even pervading the universe, which prevailed among -philosophic thinkers of the _second type_, who inquired (to put it in -the roughest way) not how the world might have come about, but what -it meant. For the answer, infinitely varied in its terms, uniformly -postulated that the idealism of man reflected something answering to -it in the very nature of reality. Two profound suggestions towards an -ideal conception of the world, thrown out by the genius of Greece, -could still intoxicate the intellect of early nineteenth-century -Germany:--the Heracleitean idea of the harmony of opposites, and the -Platonic and Stoic doctrine of the soul of the world. Of the first I -say nothing more here; for Heracleitus, pregnant as his dark sayings -are with poetry, has never had his Lucretius.[59] The doctrine of a -world-soul, on the other hand, has again and again helped poetry to -articulate her rapturous apprehension of the glory of the world. For -European speculation, at least, the conception had its origin in the -_Timæus_, where the last perfecting touch of the divinely-appointed -artificer who constructs the world is to give it a ‘soul’ and make it -‘a blessed god.’ - -In the pantheism of the Stoics, the idea of a divine world-soul set -forth in this grandiose myth became a radical dogma, one of the chief -sources of their significance as an intellectual and moral force. At -Rome the Stoic pantheism softened the rigour of national and social -distinctions. The humanity of the Roman law lies in the direct line -of its influence. In the mind of the most sensitive and tender of -Roman poets, on the other hand, the Stoic idea fell upon a soil rich -in qualities uncongenial, if not unknown, to its native habitat. Stoic -thought in Vergil, no less than Epicurean in Lucretius, has taken the -colour of that richer soil. The sublime verses which he puts in the -mouth of Anchises have riveted this solution, if such it be, of the -world-riddle upon the mind of posterity; but the real contribution of -Vergil is less in any expressive phrase or image than in the diffused -magic of a temperament in which all subtle and delicate attachments -wonderfully throve; where, more than in any other Roman mind, the -‘threefold reverence’ of Goethe, the reverence for what is above us, -for what is below us, and for our fellow-men, found its congenial home. - -And it is not hard to see how sheer poetic instinct drew him this way. -His two great masters in poetry, Homer and Lucretius, had inspired and -helped to mould a genius fundamentally unlike either. The majestic -pageant of the Olympians was not at bottom more consonant to his poetry -than the scorn which tramples on all fear of divinity and puts the roar -of Acheron under its feet. The Jupiter and Venus and Juno and Pallas -who so efficiently order the changing fortunes of Æneas are but a -splendid decoration, like the Olympian figures in Raphael’s frescoes at -the Farnesina. And well as he understands the bliss of the triumphant -intellect, of Man become the master of things, he is himself content -with the humbler joys of one who has acquaintance with Pan and the -Nymphs, with the gods of the woodland and the fountain-spring. These -were real for him, not it may be with the matter-of-fact reality -of the senses, but as speaking symbols of something more deeply -interfused, less articulate than man, but more articulate to man’s -spirit than the fountains or the flowers. - -The great pantheistic phrases of Vergil have echoed, we know, -throughout the after-history of poetry. We might even be tempted -to say that pantheism, in some sense, must be the substance of any -‘poetic view of the world.’ But if so, it must be a pantheism which -owes at least as much to the entranced intuition of the poets as to -the abstract thinking of philosophy. Their ecstasy of the senses, -their feasting joy in the moment, and in the spot, have enabled them -not merely to express the creed of pantheism with greater freshness -and sincerity, but to give it interpretations and applications of -which theoretic speculation never dreamed. We should not prize the -great lines of _Tintern Abbey_ so far above the eloquent platitudes -of the _Essay on Man_ if we did not feel that Pope was merely putting -philosophy at second-hand into brilliant verse, while Wordsworth had -not only reached his thought through his own impassioned contemplation, -but actually given it a new compass and profundity not attainable by -any logical process. He found his ‘something more deeply interfused’ -as he looked with emotion too deep for tears upon the humble flower -and the simple village child, or remembered the experiences of his own -wonderful boyhood; and these were for him not merely portions of a body -of which God was the soul, but themselves luminous points, or running -springs, of spiritual light and life. So that if his poetry touches -doctrinal pantheism (which he never names) at one pole, at the other it -is nearer to the spiritual fetishism of St. Francis’s hymns to Brother -Sun and Brother Rain. - -It is easier to distinguish definite philosophic ideas at work in the -poetic apprehension of Shelley. We know in any case that they played -an immensely greater part in his intellectual growth. Plato and Dante -have helped him to those wonderful phrases in which he seeks to make -articulate his rapturous cosmic vision of - - That light, whose smile kindles the universe, - That Beauty in which all things work and move, - .... - that sustaining love - Which thro’ the web of Being blindly wove, - In man and beast and earth and air and sea, - Burns bright or dim as each are mirrors of - The fire for which all thirst. - -That is his rendering, translated out of theological terms, of the -sublime opening lines of the _Paradiso_: - - The glory of Him who moves the whole, penetrates through the universe - and is reflected in one part more and in another less. - -But, even so, Shelley is feeling through these great words--Light, -Love, Beauty--towards something which none of them can completely -convey. And in this Shelleyan ‘love’ itself, the subtle distinctions -carried out, as we saw, by Dante disappear even more completely than -the dramatic play of thought in the _Symposium_ disappears in the -suffused splendour of Spenser’s _Hymns_. In logical power Shelley -was as little to be compared with Dante as Spenser with Plato. Yet -some distinctions seem to assert themselves even in that ecstatic -love-interwoven universe of his. His poet’s intense consciousness of -personality sounds clear through the pantheistic harmonies. When he -is trying to utter as he sees it the sublime paradox of the dead but -deathless poet, he falls successively, heedless of inconsistency, upon -symbols drawn from the dogmas of antagonistic schools of thought. -Pantheism, individual immortality, heaven, Elysium--he draws upon them -all, but none suffices. The dead poet is made one with Nature, becomes -a part of the loveliness which once he made more lovely; his voice is -heard in the nightingale’s song. But he is also an individual soul, -who has passed at death to the abode where the Immortals are, and is -welcomed there by Chatterton and Sidney and Lucan and the rest. A -cognate depth and reach of apprehension has perplexed the discoverers -of contradiction in _In Memoriam_. ‘For the poets,’ aptly comments -Mr. Bradley, though he is thinking chiefly of Shelley and Tennyson, -‘the soul of the dead in being mingled with nature does not lose its -personality; in living in God it remains human and itself.’[60] - -In comparison with the magnificent audacities of pantheism and cosmic -love, the philosophic conception of ‘Nature’ has enjoyed the position -of a great authoritative commonplace, by invoking which the most -mediocre poet could dignify and quicken his verse. It belonged to -science as much as to poetry, and to the poetry of clarified good sense -by as good right as to that of childlike intuition. It could stand for -the ideal of just expression which Pope counselled the poet ‘first to -follow,’ as legitimately as, a century later, it was to stand for the -living presence of Beauty, of whose ‘wedding’ with the soul Wordsworth -chanted the spousal verse, or as the teeming creative energy whose -infinity Faust sought vainly to clasp. But even that Augustan ‘Nature’ -gathered something from the quality of the minds which pursued literary -discipline by its light, and no one doubts that in Wordsworth or in -Goethe the φύσις or _natura_ of strictly philosophic speculation was -but the fecund germ of a poetic creation, which, whether it answered -to a cosmic reality or not, answered to deep-seated and ineffaceable -instincts and needs of man. Only, if great and original genius has set -its hall-mark upon this noble metal, the crowd of small poets have -mixed it with their feeble alloys. There is a Nature which responds to -the greatest and sublimest aspirations of man, and one which answers to -his self-indulgent dreams; a Nature which is wedded to his soul, and -one which is but the casual mistress of his light desires. If the term -‘poetical’ has a slightly derisive air, it is because a cheap glamour, -which disguises truth, so often replaces the profound symbol which -touches its core. A truly ‘poetic’ World-view has at any rate nothing -to do with this second-rate romance. - -Among the poetic ways of regarding _Nature_, there are two types, the -distinction between which concerns us. It is shadowed forth in the two -images I borrowed just now from Wordsworth and from _Faust_. We may -feel Nature as intimately united to us, deep calling to deep. Or we -may feel it as something which eludes our clasp, but holds us by the -very appeal of its affinity to that which is infinite in ourselves. -The first type is too familiar to be further discussed here. But the -second, or Goethean type, needs a few words. - -For it was with Goethe that a new and powerful philosophic influence -tardily entered modern poetry--the influence of Spinoza. A quarter of -a century before Wordsworth and Coleridge were overheard talking of -him at Nether Stowey, Spinoza had found deep springs of sympathy in -the young Goethe. A vivid passage in _Dichtung und Wahrheit_ (Book -XIV) tells us that what especially fascinated him was ‘the boundless -unselfishness that glowed in every sentence,’ and notably that ‘strange -sentence’ which later suggested a famous retort of his Philine--‘He -who loves God must not expect that God shall love him in return.’[61] -Spinoza’s God meant, roughly, the infinity of Nature, and to love God -meant to see all things in the light of that infinity. Such a dictum -therefore cut at the root of the whole body of poetry which asserted -an answering spirit in Nature, from the self-indulgent dreams of -romantic sentiment to the love-interwoven universe of Dante or Shelley. -The grandeur of Spinoza’s conception is apparent enough even in his -geometrical formulas, but Goethe’s intense intuition translated it into -human experiences which stir us to the depths. The Erdgeist’s retort -to Faust--‘Du gleichst dem Geist den du begreifst, nicht mir’--is one -of the most thrilling in all poetry, not because it indulges all our -wishes, nor yet because it baffles them, but because the barrier it -opposes to the intellect is a gate to the imagination, and we step out -into a poetic apprehension of the infinity which our formulas seek to -capture in vain. - -It is by a like suggestion of infinities beyond our reach and untouched -by our emotions that he moves us in poems like _Das Göttliche_ or _Die -Grenzen der Menschheit_, or the opening scene of the Second Part of -_Faust_, which insist with so lofty a calm on our limitations. From -these infinities, if we wish to live and act, we must turn away, and -that is what, as a wise physician, Goethe bids us do. The intolerable -glory of the sun is broken up for us in the many-hued rainbow, and -this refracted light must be the guide of our life. But no one could -see life there who had not himself gazed on the glory of the sun, and -while we read Goethe’s words we evade the very limitations he imposes, -just as Shelley (in the great kindred passage), by the very image -which condemns life as a dome of many-coloured glass, lifts us into -the ‘white radiance’ beyond. ‘A little ring bounds our life,’ he says -elsewhere, ‘and many generations succeed one another on the endless -chain of their being.’ A little ring on an endless chain--a ‘little -life rounded with a sleep,’--that way lies a poetry as great as that -which comes to the visionary Celt who sees ‘waving round every leaf -and tree the fiery tresses of that hidden sun which is the soul of the -earth.’[62] - -But that way, also, lies a poetry of Man, a poetry which has its -sustaining centre not in the cosmos, but in the soul. To refuse the -easy assumption of Nature’s comradeship in our sorrow, to resign the -cheap consolations of the ‘pathetic fallacy,’ may be the way not merely -to resignation, or Stoicism, but to an apprehension of the heights and -depths of the soul thrown back upon itself, and fetching strength not -from any outer power, but from undreamed-of inner resources of its -own. When Wordsworth, in the grasp of a great sorrow, puts aside the -glamour of the poet’s dream, in order to bear with fortitude ‘what is -to be borne,’ he has taken a step towards that poetry. When he finds in -suffering ‘the nature of infinity,’ with gracious avenues opening out -of it to wondrous regions of soul life, he has entered it.[63] - - -V - -We have thus watched the modification of naturalistic atomism, of -pessimistic materialism, and of the cosmic conceptions of ‘pantheism’ -and ‘Nature,’ by the immediate intuition, the eager senses, and the -vivid soul-consciousness which characterize the poetic apprehension. It -remains to glance, finally, at the relations of poetry with that third -type of philosophic system, in which soul-consciousness itself has -played the guiding and master part. - -It was with the assertion of the soul’s predominance that European -philosophy, in the full sense of the word, began. When Socrates -turned from the cosmic speculations of the Ionians to found his -‘thinking-shop’ at Athens, and chaffed Anaxagoras for having put mind -at the head of things and then given it nothing to do, he was preparing -the way, we know, for the magnificent soul-sovereignty established -by the master of all idealists. Plato set up a trenchant dualism -between soul and sense, and thrust the sense-world into a limbo of -disparagement from which, where his spell prevailed, it never emerged. -The body was the soul’s prison; the sense cheated it with illusion and -dragged it down with base desires. - -The Transcendentalists of modern Germany established a soul-autocracy -differently conceived, and founded upon other postulates, but not -less absolute. Kant shattered the claims of _Verstand_, but only to -enthrone _Vernunft_; Fichte found nothing real and nothing good that -was not rooted in heroic will; Schopenhauer built up a philosophy of -self-effacement and world-flight on the doctrine that the will to -live which tortures us is also the malign indwelling energy of the -world. And none of them surpassed in calm audacity the claims made for -individual reason by Fichte’s English contemporary, Godwin. - -Speculation of this type was already allied to poetry by the boldness -of its ‘subjective idealism,’ and it might be expected that its points -of fruitful contact with poetry would be correspondingly numerous. Yet -this is hardly, on the whole, the case. If Plato’s influence on poetry -is hard to measure, if Kant taught something vital to Schiller, and -Schopenhauer to Wagner, ‘subjective’ philosophers and poets in the -main pursued their common preoccupation with soul along paths which -rarely crossed. Each brought to the exploration of that marvellous -mine a lamp of extraordinary power; but they carried it into different -regions, surveyed them on different methods, and returned with -different results. Poets without any scientific psychology have, in -virtue of imaginative insight into the ways of character, created a -mass of psychological material with which scientific psychology has -only begun to cope. It is only among poetic portrayers of the second -rank, such as Jonson and the allegorists, that theoretic categories -of character have had any determining weight. The supreme characters -of literature are true creations, creations that are at the same time -discoveries--pieces of humanity which exceed Nature’s ‘reach,’ perhaps, -but not her ‘grasp.’ Prometheus, Hamlet, Satan, Faust, permanently -enlarged the status of the human soul in our common valuation of -life. That ‘discovery of Man’ which intoxicated the Renascence was -preeminently a discovery of the stature of man’s soul--‘how noble in -reason, how infinite in faculty, ... in action how like an angel, in -apprehension how like a god!’ but philosophic ideas hardly touched the -surface of either Shakespeare or Marlowe, and they furnished but one -strand in the woof of the mind of Milton. - -In the English poetry of the time of Wordsworth there is more -affinity to philosophic ideas, but their actual influence is apt to -be strongest just where the poetry itself is least intense. In a very -luminous lecture Mr. Bradley has traced the relation between the two -movements.[64] An exalted faith in soul possessed and inspired both, -but each was in the main unconscious of the other. In the poetry of his -own countryman, Schiller, Kant’s austere ideas reappear transformed -in the crucible of the poet’s livelier emotions or quicker sense -of beauty. Coleridge drank as deeply of Kantian and cognate ideas, -but only when the brief chapter of his creative poetry was all but -closed; while the magnificent prose-poem in which Carlyle conveyed -the philosophy of Fichte-Jean-Paul-Teufelsdröckh stands alone. What -Wordsworth may have drawn through Coleridge’s talk is not clearly -distinguishable from the original bent of his own mind. The two streams -ran courses largely parallel, but in distinct though adjacent valleys. -With Godwin’s ideas, on the other hand, both Wordsworth, Blake, and -Shelley had stood in close intellectual relations. And these were -precisely the men whose poetry set the deepest impress upon their view -of life. - -Is it possible by the help of either the parallel or the derivative -relationship to lay down any common features in the process? - -In the first place, the stress on the exaltation of spirit is shifted -by the poets, and with great emphasis, from ‘reason,’ the instrument of -philosophy, to imagination. Reason is constantly not merely ignored but -openly slighted. It is not what they mean when they exalt ‘mind.’ When -Wordsworth tells us, in the great _Recluse_ passage, of the awe, beyond -Empyrean or Erebus, with which he contemplated ‘the mind of man’; -when he sees the heroic devotion of the fallen Toussaint perpetuated -in ‘man’s inconquerable mind’; when he encourages those who doubted -Spanish heroism with the sublime assurance that ‘the true sorrow of -humanity consists in this: not that the mind of man fails, but that -the course and demands of life so rarely correspond with the dignity -and intensity of human desires’;--by this ‘mind’ he means imagination, -passion, heroic will, but not discourse of reason. Wordsworth, -apprehending soul with his poet’s intuition, apprehends it as he knew -it in himself. He saw it, therefore, as an energy operating not through -‘meddling intellect’ but through vision and vision-illuminated will, -with open eye and ear for its indispensable associates, and love as -its core. The ‘soul’ whereby alone the nations shall be great and free -was something in which the humblest peasant and the simplest child had -part, and in which the meanest flower struck answering chords. It is -not accident that the soul-animated England of Wordsworth’s ideal is so -utterly unlike Hegel’s Prussian state. - -In William Blake soul-autocracy became aggressive and revolutionary, -and the breach with reason, philosophic or other, widened to a yawning -gulf. Whether he is declaring ‘the world of imagination to be the -world of eternity,’ scoffing at the nature-lover who sees ‘with’ -not ‘through’ the eye, or affirming that ‘to generalize is to be an -idiot’--(a stupendous example of the procedure he derides)--he stands -for a poetry stripped bare of all that allies it either to philosophy -or to common sense. His prophetic books adumbrate a grandiose poetic -metaphysic, a world-system framed to the postulates of this denuded -poetry. And Shelley’s _Apology_ enthrones imagination as the creator -and upholder of all civilization. - -Secondly, the poetic shifting of the stress, within the domain of -the autocratic soul, from reason to imagination and feeling, told -powerfully upon the ethical ideals proclaimed by this group of poets. -It added fresh impetus to that disposition to override or transcend -external standards of morality which is inherent in all vivid inner -consciousness. Moral distinctions fade in the inner illumination of -the mystic. We have seen hints of such a ‘transvaluation of ethical -values’ disarranging the iron categories of Dante’s Hell. Applied to -Hamlet or Othello, the traditional categories of good and evil break in -our hands. Milton’s heroic devil, and the lovers whom Browning scorns -for being saved by their sloth from crime, still perplex the moralist. -But the poets of the Revolution are openly sceptical of morality. Of -Shelley I need not speak. Even Wordsworth makes a hero of a murderer. -And Blake first proclaimed explicitly, a century before Nietzsche, -a good ‘beyond good and evil,’ and figured the inauguration of this -transcendent ethic in the colossal symbolism of his Marriage of Heaven -and Hell. - -In all these writers, it is true, their attitude to morality was in -part derived from the bias towards emancipation then current in all -departments of ethical, social, and political life, and had no relation -to specifically poetic apprehension. ‘Freedom’ was an ideal for Godwin -and for Robespierre, as well as for Shelley and for Kant, and was -pursued by them with equal devotion in their several fashions. But they -all, also, understood it in the light of their several preoccupations. -With Godwin, as with Robespierre, it is mainly negative; with Shelley, -as with Kant, it acquires positive substance and content. And this -is because both philosopher and poet see it as the means to some -perfection of the soul. The soul-autocracy of the age, extravagant as -it might be, is seen at its noblest in the Kantian freedom won through -duty, and in the Shelleyan freedom won through Love. The Kantian ideal -of freedom interpreted in that last conclusion of Goethe’s wisdom--‘He -alone is free who daily wins his freedom anew’--has passed into the -very substance of the strenuous German mind. The Shelleyan ideal is -of a rarer but also of a more perilous stuff, and has touched no -such chords in the English character as his music has stirred in the -English ear. But something of the genius of both ideals was gathered up -and concentrated in Wordsworth’s great affirmation of the meaning of -national freedom. - -Wordsworth’s sense of law corrects what is anarchic in Shelley, as -Shelley’s flame-like ardour corrects what is prosaic and common in -Wordsworth. Together they present more purely than any of their -contemporaries the noble substance of a poetic ethic. In that poetic -ethic the greatest word, rightly understood, is still the Shelleyan -Love. - -And it may be that if there is any ideal which, springing from poetic -apprehension, is yet fit, rightly interpreted, for the common needs of -men, it is that ‘love of love’ on which Tennyson, so far always from -the revolutionary temper either in love or poetry, set his finger in -his early prime, as the sovereign endowment of the poet. Only it must -be love wide enough to include every kind of spiritual energy by which -the soul, transcending itself, fulfils itself, and exerts, whether upon -men or nations, its liberating and uplifting power: the love which -creates, and the love which endures; the love which makes the hero or -the artist, and that which spends itself inexhaustibly on a thankless -cause; the impersonal ardour of the mind, which Spinoza called the -‘intellectual love of God,’ and the impassioned union of souls, which -to some has seemed a clue to the vision of reality, and to others the -surest pledge of a future life; the love of country which distinguishes -the true service of humanity from a shallow cosmopolitanism; and the -love of our fellow men, which distinguishes true patriotism from -national greed. To have had no mean share in sustaining this large -ideal of the ‘soul’ which makes us free is an enduring glory of the -poets. - -Nor is this strange if, as I trust this partial survey may have served -to suggest, the spiritual energy transcending itself, for which Love is -the most adequate name, be the core of the World-view towards which, -from their various religious or philosophic vantage-grounds, a number -of poetic master-spirits have made an approach. Whether they have -found it as a light kindling the universe, like Dante and Shelley; or -as a creative power shadowed forth in the eternal new birth of all -things, like Lucretius; or as the will and passion of the human soul, -heroically shaping its fate, and divining its infinity most clearly -when most aware of its limitations, like Goethe; in some form the faith -that spiritual energy is the heart of reality was the centre towards -which they knowingly or obscurely strove. Such a faith, I suggest, will -be found to be a vital constituent of every view of the world reached -by a poet through his poetic experience, and the main contribution of -that rich, profound, and intense form of experience to man’s ultimate -interpretation of life. - - - _Printed in Great Britain by_ - UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED - WOKING AND LONDON - - -FOOTNOTES: - -[1] The characteristics of this norm are well set forth by Wetz, -_Shakespeare_, ch. v. - -[2] The conflict of friendship with love was in general treated in -England with a livelier sense of the power of love than in Italy. -Boccaccio’s Palemone and Arcita, rivals for the hand of Emilia, -courteously debate their claims (_Teseide_, V, 36, 39 f.); Chaucer -makes them fight in grim earnest. Spenser in the spirit of the -Renascence makes friendship an ideal virtue, but exposes it to more -legitimate trials, as where the Squire of low degree repels the -proffered favours of his friend’s bride. (_Faerie Queen_, iv. 9, 2.) - -[3] ‘Perjured, murderous, ... savage, extreme ... rude, cruel, not to -trust.’ - -[4] Goethe probably never heard of a less fortunate adventure in that -kind by his English contemporary, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, the _Loves of -the Plants_, which had then been famous in England for ten years; a -poem which suffices to show that it is possible to exploit in the -description of natural processes all the figures and personifications -of poetry, and yet to go egregiously wrong. - -[5] To Knebel, 14 February 1821. - -[6] I. 140 f. - -[7] I. 922, 1. - -[8] This and subsequent passages are freely compressed here and there. - -[9] IV. 575. - -[10] II. 29. - -[11] 18 July 1818. - -[12] 13 July 1818, to Tom Keats. - -[13] April 1818, to Taylor. - -[14] Cf. his amusing outburst at Teignmouth, in the previous March, at -the effeminacy he ascribed to the men of Devon. ‘Had England been a -large Devonshire, we should not have won the battle of Waterloo. There -are knotted oaks, there are lusty rivulets, there are meadows such as -are not elsewhere--there are valleys of feminine climate--but there are -no thews and sinews,’ etc. March 13th, to Bailey. - -[15] Lord Houghton, quoted by Buxton Forman, _Letters_, LXI. - -[16] It is not irrelevant, however, in this context, to recall that -Dante’s account of his Dream-journey has been thought to give evidence -of actual climbing experience. The Purgatory mountain was provided with -a good path; but the Inferno, with its precipitous walls, was less -easily negotiated. He had, however, the services of a most competent -Guide! Cf. H. F. Tozer, _Mod. Quart._, April 1899. - -[17] Cf. ‘vaulted with fire,’ _Paradise Lost_, i. 298, with ‘the -vaulted rocks,’ _Hyperion_, ii. 348. - -[18] Cf. the sonnet written at the top. - -[19] Referred to also by Professor de Sélincourt (note _ad loc._), -though he ascribes it (somewhat sternly) to the ‘vulgarity of Hunt.’ - -[20] Much of this paragraph is repeated in substance from an article, -by the writer, on ‘The Higher Mind of Italy,’ in the _Manchester -Guardian_, 15 March 1920. - -[21] _Manchester Guardian_, 12 September 1918. - -[22] Dedication of _Il Poema Paradisiaco_ (1892). - -[23] _Laus Vitæ_, 232 f. - -[24] Gargiulo, _Gabriele d’Annunzio_ (1912), to whose account of the -poet’s _sovrumanità_ the present essay is much indebted. - -[25] _Beatitudine._ - -[26] _Il Fanciullo._ - -[27] _Elettra: Città del Silenzio._ - -[28] _Elettra: A uno dei Mille._ - -[29] _Fast._ iv. 291 f. - -[30] The distinction of a religious, philosophic, and poetic -World-view is based upon W. Dilthey: _Das Wesen der Philosophie: -Weltanschauungalehre_ (Hinneberg, _Kultur der Gegenwart_, I. vi). - -[31] Wilamowitz, _Oresteia_, p. 47. - -[32] _Purg._ xxiv. 52. 4. - -[33] The case of Trajan, who for his justice was said to have been -saved by the prayers of Gregory, is not quite parallel, since there was -here a theological tradition in his favour. But at least Dante seizes -on and emphasizes the tradition, and not merely ‘saves’ Trajan, but -makes him the comrade of the glorious just kings in Jupiter (_Par._ xx. -44 f.). - -[34] The second type I take to be represented, with obvious -differences, for Dante by the ‘philosophical’ love of Guido Guinicelli, -the ‘father of love poets and my own’ (_Purg._ xxvi. 97); there is no -evidence that he knew anything of this part of Plato; in any case, of -course, this love is for him excited only by woman. The _amore_ of -Empedocles is mentioned in _Inf._ xii. 42; Empedocles himself, as well -as Plato, is in Limbo (_Inf._ iv. 138). - -[35] _De Vulg. Eloq._ ii. 2. - -[36] _Purg._ xviii. 36. - -[37] _Canz._ xix. - -[38] _Canz._ i. - -[39] _Parlement of Fowles_, 1 f. - -[40] A. E., _Imaginations and Reveries_, p. 151. - -[41] _Ginestra_, p. 120. - -[42] _Il Copernico._ - -[43] _Sopra un basso relievo_, etc. - -[44] _Sopra un ritratto di una bella donna_, etc. - -[45] _Aspasia._ - -[46] _Storia dell genere umano._ - -[47] _Amore e Morte._ - -[48] _Consalvo._ - -[49] _Amore e Morte._ - -[50] ‘Che paradiso è quello,’ etc. - -[51] - ‘Ma di natura ... - Divina sei,’ etc. - -[52] _Ginestra._ - -[53] _Il Pensiero Dom._: ‘Quasi intender non posso,’ etc. - -[54] _Il Pensiero Dom._: ‘Giammai d’allor,’ etc. - -[55] _Bruto Minore._ - -[56] _Pens. Dom._ ‘Quanto più torno,’ etc. - -[57] _Alla sua Donna._ - -[58] The essay on _The Poetry of Lucretius_ in the present volume -supplements the argument of the present essay at this point, and he is -merely referred to here. - -[59] His famous illustration, quoted by Plato, is the harmony of the -lyre brought about by the balance of opposite forces in the strings. -Plut. _Is. et Osir._ (quot. Ritter and Preller, p. 17), Plat. _Symp._, -p. 187. - -[60] _A Commentary on In Memoriam_, Introd. - -[61] _Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre_, iv. 9. - -[62] A. E., _The Renewal of Youth_. - -[63] The lines from _The Borderers_ are in fact, of course, earlier -than those from _Peele Castle_. - -[64] _English Poetry and German Philosophy in the Age of Wordsworth_ -(Manchester University Press). - - - - -Corrections - -The first line indicates the original, the second the correction: - -p. 28 - - A second mark of unripeness in the conception of love as extravagant - magnanimity - A second mark of unripeness in the conception of love is extravagant - magnanimity - -p. 57 - - He was not, like Pope in the _Essay of Man_, - He was not, like Pope in the _Essay on Man_, - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKESPEARE'S TREATMENT OF LOVE -AND MARRIAGE AND OTHER ESSAYS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; - color: black; font-size: .9em; padding: 0.5em; - margin-bottom: 5em; font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - -/* Poetry indents */ -.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} -.poetry .indent10 {text-indent: 2em;} -.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: -2em;} -.poetry .indent22 {text-indent: 8em;} - -.poetry .indent4 {text-indent: -1em;} -.poetry .indent6 {text-indent: 0em;} -.poetry .indent8 {text-indent: 1em;} - -/* Illustration classes */ -.illowp42 {width: 42%;} -.x-ebookmaker .illowp42 {width: 100%;} - - /* ]]> */ </style> -</head> -<body> -<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Shakespeare's treatment of love and marriage and other essays, by Charles Harold Herford</p> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Shakespeare's treatment of love and marriage and other essays</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Charles Harold Herford</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 4, 2022 [eBook #69468]</p> -<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p> - <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Tim Lindell, Turgut Dincer, Eleni Christofaki and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</p> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKESPEARE'S TREATMENT OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE AND OTHER ESSAYS ***</div> - -<div class="transnote"><h3>Transcriber’s note</h3> - -<p>Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained. Minor punctuation -inconsistencies have been silently repaired. A list of the corrections made can be found <a href="#Corrections">at the end of the book</a>.</p> -</div> -<div class="figcenter illowp42" id="titlepage" style="max-width: 37.5em;"> - <img class="w100" src="images/titlepage.jpg" alt="titlepage"> -</div> - -<h1>SHAKESPEARE’S TREATMENT<br> -OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE -<br> -<span class="small">AND OTHER ESSAYS</span></h1> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="bbox"><p class="center bb">THE MERMAID SERIES</p> - -<p class="center">THE BEST PLAYS OF THE -OLD DRAMATISTS. <i>Literal -Reproductions of the Old Text</i></p> - -<p class="center"><span class="allsmcap">WITH PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE</span></p> - -<p class="center">Boards, <b>3/6</b> net; Cloth, <b>5/-</b> net each</p> - -<p class="center">THOMAS DEKKER, JOHN DRYDEN, -BEN JONSON, THOMAS OTWAY, -Etc.</p> - -<p class="center"><i>Send for a copy of the Prospectus of the -Mermaid Series</i></p> - -<p class="center">T. FISHER UNWIN LTD. LONDON</p></div> - -<hr class="chap"> - -<p class="center"><span class="large">SHAKESPEARE’S</span><br> -TREATMENT OF<br> -LOVE & MARRIAGE<br> -AND OTHER ESSAYS<br> - -<i>By</i> C. H. HERFORD</p> - -<p class="center">HONORARY PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE -IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER</p> - -<p class="center p2">T. FISHER UNWIN LTD</p> -<p class="center">LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE</p> - -<hr class="chap"> - -<p class="center"> -<i>First published in 1921</i></p> -<p class="center p4">(<i>All rights reserved</i>) -</p> - -<hr class="chap"> - -<p class="center"> -TO<br> - -MY STUDENTS,<br> - -PAST AND PRESENT,<br> -IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER<br> - -1901-1921 -</p> - -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</h2> -</div> - -<p class="drop-capi">THE following essays, mainly concerned with -famous and familiar names, are less heterogeneous, -and it is hoped less hackneyed, than -some of the titles may suggest. They are all -occupied ultimately with some aspect of a single -problem in what I would call the psychology -of poetic experience, did not the phrase imply -a scientific rigour of method hardly as yet -achieved, in this region, by psychological science -itself, and in any case beyond the reach of -the present writer. How is the gift of imaginative -creation affected by the presence in the -same mind of one or other of the spiritual -energies which have a different, even an alien, -perhaps incompatible, aim or goal; or simply -by a bias of ingrained ethical habitudes or -ideals? What terms does poetry make with philosophy, -or religion, or patriotism, or politics, or -love, when one of these is urgent, also, in the -mind of a poet? I say ‘terms’ advisedly, for -nothing is more certain than that the outcome is -determined by a process of give and take. Every -complex experience involves a certain compromise -among its disparate or contending factors; a -compromise in great part, indeed, involuntary, -resulting from the fact that, even in the least<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span> -integrated personalities, the field of consciousness -is a continuous unity, into which no fresh element -enters without modifying, and being itself modified -by, the rest. In the class of cases with which we -are here concerned the modification may be loss -or gain, or both together. We think of Dante or -Lucretius as great philosophical poets, and many -people assume, because there are <i>longueurs</i> in the -<i>Paradiso</i>, and tough blocks of versified mechanics -in the <i>De Rerum Natura</i>, that these great poets -would have produced better poems had they -pursued poetry ‘for its own sake.’ What is -certain is that, without the passion for truth, -without the passionate desire to understand the -universe, without, too, the missionary passion to -save souls by communicating their own uplifting -and fortifying faith, each would have been less -occasionally tedious, doubtless, but also would have -missed some of those heights in poetry which they -in fact achieved. A chorus of critics denounce -the ‘didactic poem,’ and clearly the impulse to -instruct is more likely to act as slag than as fuel -upon the flame of poetic creation. But the prophet -is only the schoolmaster writ large, and <i>vates</i> is one -of the oldest names of the poet. Matthew Arnold -made fun of the educational theorizing in <i>The -Excursion</i>, but no one better understood the -grandeur of Wordsworth the prophet, and he and -Goethe are doubtless chiefly accountable for the -Arnoldian definition of poetry as ‘criticism of -life.’</p> - -<p>Analogous problems are touched in the essays on -Keats and on d’Annunzio. These two very dissimilar -poets, both recently invested with topical<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span> -interest by the hazards of a centenary and of a political -adventure, have this in common, that into the -life of both came, at a certain moment, an experience -of grandeur, which told decisively, though in -utterly different ways, upon the scale and contents -of their imaginative vision. Keats in 1818 for the -first time looked upon ‘grand mountains’ (his -own phrase); d’Annunzio, in the early nineties, -was captivated by the Nietzschean revelation of -the Superman. Upon Keats, the effect, complicated -as we know, with other influences, was -wholly astringent and bracing; it concurred with -the strenuous art of Milton to wean him from the -‘luxury’ of his earlier song and inspire the -colossal imaginings of <i>Hyperion</i>. Upon d’Annunzio -the effect was less entirely happy. The fiery -declamations of the Destroyer (as his Italian -disciple called Nietzsche), who aspired to rear an -ideally potent and perfect race upon the ruins -of present-day humanity, enlarged his intellectual -horizons and quickened his patriotic ambition, but -also tinged his thinking and his action, whether -as a poet or as a publicist, henceforth, with a -megalomania hazardous for him in both capacities.</p> - -<p>Shakespeare may seem to offer little foothold for -this kind of study, or at least to illustrate aspects -of it too familiar to be discussed. No one now -imagines him a passionless artist, holding up the -mirror to a world in which he had no further -concern. He was in any case a devoted lover of -his country, and patriotism contributed vitally to -the making of one, not the least splendid or -memorable, division of his drama. National pride -has occasionally impaired the poetry of the English<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> -Histories, though the vulgar Joan of Arc scenes in -1 <i>Henry VI</i> be no misdeed of his; it has again and -again caught the poet up to towering heights. But -in some other, perhaps less obvious, ways Shakespeare’s -mentality, as we divine it, seems to stand -in a like double relation to his poetry; here tributory -and creative, there, if not impairing its quality, -limiting its scope. With all his apparent spontaneity, -and the thousand unblotted lines which -astonished his editors and offended Ben, he was -hardly pure poet, hardly ‘of imagination all compact’; -the man of ‘sovran alchemy’ had his share -of the still untransmuted stuff. His poetry, compared -with Spenser’s or Shelley’s, is in intimate -touch with fact, far richer and deeper than theirs, -but also nearer to the temper which is the negation -of poetry. His glorious humanity is not without -preferences and exclusions; and these are largely -of a kind which he shares with the respectable -citizen rather than with the finer and rarer spirits. -He has not Browning’s taste for eccentric or -exceptional types, his interest is not on the -dangerous edge of things; and if each of his great -creations is in some sense unique, they are rich -beyond all others in traits which make them seem -our kin. He unmistakably prefers order to turmoil; -‘degree, priority and place’ to the romance and -heroics of revolution; observance of custom, other -things being the same, to the breach of it; the -normal to the irregular. His temperament was -thus of a type which has affinities with some great -and with some less estimable things: it is allied -on the one side to the noble harmonies and symmetries -of classical art, on the other to unreflecting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> -habit and dull routine. It is the aim of the -opening essay to trace the effects of what I may -then call Shakespeare’s bias for <i>normality</i> in a -single sphere of his art—his treatment of Love and -Marriage. His ideal of love is a state in which -passion and sense and intellect are united in happy -balance, and we owe to it a series of creations of -incomparable loveliness, from Rosalind and Portia -to Imogen and Perdita. But it is plain that Shakespeare -has sounded only a few notes of the gamut -of love poetry. He gives us a few exquisite simple -melodies; he rarely hints its complex music, the -difficult harmonies extorted from dissonance and -conflict. He rather conspicuously avoids, save for -special dramatic purposes, irregular, illicit, or -criminal passion. It is not merely accident or -stage fashion that has prevented our having from -Shakespeare more than occasional approximations -to a Vittoria Corombona or a Francesca da Rimini, -a Gretchen or a Rebekka West.</p> - -<p>The fifth essay, finally, asks a question which -may appear futile, or academic, but at least arises -very naturally for the student in this field. Does -the creative activity of poetry, so readily fed and -fanned, or obstructed and impaired, by philosophical -or religious preoccupation, itself react upon the -poet’s beliefs, his outlook upon the world, in any -definable way? We may be inclined to reply, with -the young Tennyson, that the poet stands apart -from beliefs, ‘holding no form of creed, but contemplating -all’; or to object, on the contrary, that -poets are the most sensitive of men, apt to be -rather less than others exempt from subjection to -the idols of their place and time. Certainly there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> -is no ‘poet’s creed.’ But there may be a common -bent or bias which poetic creation tends to impress -upon creeds and convictions otherwise derived; and -a survey of the modifications actually undergone -by philosophies and theologies in the crucible of -poetry suggests that this bent will be towards the -faith which, in one guise or another, exalts the -place and function of spirit in the universe, and in -the last resort finds in spiritual energy the heart -of reality.</p> - -<hr class="tb"> - -<p>I desire to express my acknowledgments to the -Council of the British Academy, for permission to -reprint the fifth Essay; to the Keats’ Memorial -Committee, for permission to reprint the third; -to the Council of the Rylands Library, for -permission to reprint the second and fourth; -and to the proprietors of <i>Edda</i> (Christiania) for -permission to reprint the first. Most of them -have been extensively revised and in part re-written -for the present volume. I am indebted -to my colleagues, Prof. E. Gardner and Signor A. -Valgimigli, for kindly reading the fourth essay. -Neither is in any way responsible for the opinions -expressed. The translations throughout the volume, -unless the contrary is stated, are original.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> -</div> - -<table> - <tr><th> </th> <th> </th> -<th>PAGE</th></tr> - -<tr><td>PREFACE</td><td> </td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#PREFACE">7</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">I.</td> -<td>SHAKESPEARE’S TREATMENT OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE</td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17">17</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">II.</td> -<td>THE POETRY OF LUCRETIUS</td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">III.</td> -<td>MOUNTAIN SCENERY IN KEATS</td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">IV.</td> -<td>GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO</td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="tdr">V.</td> -<td>IS THERE A POETIC VIEW OF THE WORLD?</td> -<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td></tr> - -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span></p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span></p> - -<h2>I -<br> - -SHAKESPEARE’S TREATMENT -OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE</h2></div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span></p> - -<p>I</p> - -<p class="noin"><b>SHAKESPEARE’S TREATMENT -OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE</b></p> -</div> - -<p class="drop-capi">THE Shakesperean world is impressed, as a -whole, with an unmistakable joy in healthy -living. This tells habitually as a pervading spirit, -a contagious temper, not as a creed put forward, -or an example set up. It is as clear in the presentment -of Falstaff or Iago, as of Horatio or Imogen. -And nowhere is it clearer than in his handling of -the relations between men and women. For here -Shakespeare’s preferences and repugnances are -unusually transparent; what pleased him in the -ways of lovers and wedded folks he drew again -and again, and what repelled him he rarely and -only for special reasons drew at all. Criminal -love, of any kind, holds a quite subordinate place -in his art; and, on the other hand, if ideal figures -are to be found there, it is among his devoted, -passionate, but arch and joyous women.</p> - -<p>It is thus possible to lay down a Shakesperean -<i>norm</i> or ideal type of love-relations. It is most -distinct in the mature Comedies, where he is shaping -his image of life with serene freedom; but also -in the Tragedies, where a Portia or a Desdemona -innocently perishes in the web of death. Even in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span> -the Histories it occasionally asserts itself (as in -Richard II’s devoted queen, historically a mere -child) against the stress of recorded fact. In the -earlier Comedies it is approached through various -stages of erratic or imperfect forms. And both in -Comedy and Tragedy he makes use, though not -largely, of other than the ‘normal’ love for -definitely comic or tragic ends.</p> - -<p>The present study will follow the plan thus -indicated. The first section defines the ‘norm.’ -The second describes the kinds of appeal and -effect, in Comedy and Tragedy, to which the -drama of ‘normal’ love lent itself. The third -traces the gradual approach to the norm in the -early Comedies. The fourth and fifth sections, -finally, discuss the treatment, in Comedy and -Tragedy, of Love-types other than the norm.</p> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p>The Shakesperean norm of love,<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> thus understood, -may be described somewhat as follows. -Love is a passion, kindling heart, brain, and senses -alike in natural and happy proportions; ardent -but not sensual, tender but not sentimental, pure -but not ascetic, moral but not puritanic, joyous -but not frivolous, mirthful and witty but not -cynical. His lovers look forward to marriage as a -matter of course, and they neither anticipate its -rights nor turn their affections elsewhere. They -commonly love at first sight and once for all. -Love-relations which do not contemplate marriage -occur rarely and in subordination to other dramatic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> -purposes. Tragedy like that of Gretchen does -not attract him. Romeo’s amour with Rosalind is -a mere foil to his greater passion, Cassio’s with -Bianca merely a mesh in the network of Iago’s -intrigue; Claudio’s with Juliet is the indispensable -condition of the plot. The course of love rarely -runs smooth; but rival suitors proposed by parents -are quietly resisted or merrily abused, never, even -by the gentlest, accepted. Crude young girls like -Hermia, delicate-minded women like Desdemona -and Imogen, the rapturous Juliet and the homely -Anne Page, the discreet Silvia and the naïve -Miranda, are all at one on this point. And they all -carry the day. The dramatically powerful situations -which arise from forced marriage—as when Ford’s -Penthea (<i>The Broken Heart</i>) or Corneille’s Chimène -(<i>Le Cid</i>) is torn by the conflict between love and -honour—lie, like this conflict in general, outside -Shakespeare’s chosen field. And with this security -of possession his loving women combine a capacity -for mirth and jest not usual in the dramatic -representation of passion. Rosalind is more intimately -Shakesperean than Juliet.</p> - -<p>Married life, as Shakespeare habitually represents -it, is the counterpart, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>, of his -representation of unmarried lovers. His husbands -and wives have less of youthful abandon; they -rarely speak of love, and still more rarely with lyric -ardour, or coruscations of poetic wit. But they -are no less true. The immense field of dramatic -motives based upon infringements of marriage, so -fertile in the hands of his successors, and in most -other schools of drama, did not attract Shakespeare, -and he touched it only occasionally and for particular<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span> -purposes. Heroines like Fletcher’s Evadne -(<i>A Maid’s Tragedy</i>), who marries a nominal husband -to screen her guilty relations with the King, or -Webster’s Vittoria Corombona (<i>The White Devil</i>), -who conspires with her lover to murder her husband, -or Chapman’s Tamyra (<i>Bussy d’Ambois</i>), whose -husband kills her lover in her chamber; even -Heywood’s erring wife, whom her husband elects -to ‘kill with kindness,’ are definitely un-Shakesperean.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>The norm of love lent itself both to comic and to -tragic situation, but only within somewhat narrow -limits. The richness, depth and constancy of the -passion precluded a whole world of comic effects. -It precluded the comedy of the coquette and the -prude, of the affected gallant and the cynical roué, -of the calf-lover and the doting husband; the -comedy of the fantastic tricks played by love under -the obsession of pride, self-interest, meticulous -scruple, or superstition. Into this field Shakespeare -made brilliant incursions, but it hardly engaged his -rarest powers, and to large parts of it his ‘universal’ -genius remained strange. We have only -to recall, among a crowd of other examples, Moreto’s -Diana (<i>El Desden con el Desden</i>), Molière’s Alceste -and Célimène, Congreve’s Millamant, in Shakespeare’s -century; or, in the modern novel, a long -line of figures from Jane Austen to <i>The Egoist</i> -and Ibsen’s <i>Love’s Comedy</i>—to recognize that -Shakespeare, with all the beauty, wit and charm -of his work, touched only the fringes of the Comedy -of love.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span></p> - -<p>The normal love, not being itself ridiculous, -could thus yield material for the comic spirit only -through some fact or situation external to it. -It may be brought before us only in ludicrous -parody. We laugh at the ‘true love’ of Pyramus -and Thisbe in the ‘tedious brief’ play of the -Athenian artisans, or at that of Phœbe and -Silvius, because Shakespeare is chaffing the literary -pastoral of his day. Hamlet’s love, itself moving, -even tragic, becomes a source of comedy in the -solemn analysis of Polonius. Or again, the source -of fun lies in the wit and humour of the lovers -themselves. Some of them, like Rosalind and -Beatrice, virtually create and sustain the wit-fraught -atmosphere of the play single-handed. -But Shakespeare habitually heightens this source -of fun by some piquancy of situation—almost -always one arising from delusion, particularly -through confusion of identity. It is a mark of -the easy-going habits of his art in comedy that he -never threw aside this rather elementary device, -though subjecting it, no doubt, to successive -refinements which become palpable enough when -we pass from the <i>Two Gentlemen</i> to <i>Cymbeline</i>. -But his genius made perennially delightful even -the crude forms of confusion which create -grotesque infatuations like those of Titania, Malvolio, -Phœbe, Olivia. More refined, and yet more -delightful, are the confusions which bring true -and destined lovers together, like the arch make-believe -courtship with which Rosalind’s wit amuses -and consoles her womanhood, and that other which -liberates the natural congeniality of Beatrice and -Benedict from their ‘merry war.’ In cases like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> -these, Shakespeare’s humour has the richer and -finer effluence which derives from a hidden ground -of passion or tears. Rosalind’s wit is that of a -woman many fathoms deep in love; Beatrice’s -ears tingle with remorse at the tale of Benedick’s -secret attachment; Viola’s gallant bravado to -Olivia conceals her own unspoken maiden love. -And Portia crowns her home-coming to her husband -and her splendid service to his friend with the -madcap jest of the rings. Such jesting is in -Shakespeare a part of the language of love; and -like its serious or lyrical speech, is addressed with -predilection to love’s object.</p> - -<p>Again, the normal love offered in itself equally -little promise of tragedy. No deformed or morbid -passion, but the healthy and natural self-fulfilment -of man and woman, calling heart and wit and -senses alike into vigorous play, it provided equally -little hold for the criminal erotics in which most -of Shakespeare’s contemporaries sought the tragic -thrill, and for the bitter disenchantment and -emotional decay which generate the subtle tragedy -of <i>Anna Karénina</i> or <i>Modern Love</i>. Tragic these -healthy lovers of themselves will never become; -they have to be led into the realm of pity and -fear, as into that of laughter and mirth, by the -incitement or the onthrust of alien forces. Here, -too, Shakespeare’s habitual instrument is delusion; -only now it is not the delusion which deftly -entangles and pleasantly infatuates, but that which -horribly perplexes and rends apart. The blindness, -of Claudio, of Othello, of Posthumus, of Leontes, -is provoked by circumstances of very various -cogency, but in each case it wrecks a love relation<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> -in which we are allowed to see no flaw. The -situation of innocent, slandered, heart-stricken -womanhood clearly appealed strongly to him, and -against his wont he repeated it again and again. -Even after leaving the stage, he was allured by -the likeness of the story of Henry VIII’s slandered -queen to his Hermione, to reopen the magic ‘book’ -he had ‘drowned.’ He was no sentimentalist; -his pathos is never morbid; but it is in imagining -souls of texture fine and pure enough to be wrought -upon to the most piteous extreme by slander from -the man they love, that Shakespeare found most -of his loveliest and most authentically Shakesperean -characters of women. Hermione and Hero, -Desdemona and Imogen, are to his graver art -what Rosalind and Beatrice and Portia are to his -comedy.</p> - -<p>But while the tragic issue is directly provoked -by the alien intervention, it is clear that almost -all its tragic quality springs, not from the operations -of Iachimo or Iago, but from the wonderful presentment -of the love they wreck. Shakespeare’s supreme -command of pity springs from his exalted faith in -love. The poet of the Sonnets is implicit in the -poet of <i>Othello</i>. And the dramas themselves abound -in lyric outbursts, often hardly called for by the -situation, in which his ideal of wedded love is -uttered with the poignant insight of one who was -probably far from having achieved or observed it -himself. One need but think of France’s reply to -Burgundy (<i>King Lear</i>, I, i. 241):</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent22">Love’s not love</div> - <div class="verse indent0">When it is mingled with regards that stand</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Aloof from the entire point.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span></p> -<p class="noin">Or of Imogen, blind to all but the path of light -and air that divides her from Milford Haven:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">I see before me, man; nor here, nor here,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Nor what ensues, but have a fog in them,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That I cannot look through.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">Even Adriana, in the <i>Comedy of Errors</i>, expresses -the unity of married love with an intensity which -we expect neither from this bustling <i>bourgeoise</i> -nor in this early play:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A drop of water in the breaking gulf</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And take unmingled thence that drop again</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Without addition or diminishing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As take from me thyself and not me too; (II, ii. 127.)</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">an utterance which in its simple pathos anticipates -the agonized cry of Othello—the most thrilling -expression in Shakespeare of the meaning of wedded -unity:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse indent0">But there, where I have garnered up my heart,</div> -<div class="verse indent0">Where either I must live, or bear no life,</div> -<div class="verse indent0">The fountain from the which my current runs,</div> -<div class="verse indent0">Or else dries up: to be discarded thence!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The husband in these cases, it is true, neither -forgives nor condones, and Shakespeare (unlike -Heywood) gives no hint that he would have -dissented from the traditional ethics on which -Othello and Posthumus and Leontes acted, had -their wives in fact been guilty. The wives, on -the other hand, encounter the husband’s unjust -suspicions, or brutal slanders, without a thought -of revenge or reprisal. Desdemona, Imogen,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> -Hermione, alike beautifully fulfil the ideal of -love presented in the great sonnet:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent22">Love is not love</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which alters when it alteration finds,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or bends with the remover to remove.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>In one drama only did he represent ideal love -brought to a tragic doom without a hint of inner -severance. The wedded unity of Romeo and -Juliet is absolute from their first meeting to their -last embrace; it encounters only the blind onset -of outer and irrelevant events; nothing touches -their rapturous faith in one another. This earliest -of the authentic tragedies thus represents, in -comparison with its successors, only an elementary -order of tragic experience; set beside <i>Othello</i>, it -appears to be not a tragedy of love, but love’s -triumphal hymn. Yet it is only in this sense -immature. If Shakespeare had not yet fathomed -the depths of human misery, he understood completely -the exaltation of passion, and <i>Romeo and -Juliet</i>, though it gives few glimpses beyond the -horizons of his early world, remains the consummate -flower of his poetry of ideal love.</p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p>The beauty and insight of Shakespeare’s finest -portrayals of the comedy and the tragedy of love -were not reached at once. His conception of love -itself was still, at the opening of his career, -relatively slight and superficial; his mastery of -technique was equally incomplete. The early plays -accordingly abound with scenes and situations<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span> -where from either cause or both the dramatic -treatment of love is not yet in the full sense -Shakesperean. It will suffice in this sketch to -specify two types of each.</p> - -<p>The young Shakespeare, as is well known, showed -a marked leaning to two apparently incongruous -kinds of dramatic device—paradox and symmetry. -In the riotous consciousness of power he loved -to take up the challenge of outrageous situations, -to set himself dramaturgical problems, -which he solves by compelling us to admit that -the impossible might have happened in the way -he shows. A shrew to be ‘tamed’ into a model -wife. A widow following her murdered father’s -coffin, to be wooed, there and then, and won, by -his murderer. A girl of humble birth, in love -with a young noble who scorns her, to set herself, -notwithstanding, to win him, and to succeed. -Paradoxical feats like these were foreign to the -profound normality—under whatever romantic disguise—of -Shakespeare’s mature art. Richard and -Petruchio and Helen carry into the problems of -love-making the enterprising audacity of the young -Shakespeare in the problems of art. But the -audacity of the young Shakespeare showed itself in -another way. His so-called taste for ‘symmetry’ -had nothing in common with the classical canons -of balance and order. It was nearer akin to the -boyish humour of mimicry. If he found a pair -of indistinguishable twins producing amusing confusion -in a Roman play, he capped them with a -second pair, to produce confusion worse confounded -in the English <i>Comedy of Errors</i>. And so with -love. Navarre (in <i>Love’s Labour’s Lost</i>) and his<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span> -three lords, like the four horses of an antique -quadriga, go through the same adventure side by -side. All four have forsworn the sight of women; -all four fall in love, not promiscuously but in -order of rank, with the French princess and her -ladies, whose numbers, by good fortune, precisely -go round.</p> - -<p>But love itself is not, as yet, drawn with any -power. Berowne’s magnificent account of its attributes -and effects (IV, iii., mainly re-written in 1597) -is not borne out by any representation of it in the -play. The ‘taffeta phrases’ and ‘silken terms -precise,’ the pointed sallies and punning repartees, -full of a hard crackling gaiety, neither express -passion nor suggest, like the joyous quips of the -later Rosalind, that passion is lurking behind. We -are spectators of a rather protracted flirtation, a -‘way of love’ which was to occupy a minimal -place in his later drama. Armado’s dramatically -unimportant seduction of Jaquenetta is likewise -a symptom of his ‘apprentice’ phase.</p> - -<p>Equally immature is the representation of fickle -love in the <i>Two Gentlemen</i>. Proteus is Shakespeare’s -only essay in the Don Juan type, but it falls far -short in psychological and dramatic force of his -portrait of the faithful Julia. Proteus’s speeches -are often rhetorical analyses of his situation rather -than dramatic expressions of it. His threat to -outrage Sylvia (V, iv. 58) is, as he naively declares, -‘’gainst the nature of love,’ and it clashed no less -violently with Shakespeare’s rendering of the passion -elsewhere. Even the apparent fickleness produced -by delusion flourishes only in the magical world -of the young Shakespeare’s Midsummer Dream.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> -The inconstancy of the Athenian lovers attests -only the potency of the faery juice. No doubt -Shakespeare’s denouements, even in some of the -maturest comedies, show his lovers accepting with -a singular facility a fate in love other than that -they had chosen. Olivia accepts Sebastian in -default of Viola, and the Duke Viola when Olivia -is out of the question. Still less defensible -artistically is Isabel’s renunciation of the convent -to marry the Duke. But these acquiescences, even -if they were not touched with the frequent perfunctoriness -of Shakespeare’s finales, are not to be -classed with deliberate inconstancy.</p> - -<p>A second mark of unripeness in the conception -of love <span class="err" title="original: as">is</span> extravagant magnanimity. This, like -other kinds of unnatural virtue, was a part of the -heritage from mediæval romance, fortified with -Roman legend. The antique exaltation of friendship -concurred with the Germanic absoluteness of -faithful devotion, and for the mediæval mind the -most convincing way of attesting this was by the -surrender of a mistress. In the tenth book of the -<i>Decamerone</i> Boccaccio collects the most admired -examples of ‘things done generously and magnificently,’ -chiefly in matters of love; one of them -is the tale of Tito and Gisippo (<i>Decamerone</i>, X, 8), -where, Tito having fallen in love with his friend’s -bride, Gisippo ‘generously’ resigns to him all -but the name of husband. The story, quoted in -Sir T. Elyot’s <i>Governour</i> (1531), was well known -in Elizabethan England, and fell in with the -fantastical world of Fletcher’s Romanticism. But -the humanity and veracity of the mature Shakespeare -rejected these extravagances as the cognate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> -genius of the mature Chaucer had done before -him. Chaucer lived to mock at the legendary -magnanimity of Griselda, so devoutly related in -the <i>Clerkes Tale</i>; and it was only the young -Shakespeare who could have made Valentine’s -astounding offer, in the <i>Two Gentlemen</i>, to resign -‘all his rights’ in his bride to the ‘friend’ from -whose offer of violence he has only a moment -before rescued her (V, vi. 83).<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p> - -<p>A second variety of extravagant magnanimity -was the recurring situation of the girl, who, deserted -by her lover, follows him in disguise, takes service -as his page, and in that capacity is employed by -him to further his suit to a new mistress. This -motive was of the purest romantic lineage; having -first won vogue in Europe through Montemayor’s -<i>Diana</i> (1558, trans. 1588), and in England by -Sidney’s <i>Arcadia</i> (1581, publ. 1590). On the -London stage it profited by the special piquancy -attaching to the rôles of girls in masculine disguise -when the actors were boys, and its blend of -audacious adventure and devoted self-sacrifice gave -the Elizabethan auditor precisely the kind of composite -thrill he loved.</p> - -<p>For some forms of sex-confusion Shakespeare -throughout his career retained an unmistakable -liking. But the finer instincts of his ripening art<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> -gradually restricted its scope. Viola, in the original -story (Bandello, II, 36) follows a faithless lover; -in <i>Twelfth Night</i>, wrecked on the Illyrian coast, she -disguises herself merely for safety, takes service -with the Duke as a complete stranger, and only -subsequently falls in love with him. The change -indicates with precision Shakespeare’s attitude at -this date (<i>c.</i> 1600) to this type of situation. He -was still quite ready to exploit the rather elementary -comedy arising out of sex-confusion—to -paint with gusto Viola’s embarrassments as the -object of Olivia’s passion and Sir Andrew’s challenge, -or the brilliant pranks of Rosalind in a like -position. But he would not now approach these -situations by the romantic avenue of a love-sick -woman’s pursuit. In his latest plays he shows -disrelish even for the delightful fun evolved from -sex-confusion in <i>Twelfth Night</i> and <i>As you like it</i>. -The adventures of Imogen in disguise are purely -pathetic. Pisanio indeed proposes, and Imogen -agrees, to follow her husband to Italy in disguise; -but this opening is significantly not followed up. -(<i>Cymbeline</i>, III, iv. 150 f.)</p> - -<p>But in the <i>Two Gentlemen</i>, the entire motive -without curtailment or qualification is presented in -the adventures of Julia. Abandoned by Proteus, -she follows him in disguise, takes service as his -page, and is employed as go-between in his new -courtship of Silvia. To the young Shakespeare the -situation was still wholly congenial, and he availed -himself of its opportunities of pathos without -reserve, though with incomplete power. His riper -technique, fortified probably by a closer acquaintance -with the spirited and high-bred womanhood<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> -of the Portias and Rosalinds of his time, withdrew -his interest, perhaps his belief, from the risky -psychology of Julia’s self-assertion and self-abnegation. -Like other strained situations suggested -by ‘golden tongued romance,’ it fell -away before the consolidated experience, the -genial worldliness, the poetized normality, of his -riper art.</p> - -<p>The case of another devoted pursuer of an -unwilling man is more complicated, and calls for -closer examination. <i>All’s Well That Ends Well</i> has -already been referred to as an example of the -paradox-plotting congenial to the young Shakespeare. -But Helena’s passion and her sacrifices for -the man whose love she seeks ally her also with -the Julia type. Yet internal evidence leaves no -doubt that this play, though originally written, -and therefore planned, in the early nineties, was -revised by Shakespeare at a date not far remote -from that of Hamlet. If the paradox-subject was -the apprentice’s eager choice, the artist at the -height of his power did not reject its challenge. In -the original story (<i>Decamerone</i>, III, 9) the flavour -of paradox was even more pronounced. Like the -other tales of the Third Day, it describes one who -<i>alcuna cosa molto da lui desiderata con industria -acquistasse</i>. Giletta of Narbonne succeeds in effect -by sheer audacity and enterprise; and Boccaccio’s -readers doubtless enjoyed this inversion of the -usual rôles, where a masterful girl captures a -reluctant man. Shakespeare’s earlier version was -probably the lost <i>Love’s Labour’s Won</i> mentioned -by Meres, and the title emphasizes the element of -resolute and unhesitating pursuit which marks the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> -original, and was probably more pronounced in -the earlier than in the revised play.</p> - -<p>For it is plain that precisely the resolute pursuit -of a resisting man was uncongenial to Shakespeare’s -riper art, because unnatural in the type of high-bred -and refined womanhood whose ways in love -reflected his ideal of healthy love-making. Helena, -as the heroine and predominant figure of the play, -had to be of the sisterhood of Portia and Rosalind -and Beatrice and Viola. But if the plot forbad -this? And clearly, the most hazardous incident -of all (the substitution of Helen for Diana) could -not be eliminated without breaking up the plot -altogether. Why then take up the old play at -all? Plainly there must have been in the fundamental -theme something which Shakespeare was -unwilling to lose as well as something that he -would have wished away. This something that -attracted him was evidently Helen’s clear-sighted -resolution in itself; in this she is, in fact, a true -sister of Portia and Rosalind, though her seriousness -is not, like theirs, irradiated with laughter. Could -she be visibly endowed with this grace of clear -sight and will, yet at the same time be rather -drawn on by circumstances to the final conquest -of Bertram than herself the active agent in it? -Somewhat thus must the problem have presented -itself to Shakespeare. Did he completely solve it? -I think not. But we can to some extent follow -his procedure.</p> - -<p>Strength and delicacy are from the first blended -in Helen. Her famous lines (I, i. 231):</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which we ascribe to heaven.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span></p> -<p class="noin">strike the keynote of her resolute temper. Yet -her love, a maiden’s idolatry, is content without -possession; with her, ‘Dian’ is ‘both herself and -love’ (I, iii. 218). If she forms plans for showing -her merit and thus commending herself in Bertram’s -eyes, she takes no step herself; it is the Countess -who, having discovered her love, welcomes her -prospective daughter-in-law and sends her with all -proper convoy to court to ‘cure the king.’ Her -choosing of Bertram (II, iii. 109) is an offer of -life-long service, not the appropriation of a well-won -prize. And when Bertram bluntly declares -that he ‘cannot love her nor will strive to do it,’ -she proposes, turning to the king, to withdraw -her whole claim:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">That you are well restored, my lord, I’m glad;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Let the rest go.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The crucial situation, however, for her (and for -Shakespeare) begins only with Bertram’s definite -departure, and scornful intimation of the conditions -on which he will be her husband. Giletta, on -receiving the corresponding message, had made -up her mind at once what to do; had arranged -her affairs and set out on the <i>soi-disant</i> pilgrimage -to Florence, where Beltramo she knows will be -found. Helena’s procedure is less clear. Two -distinct courses were open to her. She might, -like Giletta, make direct for Bertram at Florence, -under the pretext of going on a pilgrimage. Or she -might finally surrender the pursuit of a husband -who had decisively shown he did not love her, as -she had already proposed to do when he had only -declared that he did not. The second was unquestionably<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> -more in keeping with Helen’s character. -But the first was more in keeping with the plot. -It might well be that Shakespeare’s Helen would -hesitate between the two. But it is in any case -probable that Shakespeare hesitated, and that -the marks of his hesitation have not been effaced -from the text.</p> - -<p>On reading Bertram’s letter she is, like Imogen -when she reads Posthumus’s, for the moment -overwhelmed. ‘This is a dreadful sentence.’ She -hardly speaks, and gives no hint to the Countess -of her thoughts. But when she is alone she breaks -out in the great passionate monologue of renunciation -(III, ii. 102 f.)....</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent8">No, come thou home, Rousillon,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Whence honour but of danger wins a scar,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">As oft it loses all: I will be gone;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My being here it is that holds thee hence:</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall I stay here to do’t? no, no, although</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The air of paradise did fan the house,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And angels office’d all: I will be gone....</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>This can only imply, since she is alone, that she -sincerely proposes to give up all claim to her -nominal husband.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, in Scene iv., the Countess is seen -reading a letter from Helen which declares that she -has gone as a pilgrim to Saint Jaques, in Florence. -She begs the Countess, it is true, to summon Bertram -home to live there in peace while she in the far -land does penance for her ‘ambitious love.’ Was -this a subterfuge, like Giletta’s, or was it her -sincere intention as we should infer from the -previous monologue? If it is the first, Helena -comes nearer to the crafty duplicity of Giletta -than anywhere else in the play, and this towards<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span> -the Countess who has just indignantly renounced -her stubborn son, and taken Helena to her heart -as her sole child (III, ii. 71). But if it is the second, -we cannot but ask why then, if Helena means -<i>bona fide</i> to avoid Bertram and leave him free, -she chooses for her pilgrimage precisely the one -place in the world in which she knows he will be -found? And this awkward question remains un-answered, -notwithstanding the evident effort to -allow us to believe in Helena’s innocent good faith. -Giletta, on arriving at Florence, takes up her -abode at an inn, ‘eager to hear news of her lord.’ -Helena arrives, apparently concerned only to learn -the way to St. Jacques, and where the pilgrims -bound thither found lodging. Then Bertram is mentioned; -she learns that he is known, and has made -advances to Diana; presently he passes by, and -now at length Helen deliberately and unhesitatingly -takes measures to fulfil his ‘impossible’ conditions.</p> - -<p>Helena’s conduct appears, then, to fluctuate, -without clear explanation, between resolute pursuit -and dignified renunciation.</p> - -<p>There can be no doubt that the former type of -procedure represents the earlier, the latter the -riper, mind of Shakespeare, in the treatment of -love. The letter to the Countess, of III, iv., is, -like all his verse-letters, early work; the great -preceding monologue is in the richly imaginative -phrase and daringly yet harmoniously moulded -verse of the Hamlet period. He set out to fit a -character based upon a nobler type of love into -a plot based upon a grosser; and even he could -not effect this without some straining of the -stuff, and here and there a palpable rent.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span></p> - -<h3>IV</h3> - -<p>What I have called the norm of love must -thus rank high among the determining forces of -his mature drama. Obscured and disguised at -the outset by crude conceptions and immature -technique, it gradually grew clear, and provided -the background of passion, faith, and truth out -of which, aided by misunderstandings, pleasant or -grave, his most delightful comedy and his most -poignant tragedy were evolved. And other types -of love—whether they made for comedy or for -tragedy, held a relatively slight place in his work. -In particular he concerns himself only in a quite -exceptional or incidental way either with the high -comedy of love or with guilty passion.</p> - -<p>His comedy of love outside the norm for the -most part resembles burlesque. In other words, -the ‘ways of love’ which he treats as comic -material are not plausible or subtle approximations -to romantic passion, but ludicrously absurd counterfeits -of it. The fun is brilliant, but it does not -strike deep; it provokes the loud laugh rather -than the ‘slim feasting smile.’ It commonly -springs from some grotesque infatuation; as when, -in Bottom and Titania, human grossness and fairy -fantasticality are brought together for the eternal -joy of gods and men. Ridicule of such infatuations -was soon to find its peculiar home in the Humour -comedy of the later nineties, in the prosaic satirical -air of which the romantic or normal love had no -place at all. It is hardly an accident that the plays -in which this Shakesperean comedy of grotesque<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span> -infatuation in love runs riot were produced when the -Humour comedy was at the height of its vogue, or -that they bear clear traces of its influence. <i>Twelfth -Night</i> is far from being as a whole a Comedy of -Humours. Viola’s maiden passion is touched with -a charm wholly alien to it. The Duke, with his -opal and taffeta mind, a self-pleasing artist in -emotion, who feeds his languid passion on music, -and does his wooing by proxy, is perhaps Shakespeare’s -only serious study of love as a humour. -Of still more laughable futility is the love-making -of Malvolio, with his smiles and yellow stockings, -and Sir Andrew, who gets no further than learning -an assortment of fine words for an interview that -never comes off—a comic counterpart to Iago’s -miserable dupe, Roderigo. <i>The Merry Wives</i> also -shows the influence of the Humour comedy. -Slender is a true ‘country-gull,’ nowhere more -obviously than in his wooing, or preparations to -woo, sweet Anne Page. The adventures of Falstaff -in pursuit of Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page are brilliantly -executed examples of a kind of comic effect -which Shakespeare’s riper art elsewhere disdained. -Officially required to represent ‘Falstaff in love,’ -he turned the laugh against the lover by representing -his ill-luck in pursuing the only ‘way of love’ -he knew.</p> - -<h3>V</h3> - -<p>Finally, as Shakespeare recognized for purposes -of comedy certain types of love-making alien to -the ideal norm, so too, more rarely, for the purposes -of tragedy. Ideal love, as has been seen, occurs -constantly in the tragedies even where it does not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> -directly affect or participate in the tragic issues; -as with France and Cordelia, Brutus and Portia, -Richard II and his queen, Coriolanus and Virgilia. -But the more penetrating sense of evil which -becomes apparent in his tragic period contributed -to draw more prominently into the sphere of his art -the disastrous aspects of the relations between men -and women. That he refrained from exploiting -in drama the more sinister forms of passion, we -have seen. But in some of his ripest and greatest -work he drew love with implications and under -conditions, which sharply mark it off from the -‘marriage of true minds.’ It is unstable, or -lawless, or grounded on illusion; and thus not -merely succumbs easily to assault from without, -but directly breeds and fosters tragic ruin within. -Even the union of Othello and Desdemona, in -every other respect a ‘marriage of true minds’ -which reaches for a moment (ii. 1) incomparable -intensity and beauty, is rendered fatally precarious -by their ignorance of each other.</p> - -<p>Love, like everything else which grows in Hamlet’s -Denmark, is touched with insidious disease. -Ophelia is wonderfully imagined in keeping with -the tragic atmosphere, an exquisite but fragile -flower of the unweeded garden where evil things -run to seed and good things wither. And her -love, wholly un-Shakesperean as it is, and therefore -irritating to many readers, bears within it -the seed of tragedy both for Hamlet and herself. -It is ‘a power girt round with weakness.’ She -never falters in faithful devotion to him; but -the ‘sweet bells,’ her father has told her, are -‘jangled,’ and she consents both to be the instrument<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> -of the king and Polonius’s ‘lawful espial’ -(which may, please heaven, restore him), and to -deny his access and return his gifts. She stands -alone among Shakesperean heroines in renouncing -her love at a father’s bidding. We seem to -approach for once the heroic renunciations of love -in the name of principle or country which impress -us in Corneille and Racine—in <i>Polyeucte</i> or <i>Bérénice</i>. -But no halo of sublime self-sacrifice surrounds -Ophelia’s renunciation, for her or for us. It is -merely a piteous surrender, which breaks her -heart, overthrows her delicately poised reason, and -removes one of the last supports of Hamlet’s trust -in goodness.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, Shakespeare occasionally -found his tragic love in violent and lawless passion. -We need not dwell on episodic incidents like the -rivalry in the love of Edmund which crowns and -closes the criminal careers of Goneril and Regan. -In this case there was little scope for the undoing -of soul which is the habitual theme of Shakesperean -tragedy. But in <i>Measure for Measure</i> an inrush of -sensual passion instantly shatters the imposing but -loosely built edifice of Angelo’s morality, and -though the play was meant for comedy, and the -tragic point is thus (rather clumsily) blunted or -broken off, the spiritual undoing of him is discernible -enough. Without a thought of resistance -he proceeds to act out the whole merciless catalogue -of vices which the poet of sonnet cxxix saw -attending upon lust.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> At the same time it is -clear that Isabel, with her cold austerity, is an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> -even greater anomaly among Shakespeare’s women. -Their purity is not that of a negative abstinence, -but of whole-hearted devotion to the man they love.</p> - -<p>In Cressida he drew a kind of tragic love as -lawless as Angelo’s and as sensual, but insidious -and seductive instead of violent. Compared with -the profligate women of Restoration Comedy she -has a certain girlish air of grace and innocence. -If she betrays Troilus for Diomede it is with a -sigh and a half wistful glance back at the deserted -lover: ‘Troilus, farewell! one eye yet looks on -thee’ (V, ii. 107). Though classed by the Folio -editors—hesitatingly it would seem—with the -Tragedies, this play seems to set at nought the -whole scheme of Shakesperean tragedy. Neither -Troilus nor Cressida has the grandeur without -which ruin is not sublime; and their love has not -the heroic intensity of those (like Heine’s <i>Asra</i>) -<i>welche sterben wenn sie lieben</i>. The only imposing -figures are those of the great captains of the Greek -and Trojan camps, who are but slightly concerned -with their love. Nevertheless, the whole effect of -the play is tragic, or falls short of tragedy only -because the gloom is more unrelieved. There are -no colossal disasters, plots, crimes, or suffering, -nor yet the stormy splendour which agony beats -out of the souls of Othello, Hamlet, Antony, or Lear, -and which leaves us at the close rather exultant -than depressed. This tragedy is purely depressing -because it strikes less deep; the harms do not rend -and shatter, but secretly undermine and insidiously -frustrate. Cressida is a symbol of the love which -may kindle valour for a moment, but in the end -saps heroism and romance at once, and which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span> -strikes the magnificent champions of Homeric -story themselves with a futility more tragic than -death, the futility hinted savagely in the Horatian -<i>Troiani cunnus teterrima belli Causa</i>, and superbly -in Faustus’s great apologue to ‘the face that -launched the thousand ships.’</p> - -<p>In <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>, on the other hand, a -type of love not in its origin loftier or purer than -that of Troilus and Cressida is seen dominating -two souls of magnificent compass and daemonic -force. Antony is held by his serpent of old Nile -in the grip of a passion which insolently tramples -on moral and institutional bonds, private and -public alike; which brings the lovers to ruin and -to death; and which yet invests their fall with a -splendour beside which the triumph of their conqueror -appears cold and mean. There is no -conflict, no weighing of love and empire, as great -alternatives, against each other, in the manner of -Corneille; nor does Shakespeare take sides with -either; he neither reprobates Antony, like -Plutarch, for sacrificing duty to love, nor glorifies -him, like the author of the Restoration drama, -<i>All for Love, or the World Well Lost</i>; still less does -he seek to strike a balance between these views. -He is no ethical theorist trying exactly to measure -right or wrong, but a great poet whose comprehensive -soul had room, together, for many kinds -of excellence incompatible in the experience of -ordinary men. That Antony’s passion for Cleopatra -not only ruins his colossal power in the state but -saps his mental and moral strength is made as -mercilessly clear in Shakespeare as in Plutarch. -He is ‘the noble ruin of her magic.’ But it is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span> -equally clear that this passion enlarges and enriches -his emotional life; in a sense other than that -intended by the sober Enobarbus,</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A diminution in our captain’s brain</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Restores his heart; (III, xiii, 198)</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">and enlarged feeling opens up new regions of imagination -and lifts him to unapproached heights of -poetry, as in the unarming-scene with Eros (IV, xiv.) -and the farewell speeches to Cleopatra (‘I am -dying, Egypt, dying,’ IV, xv.). And Cleopatra -too, in the ‘infinite variety’ of her moods, has -momentary flickerings of genuine devotion of which -she was before incapable. Momentary only, it is -true; the egoist, the actress, the coquette, are -only fitfully overcome; in her dying speech itself -the accent of them all is heard. The ‘baser -elements’ are not expelled, but the nobler ‘fire -and air’ to which she dreams that she is resolved, -gleam for a fitful instant in her cry ‘Husband, I -come,’ to yield a moment later to jealous alarm -lest Lear should have Antony’s kiss, and vindictive -satisfaction at having outwitted Cæsar.</p> - -<p class="p2">Shakespeare’s poetry takes account of so vast a -number of other things, of so many other ways -of living and aspects of life, that we hardly think -even of the author of <i>Romeo and Juliet</i> as in any -special sense the poet of Love. Nor is he, if we -mean by this that he thinks or speaks of Love -in the transcendent way of Dante, or Lucretius, -or Spenser, or Shelley. Love with them is part -of the vital frame of the universe. Lucretius (in -spite of his atomist creed) saw it pervading ‘all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span> -that moves below the gliding stars, the sea and -its ships, the earth and its flocks and flowers.’ -Dante saw it as the force which not only draws -men and women together, but ‘moves the Sun -and the other stars.’ Spenser saw it as ‘the -Lord of all the world by right, that rules all -creatures by his powerful saw.’ Shelley saw it -as the sustaining force blindly woven through the -web of Being. For such heights of poetic metaphysic -we do not look in Shakespeare. He is one -of the greatest of poets, and his poetry has less -almost than any other the semblance of myth -and dream; its staple is the humanity we know, -its basis the ground we tread; what we call the -prose world, far from being excluded, is genially -taken in. And precisely where he is greatest, in -the sublime ruin of the tragedies, love between -the sexes has on the whole a subordinate place, -and is there most often fraught, as we have seen, -with disaster and frustration. So it seemed to -Keats when he turned from ‘golden-tongued -Romance’ to ‘burn through’ the strife of ‘damnation -with impassioned clay’ in <i>King Lear</i>. -Shakespeare certainly did not, so far as we can -judge, regard sexual love (like some moderns) as -either the clue to human life or as in any way -related to the structure of the universe. But if, -instead of these abstract questions, we ask whether -any poet has united in a like degree veracious -appreciation of love in its existing conditions with -apprehension of all its ideal possibilities, we shall -not dispute Shakespeare’s place among the foremost -of the poets of love.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="II">II -<br> - -THE POETRY - -OF LUCRETIUS</h2> -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span></p> - -<p>II</p> - -<p><b>THE POETRY - -OF LUCRETIUS</b></p> -</div> -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>‘Lucretius stands alone in the controversial force and energy -with which the genius of negation inspires him, and transforms -into sublime reasons for firm act, so long as living breath is ours, -the thought that the life of a man is no more than the dream of -a shadow.’—<span class="smcap">Lord Morley’s</span> <i>Recollections</i>.</p> -</div> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p class="drop-capi">THERE was a time when the title of this essay -would have been received as a paradox, if -not as a contradiction in terms. Lessing, as is -well known, declared roundly that Lucretius was -‘a versifier, not a poet,’ and Lessing is one of -the greatest of European critics. It is easy, indeed, -to explain in part his trenchant condemnation. -It reflects his implicit acceptance of Aristotle’s -<i>Poetics</i>—which he said was for him as absolutely -valid as Euclid, and therefore of Aristotle’s doctrine -that poetry is imitation of human action. -Lessing’s insistence on this doctrine was extraordinarily -salutary in his day, and definitely -lowered the status of the dubious kinds known as -descriptive, allegorical, satirical, and didactic poetry, -in a century too much given to them all. That<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> -phrase of his about the imitation of human action -marked out a correct, well-defined, and safe channel -for the stream of poetry to pursue, and some of the -slender poetic rills of his generation improved their -chance of survival by falling into it and flowing -between its banks. But Lessing did not reckon -with the power of poetic genius to force its own -way to the sea through no matter how tangled and -tortuous a river-bed,—nay, to capture from the very -obstructions it overcomes new splendours of foam -and rainbow unknown perhaps to the well-regulated -stream. In plain language, he did not reckon -with the fact that a <i>prima facie</i> inferior form, such -as satire or didactic, may not only have its inferiority -outweighed by compensating beauties, but -may actually elicit and provoke beauties not otherwise -to be had, and thus become not an obstacle, -but an instrument of poetry. Nor did he foresee -that such a recovery of poetic genius, such an -effacement of the old boundaries, such a withdrawal -of the old taboos, was to come with the -following century, nay, was actually impending -when he wrote. Goethe, who read the <i>Laokoon</i> -entranced, as a young student at Leipzig, honoured -its teaching very much on this side of idolatry -when he came to maturity. As a devoted investigator -of Nature, who divined the inner continuity -of the flower and the leaf with the same penetrating -intuition which read the continuity of a man, or -of a historic city, in all the phases of their growth, -Goethe was not likely to confine poetry within the -bounds either of humanity or of the drums and -tramplings, the violence, passion, and sudden -death, for which human action in poetic criticism<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span> -has too commonly stood. He himself wrote a -poem of noble beauty on the <i>Metamorphosis of -Plants</i> (1797)—a poem which suffices to show that -it is possible to be poetically right while merely -unfolding the inner truth of things in perfectly -adequate speech.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> We cannot wonder, then, that -Lucretius and the poem <i>On the Nature of Things</i> -excited in the greatest of German poets the liveliest -interest and admiration. On the score of subject -alone he eagerly welcomed the great example of -Lucretius. But he saw that Lucretius had supreme -gifts as a poet, which would have given distinction -to whatever he wrote, and which, far from being -balked by the subject of his choice, found in it -peculiarly large scope and play. ‘What sets out -Lucretius so high,’ he wrote (1821) to his friend -v. Knebel, author of the first German translation, -‘what sets him so high and assures him eternal -renown, is a lofty faculty of sensuous intuition, -which enables him to describe with power; in -addition, he disposes of a powerful imagination, -which enables him to pursue what he has seen -beyond the reach of sense into the invisible depths -of Nature and her most mysterious recesses.’<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> -But while Goethe thus led the way in endorsing -without reserve the Lucretian conception of what -the field of poetry might legitimately include, he -contributed to the discussion nothing, so far as I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> -know, so illuminating or so profound as the great -saying of Wordsworth: ‘poetry is the impassioned -expression which is in the countenance of all science.’ -For Wordsworth here sweeps peremptorily away -the boundary marks set up, for better or worse, -by ancient criticism—he knows nothing of a poetry -purely of man or purely of action: he finds the -<i>differentia</i> of poetry not in any particular choice of -subject out of the field of real things, but in the -<i>impassioned</i> handling of them whencesoever drawn, -and therefore including the impassioned handling -of reality as such, or, in the Lucretian phrase, of -<i>the nature of things</i>.</p> - -<p>What did he mean by <i>impassioned?</i> Something -more, certainly, than the enthusiasm of a writer -possessed with his theme, or even of one eager, as -Lucretius was, to effect by its means a glorious -purgation in the clotted soul of a friend. We -come nearer when we recall the profound emotion -stirred in Wordsworth by ‘earth’s tears and mirth, -her humblest mirth and tears,’ or the thought, -‘too deep for tears,’ given him by the lowliest -flower of the field. Such passion as this is not -easily analysed, but it implies something that we -may call participation on the one side and response -on the other. The poet finds himself in Nature, -finds there something that answers to spiritual -needs of his own. The measure of the poet’s mind -will be the measure of the value of the response he -receives. A small poet will people Nature with -fantastic shapes which reflect nothing but his -capricious fancy or his self-centred desires. That -is not finding a response in Nature, but putting -one into her mouth; a procedure like that of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span> -bustling conversationalist who, instead of listening -to your explanation, cuts it short with a ‘You -mean to say’—whatever it suits him to suppose. -But the poet of finer genius will neither seek nor -be satisfied with such hollow response as this. If -he finds himself in Nature, it will not be his shallow -fancies or passing regrets that he finds, but his -furthest reach, and loftiest appetency of soul. -He will not properly be said to ‘subdue things -to the mind,’ as Bacon declared it to be the -characteristic aim of poetry to do, instead of, -like philosophy, subduing the mind to things. -But he will feel after analogies to mind in the -universe of things which mind contemplates and -interprets.</p> - -<p>Such an analogy, for instance, is the sense of -<i>continuity</i> underlying the changing show of the -material world, corresponding to the continuity of -our own self-consciousness through the perpetual -variations of our soul states. The doctrine of a -permanent substance persisting through the multiplicity -of Nature, and giving birth to all its passing -modes, belongs as much to poetry as to philosophy, -and owes as much to impassioned intuition as to -a priori thought. Under the name of the <i>One -and the Many</i> the problem of Change and Permanence -perplexed and fascinated every department -of Greek thought: it provoked the opposite -extravagances of Heracleitos, who declared change -to be the only form of existence, and of the Eleatics, -who denied that it existed at all; but it also inspired -the ordered and symmetrical beauty of the Parthenon -and the Pindaric ode. ‘When we feel the -poetic thrill,’ says Santayana, ‘it is when we find<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> -fulness in the concise, and depth in the clear; and -that seems to express with felicitous precision the -genius of Hellenic art.’</p> - -<p>A second such analogy is the discovery of <i>infinity</i>. -Common sense observes measure and rule, complies -with custom, and takes its ease when its day’s -work is done; but we recognize a higher quality -in the love that knows no measure, in the spiritual -hunger and thirst which are never stilled. Therefore, -at the height of our humanity, we find ourselves -in the universe in proportion as it sustains -and gives scope for an endlessly ranging and endlessly -penetrating thought. The Stoics looked on -the universe as a globe pervaded by what Munro -unkindly calls <i>a rotund and rotatory god</i>; at the -circumference of which all existence, including that -of space, simply stopped; common sense revolts, -but imagination is even more rudely balked, and -we glory in the defiant description of Epicurus -passing beyond the flaming walls of the world. -Yet we are stirred with a far more potent intellectual -sympathy when the idea is suggested, say -by Spinoza, that space and time themselves are -but particular modes of a universe which exists -also in an infinite number of other ways; or when, -in the final cantos of Dante’s <i>Paradiso</i>, after -passing up from Earth, the centre, through the -successive ever-widening spheres that circle round -it, till we reach the Empyrean, the whole perspective -and structure of the universe are suddenly -inverted, and we see the real centre, God, as a single -point of dazzling intensity, irradiating existence -‘through and through.’ Then we realize that -the space we have been laboriously traversing is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span> -only the illusive medium of our sense-existence, -and without meaning for the Eternity and Infinity -of divine reality.</p> - -<p>This example has led us to the verge of another -class of poetic ideas, those in which poetry discovers -in the world not merely analogies of mind, but -mind itself. This is the commonest, and in some -of its phases the cheapest and poorest, intellectually, -of all poetic ideas. It touches at one pole -the naive personation which peoples earth and air -for primitive man with spirits whom he seeks by -ritual and magic to propitiate or to circumvent. -The brilliant and beautiful woof of myth is, if we -will, poetry as well as religion; the primitive and -rudimentary poetry of a primitive and rudimentary -religion. Yet it points, however crudely, to the -subtler kinds of response which a riper poetic -insight may discover. If the glorious anthropomorphism -of Olympus and Asgard has faded for -ever, the mystery of life, everywhere pulsing through -Nature, and perpetually reborn ‘in man and beast -and earth and air and sea,’ cries to the poet in -every moment of his experience with a voice which -will not be put by, and the symbols from soul-life -by which he seeks to convey his sense of it, if they -often read human personality too definitely into -the play of that elusive mystery, yet capture -something in it which escapes the reasoned formulas -of science, and justify the claim of poetic experience -to be the source of an outlook upon the world, of -a vision of life, with which, no less than with those -reached through philosophy and religion, civilization -has to reckon.</p> - -<p>The poetic consciousness of soul has thus left a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> -deep impress upon the medium of ideas through -which we currently regard both Nature and Man. -It has imbued with a richer significance and a -livelier appeal those analogies in Nature of which -I spoke; turning the sublime but bare conceptions -of continuity and substance into Wordsworth’s -<i>something more deeply interfused</i>, or Shelley’s <i>Love -... through the web of Being blindly wove;</i> turning -the abstraction of infinity into limitless aspiration, -or into that ‘infinite passion’ which Browning -felt across ‘the pain of finite hearts that yearn.’</p> - -<p>On the other hand, in its interpretation of Man, -the poetic soul-consciousness, so extraordinarily -intense on the emotional and imaginative side, -has lifted these aspects of soul into prominence; -illuminating and sustaining everywhere the impassioned -insight which carries men outside and -beyond themselves, in heroism, in prophecy, in -creation, in love; which makes the past alive for -them, and the future urgent; which lifts them to -a vision of good and evil beyond that of moral -codes; to the perception that danger is the true -safety, and death, as Rupert Brooke said, ‘safest -of all’; which in a word gives wing and scope and -power to that in man which endures, as the stream -endures though its water is ever gliding on, and -makes us ‘feel that we are greater than we know.’</p> - -<p>I have tried to sketch out some of the ways in -which a scientific poetry is possible without disparagement -to either element in the description. -Let me now proceed to apply some of these ideas -to the great poet of science who is our immediate -subject.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span></p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>In this assembly it is unnecessary to recall the -little that is told, on dubious authority, of the life -which began a little less than a hundred years -before the Christian era, and ended when he was -not much over forty, when Virgil was a very young -man. All that is told of his life is the story that -he went mad after receiving a love-philtre, composed -the books of his great poem, <i>On the Nature -of Things</i> in his lucid intervals, and finally died -by his own hand. It is this tradition which -Tennyson with great art has worked up into his -noble poem. We need not here discuss the truth -either of the tradition of madness or of that of -suicide. What is certain is that no poem in the -world bears a more powerful impress of coherent -and continuous thought. While the poets of his -own time and of the next generation, though deeply -interested in his poetry and in his ideas, know -nothing of the tragic story which first emerges in -a testimony four centuries later.</p> - -<p>Lucretius called his poem by the bald title <i>On -the Nature of Things</i>. But no single term or -phrase can describe the aims which, distinct but -continually playing into and through one another, -compose the intense animating purpose of the book. -We may say that it is at once a scientific treatise, -a gospel of salvation, and an epic of nature and man; -yet we are rarely conscious of any one of these -aims to the exclusion of the rest. In none of these -three aims was Lucretius wholly original. In -each of them he had a great precursor among the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span> -speculative thinkers and poets of Greece. His -science roughly speaking was the creation of -Democritus; his gospel of salvation was the -work of Epicurus; and the greatest example of a -poem on the nature of things, before his, had been -given by Empedocles, the poet-philosopher of -Agrigentum whom Matthew Arnold made the -mouthpiece of his grave and lofty hymn of nineteenth-century -pessimism. In his own country -his only predecessor in any sense was Ennius, the -old national poet who had first cast the hexameter -in the stubborn mould of Latin speech, to whom -he pays characteristically generous homage.</p> - -<p>The atomic system of Democritus, which explained -all things in the universe as combinations -of different kinds of material particles, was a magnificent -contribution to physical science, and the -fertility of its essential idea is still unexhausted. -It touched the problems of mind and life, of ethics -and art, only indirectly, in so far as it resolved -mind and all its activities into functions of matter -and motion. Epicurus, on the other hand, a -saintly recluse, bent only upon showing the way -to a life of serene and cheerful virtue, took over -the doctrine of the great physicist of Abdêra, -without any touch of dispassionate speculative -interest, as that which promised most effectual -relief from disturbing interests and cares, and -especially from the disturbance generated by fear -of the gods and of a life after death. He might -have gone to the great Athenian idealists of the -fourth century, the immortal masters not only of -those who know, but of those who think and -create, whether in science or in poetry or in citizenship.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span> -But his aim was precisely to liberate from -these distracting energies, and allure a weary -generation from the forum and the workshop, even -the studio of letters or of art, and the temples of -the gods, into the choice seclusion of his garden—the -garden of a soul at peace, fragrant with innocent -and beautiful things. What Epicurus added of -his own to Democritus’ theory was an accommodation -not to truth but to convenience; and -the measure of his scientific ardour is given by his -easy toleration of conflicting explanations of the -same phenomenon, provided they dispense with -the intervention of the gods. While the measure -of his attachment to poetry is given by his counsel -to his disciples to go past it with stopped ears, as -by the siren’s deadly song.</p> - -<p>It was this scientific doctrine, adopted by Epicurus -in the interest not of science but of his gospel of -deliverance from the cares of superstition, that -Lucretius took over with the fervour of discipleship. -He was not, like Pope in the <i>Essay <span class="err" title="original: of">on</span> Man</i>, -providing an elegant dress for philosophic ideas -which he only half understood and abandoned in -alarm when they threatened to be dangerous. -He was the prophet of Epicureanism, and it is -among the prophets of the faiths by which men live -and die that we must seek a parallel to the passionate -earnestness with which he proclaims to Memmius -the saving gospel of Epicurus—to that same -Memmius who a few years later showed his piety -to Epicurus’ memory by destroying his house. -It was the hope of pouring the light and joy of -saving truth upon the mind of this rather obtuse -Roman, his beloved friend, that Lucretius laboured,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> -he tells us, through the silent watches of the night, -seeking phrase and measure which might make -deep and hidden things clear.<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> But Lucretius -felt and thought also as a poet and in the temper -of poetry. He was not ‘lending his pen’ to a good -cause, nor turning Greek science into Latin hexameters -in order that they might be more vividly -grasped or more readily remembered. He was -conquering a new way in poetry; striking out a -virgin path which no foot before his had trod. -For Empedocles had had far narrower aims. And -he calls on the Muses for aid with as devout a -faith in his poetic mission in the great adventure -as Milton had when he summoned Urania or some -greater Muse to be his guide while he attempted -‘things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.’ -What we admire unreservedly in him, declares a -great French poet who died only the other day, -Sully-Prudhomme, is the breath of independence -which sweeps through the entire work of this most -robust and precise of poets.</p> - -<p>We see the temper of the poet at the outset, -in the wonderful transfiguration which the gentle -recluse Epicurus undergoes in the ardent brain of -his Roman disciple. For it was of this enemy of -disturbing emotion, this quietist of paganism, this -timid and debonnaire humanitarian, that Lucretius -drew the magnificent and astonishing portrait -which immediately follows the prologue of the -<i>De Rerum Natura</i>. The Lucretian Epicurus is a -Prometheus—the heroic Greek who first of mortals -dared to defy and withstand the monstrous tyrant -Religion to her face. No fabled terror could appal<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> -him, no crashing thunder, nor the anger of heaven; -these only kindled the more the eager courage of -his soul, to be the first to break the bars of Nature’s -gates. So the living might of his soul prevailed; -and he passed beyond the flaming walls of the -world and traversed in mind and spirit the immeasurable universe; -returning thence in triumph to tell -us what can, and what cannot, come into being; -having trampled under foot Religion who once -crushed mankind, and lifted mankind in turn by -his victory up to the height of heaven.</p> - -<p>One might well surmise that a philosophy which -a poet could thus ardently proclaim was itself, -after all, not without the seeds and springs of -poetry; and that Lucretius in choosing to expound -it in verse was not staking everything on his power -of making good radical defects of substance by -effective surface decoration or brilliant digressions. -He recognized, no doubt, a difference in popular -appeal between his substance and his form, and -in a famous and delightful passage compares himself -to the physician who touches the edge of the -bitter cup with honey, ensnaring credulous childhood -to its own good. So, he tells Memmius, he -is spreading the honey of the Muses over his difficult matter, -that he may hold him by the charm of -verse until the nature of things have grown clear -to his sight. But Lucretius is here putting himself -at the point of view of the indifferent layman, -and especially of the rather obtuse layman whose -interest he was with almost pathetic eagerness -seeking to capture. One guesses that Memmius, -like the boy, was by no means reconciled to the -wormwood because it was prefaced with honey;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span> -and modern critics who, like Mommsen, condemn -his choice of subject as a blunder, come near to -adopting the resentful boy’s point of view. But -in the splendid lines which immediately precede, -though they form part of the same apology to -Memmius, the poet involuntarily betrays his own -very different conception of the matter. The -hope of glory, he says, has kindled in his breast -the love of the Muses, ‘whereby inspired I am -exploring a virgin soil of poetry hitherto untrodden -by any foot. O the joy of approaching the unsullied springs, -and quaffing them, O the joy of -culling flowers unknown, whence may be woven -a splendid wreath for my head, such as the Muses -have arrayed no man’s brows withal before; first -because I am reporting on a great theme, and -undoing the tight knot of superstition from the -minds of men; and then because I convey dark -matters in such transparent verse, touching everything -with the Muses’ charm.’<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> - -<p>Here, in spite of the last words, Lucretius clearly -feels that his matter is something more than the -wormwood which he overlays with honey; it is a -vast region of implicit poetry which he, first of -poets, is going to discover and annex; and he -rests his claim to the poetic wreath he expects -to win, in the first place upon this greatness of -the subject matter itself, and secondly, not as the -wormwood and honey theory would suggest, on -the ingenious fancy which decorates or disguises -it, but on the lucid style which allows it to shine -in, as through a window, upon the ignorant mind.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span></p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p>Let us then consider from this point of view the -subject of Lucretius. This subject, as he conceives -it, has two aspects. On the one side it is negative;—an -annihilating criticism of all the crude religion -founded upon fear—fear of the gods, fear of death -and of something after death; criticism delivered -with remorseless power and culminating in the -sinewy intensity of the terrible line</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum,</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">which transfixes once for all the consecrated principle -of <i>tabu</i> everywhere dominant in the primitive -faiths, the product of man’s cowardice, as magic -is the product of his pride.</p> - -<p>The other aspect is constructive; the building -up of the intellectual and moral framework of a -worthy human life, by setting forth the true nature -of the universe, the history of life, and the development -of man; in other words, the story of his -struggle through the ages, with the obstacles -opposed to him by the power of untamed nature, -by wild beasts, storms, inundations, by the rivalry -and antagonism of other men, and by the wild -unreason in his own breast. Lucretius saw as -clearly as any modern thinker that man’s conduct -of his life, whether in the narrow circle of domestic -happiness and personal duty, or in the larger -sphere of civic polity, must be based upon a comprehension -of the external world and of the past -through which we have grown to what we are; -and making allowance for his more limited resources<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span> -and his more confined point of view, he carried it -out with magnificent power. So that if his poem -remains in nominal intention a didactic treatise, -in its inner substance and purport it might better -be described as a colossal epic of the universe, -with man for its protagonist and the spectres of -the gods for its vanquished foes; and wanting -neither the heroic exultations nor the tragic dooms, -neither the melancholy over what passes nor the -triumph in what endures, which go to the making -of the greatest poetry.</p> - -<p>These two aspects—criticism and construction—are -thus most intimately bound together in the -poem, but can yet be considered apart. And to -each belongs its own peculiar and distinct vein of -poetry. On the whole it is the former, at first -sight so much less favourable to poetic purposes, -which has most enthralled posterity. For the -voice of Lucretius is here a distinctive, almost a -solitary voice. The poets for the most part have -been the weavers of the veil of dreams and visions -in whose glamour the races of mankind have -walked: but here came a poet, and one of the -greatest, who rent the veil asunder and bade men -gaze upon the nature of things naked and unadorned. -And his austere chaunt of triumph as he pierces -illusion and scatters superstition, has in it something -more poignant and thrilling than many a -song of voluptuous ecstacy or enchanted reverie. -For, after all, the passing of an old order of things -and the coming of a new has always at least the -interest of colossal drama, and cannot leave us -unmoved, however baneful we may hold the old -order to have been, however we may exult in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> -the deliverance effected by the new. So Milton’s -celebration of the birth of Christ only reaches the -heights of poetry when he is telling of the passing -of the old pagan divinities:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent6">The lonely mountains o’er</div> - <div class="verse indent6">And the resounding shore,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A voice of weeping heard and loud lament;</div> - <div class="verse indent6">From haunted spring and dale,</div> - <div class="verse indent6">Edged with poplar pale,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The parting genius is with sighing sent;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With flower-inwoven tresses torn</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thicket mourn.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">Through the Christian’s exultation there sounds, -less consciously perhaps, but more clear, the -Humanist scholar’s sense of tragedy and pathos. -In this sense Milton’s Ode has affinity with poems -like Schiller’s <i>Gods of Greece</i>, where grief for the -passing of the pagan faith is untouched by -Christian sentiment; but precisely its more complex -and subtle emotion raises Milton’s poem higher. -In <i>Hyperion</i>, even more, we are made to feel the -pathos of the passing of the fallen divinity of Saturn -and his host; and Hyperion himself, the sun-god -of the old order of physical light, is more magnificently -presented than Apollo, the sun-god of the new -order of radiant intelligence and song. Lucretius, -as we shall see, brings back the old divinity in a -sublime way of his own; but he feels the beneficence -of the new order of scientific vision and -inviolable law too profoundly to have any sense -of pathos at the passing of the reign of superstition -and caprice. He is rather possessed with flaming -wrath as he recalls the towering evils of which that -old regime had been guilty: the wrath of a prophet, -more truly divine in spirit than the divinities he<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span> -assailed, as Prometheus is more divine than Zeus. -Again and again we are reminded, as we read his -great invectives, not of the sceptics mocking all -gods indiscriminately in the name of enlightened -good sense, but of a Hebrew prophet, chastising -those who sacrifice to the gods of the Gentiles, in -the name of the God of righteousness who refuses -to be worshipped with offerings of blood. There -is surely a spirit not far remote from this in the -indignant pity with which he tells, in a famous -and splendid passage, the sacrifice of Iphigenia -at the divine bidding, as the price of the liberation -of the Grecian fleet on its way to Troy:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>How often has fear of the gods begotten impious and criminal -acts! What else was it that led the chieftains of Greece, foremost -of men, foully to stain the altar of Artemis with the blood of the -maiden Iphigenia? Soon as the victim’s band was bound about -her virgin locks, and she saw her father grief-stricken before the altar, -and at his side the priests concealing the knife, and the onlookers -shedding tears at the sight, dumb with fear she sank on her knees -to the ground. And it availed her nothing at that hour that she -had been the first to call the king by the name of father; for she -was caught up by the hands of men, and borne trembling to the -altar; not to have a glad wedding hymn sung before her when these -sacred rites were over, but to be piteously struck down, a victim, -stained with her own stainless blood, by the hand of a father in the -very flower of her bridal years; and all in order to procure that a -happy deliverance might be granted to the captive fleet. So huge -a mass of evils has fear of the gods brought forth! (I. 84-101.)<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p> -</div> - -<p>Thus the crucial proof of the badness of the old -religions is derived from the hideous violence -done in their name to the natural and beautiful -pieties of the family.</p> - -<p>Yet, with all his fierce aversion for this baneful -fear, Lucretius feels profoundly how natural it is. -His intense imagination enters into the inmost<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span> -recesses of the human heart, and runs counter, -as it were, to the argument of his powerful reason; -riveting upon our senses with almost intolerable -force the beliefs which he is himself seeking to -dispel; so that though there is no trace of doubt -or obscurity in his own mind, his words need only -to be set in a different context to become a plea -for that which he is using them to refute. Thus -his very derision of the Stoic doctrine of an all-pervading -God is conveyed in language of what one -is again prompted to call Hebraic magnificence. -‘What power can rule the immeasurable All, or -hold the reins of the great deep? who can revolve -the heavens and warm the earth with ethereal -fires? who can be everywhere present, making -dark the sky and thrilling it with clashing sound...?’ -(V. 1234 f.) Do we not seem to listen to -an echo of the ironical questions of the Jahveh -of the Book of Job?</p> - -<p>There he feels only scorn for the believer, in spite -of his involuntary imaginative hold upon the belief. -But in another passage we see the poet himself -shudder with the fear that his logic is in the act -of plucking up by the roots:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>When we gaze upward at the great vault of heaven, and the -empyrean fixed above the shining stars, and consider the paths of -sun and moon, then the dread will start into life within us lest haply -we should find it to be the immeasurable might of the gods which -moves the blazing stars along their diverse ways. For dearth of -argument tempts us to wonder whether the world was ever begotten, -and whether it be destined to perish when its ceaseless movements -have worn it out, or endowed with immortal life glide on perpetually, -defying all the might of time. And then what man is there whose -heart does not shrink with terror of the gods, whose limbs do not -creep with fear, when the parched earth trembles at the lightning -stroke, and the roar of thunder rolls through the sky! Do not the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span> -peoples shudder, and haughty kings quake with fear, lest for some -foul deed or arrogant speech a dire penalty has been incurred and -the hour be come when it must be paid? For when the might of -the hurricane sweeps the commander of a fleet before it along the -seas, with all his force of legions and elephants, does he not approach -the gods with prayers for their favour and helping winds; and all -in vain, for often enough none the less he is caught in the whirlpool -and flung into the jaws of death? So utterly is some hidden -power seen to consume the works of man, and to trample and deride -all the symbols of his glory and his wrath (V. 1204 f.).</p> -</div> - -<p>But beyond the fear of what the gods may do to -us on earth, lay another more insidious and ineluctable -fear—the dread of what may befall us after -death. It was a main part of Lucretius’s purpose -to meet this by showing that death meant dissolution, -and dissolution unconsciousness; but men -continued to dread, and this is the reasoning, -equally inconclusive and brilliant, with which he -confronts them:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Therefore since death annihilates, and bars out from being -altogether him whom evils might befall, it is plain that in death -there is nothing for us to fear, and that a man cannot be unhappy -who does not exist at all, and that it matters not a jot whether -a man has been born, when death the deathless has swallowed up -life that dies.</p> - -<p>Therefore, when you see a man bewail himself that after death -his body will rot, or perish in flames or in the jaws of beasts, his -profession clearly does not ring true, and there lurks a secret sting -in his heart, for all his denial that he believes there is any feeling -in the dead. For, I take it, he does not fulfil his promise, nor -follow out his principle, and sever himself out and out from life, -but unconsciously makes something of himself survive. For when -as a living man he imagines his future fate, and sees himself -devoured by birds and beasts, he pities himself; for he does not -distinguish between himself and the other, nor sever himself from -the imagined body, but imagines himself to be it, and impregnates -it with his own feeling. Hence he is indignant that he has been -created mortal, nor sees that there will not in reality be after death -another self, to grieve as a living being that he is dead, and feel -pangs as he stands by, that he himself is lying there being mangled -or consumed.</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span></p> - -<p>Then he supposes the dying man’s friends to -condole with him:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Now no more thy glad home shall welcome thee, nor a beloved -wife, nor sweet children run to snatch kisses, touching thy heart -with secret delight. No more wilt thou be prosperous in thy -doings, no more be a shelter to thy dear ones. A single, cruel day -has taken from thee, hapless man, all the need of life. So they -tell you, but they forget to add that neither for any one of these -things wilt thou any longer feel desire (III. 863).</p> -</div> - -<h3>IV</h3> - -<p>So much then for the first aspect of Lucretius’s -poem—the criticism of the old religions. Most of -the recognized and famous ‘poetry’ of the book is -connected, like the passages I have quoted, with -this negative side of his creed. But I am more -concerned to show that a different and not less -noble vein of poetry was rooted in the rich positive -appetencies of his nature; in his acute and exquisite -senses; in the vast and sublime ideas which underlay -his doctrine of the world; in his intense apprehension -of the zest of life; and, on the other hand, -penetrating, like an invisible but potent spirit, -the texture of his reasoned unconcern, his profound, -unconfessed sense of the pathos of death, his -melancholy in the presence of the doom of universal -dissolution which he foresaw for the world and for -mankind.</p> - -<p>Let us look first at the main constructive idea; -the atomic theory of Leucippus and Democritus, -taken over by Epicurus and expounded by Lucretius.</p> - -<p>For this theory was in effect, and probably in -intention, a device for overcoming that antithesis of -the One and the Many, of Permanence and Change,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span> -of which I have spoken. The Eleatics had declared -that pure Being was alone real, and denied Change -and Motion; Heracleitus declared that nothing -was real but Change, and the only perpetuity -‘flux.’ The founder of atomism, Leucippus, -showed that it was possible to hold, in the phrase -of Browning’s philosophic Don Juan, that there is -in ‘all things change, and permanence as well,’ -by supposing that shifting and unstable world of -the senses, where all things die and are born, to -be composed of uncreated and indestructible -elements. Underlying the ceaseless fluctuations -of Nature, and life as we see them, lay a continuity -of eternal substance, of which they were the passing -modes;—one of the greatest of philosophical conceptions, -Mr. Santayana has called it, but one -also appealing profoundly to the specifically poetic -intuition which I have described. Whether the -permanent apprehended through the flux of sense -be a spiritual substance like Plato’s ideas, or -Shelley’s ‘white radiance of eternity,’ or whether -it be the constant form and function of the flowing -river, as in Wordsworth’s Duddon sonnet; or -whether, as here, it be a background of material -particles perpetually combining and resolved, we -have the kind of intuition which gives the thrill of -poetry; we discover ‘sweep in the concise, and -depth in the clear,’ infinite perspectives open out -in the moment and in the point, and however -remote the temper of Spinozan mysticism may be, -we yet in some sort see things ‘in the light of -eternity.’</p> - -<p>In Lucretius this conception found a mind capable -of being ravished by its imaginative grandeur,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span> -as well as of pursuing it indefatigably through the -thorniest mazes of mechanical proof. The contagious -fervour which breathes through his poem -is no mere ardour of the disciple bent on winning -converts, or the joy of the literary craftsman as -his hexameters leap forth glowing on the anvil; it -is the sacred passion of one who has had a sublime -vision of life and nature, and who bears about the -radiance of it into all the work to which he has -set his hand. It is not because of anything that -Lucretius adds to Epicurus—in theory he really -adds nothing at all—that the impression produced -by his poem differs so greatly from that of all we -know—in fragments and at second hand, it is true—of -Epicurus’s own writings. The ultimate principles -are the same, but the accent is laid at a different -point. The parochial timidities of Epicurus have -left their traces on the Roman’s page, but they -appear as hardly more than rudimentary survivals -among the native inspirations of a man of heroic -mettle and valour, Roman tenacity, and native -sweep of mind. He cannot quite break free from -some speculative foibles which show the Master’s -shallow opportunism at its worst—such as the -dictum that the sun is about as large as it looks, -a lamp hung a little above the earth, and daily -lighted and put out; but he becomes himself when -he lets his imagination soar into the infinities of -time and space which his faith opens out or leaves -room for. It is a triumph of poetry as well as of -common sense when he scoffs at the Stoic dogma -of a Space which abruptly comes to an end; when -he stations an archer at the barrier and ironically -bids him shoot his arrow into the nothingness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span> -beyond. Or in more sombre mood, how grave -an intensity he puts into a common thought, like -that of the end of life, by the sublimely terrible -epithet <i>immortal</i> which he applies to death:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Mortalem vitam Mors cum inmortalis ademit (III. 869).</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">or into a mere reminder that birth and death -are always with us, by making us feel the endless -concomitant succession through the ages of funeral -wailings, and the cry of the new-born child (II. 578). -He accepts without question the swerving of -the atoms, devised by Epicurus—child and man -of genius at once—to refute the Stoic dogma of -necessity; but what possesses his mind and imagination -is not these intrusions of caprice, but the -great continuities and uniformities of existence, -which follow from the perpetual dissolution and -remaking of life. ‘Rains die, when father ether -has tumbled them into the lap of mother earth; -but then goodly crops spring up and trees laden -with fruit; and by them we and the beasts are -fed, and joyous cities teem with children and the -woods ring with the song of young birds’ (I. 250 f.).</p> - -<p>Only, as such passages show, Lucretius grasps -these uniformities and continuities not as theoretic -abstractions, but as underlying conditions of the -teeming multiplicity and joyous profusion of living -Nature. His senses, imagination, and philosophic -intellect, all phenomenally acute and alert, wrought -intimately together; and he enters into and exposes -the life of the individual thing with an intensity -of insight and a realistic precision and power -which quicken us with its warm pulse, and burn -its image upon our brain, without ever relaxing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span> -our consciousness that it is part of an endless -process, and the incidental expression of an unalterable -law. For him, indeed, as for Dante, individuality -is an intrinsic part of law, and law of individuality. -Every being has its place and function, its -‘deep fixed boundaries’ (<i>terminus alte haerens</i>). -The very stone, for Dante, cleaves to the spot -where it lies. And the Roman as well as the -philosopher in Lucretius scornfully contrasts with -this Nature of minute and ubiquitous law the -fluid and chaotic world of myth, where anything -might become anything (cf. V. 126 f.).</p> - -<h3>V</h3> - -<p>None the less, his conception of the nature of -the process itself does insensibly undergo a change. -In the mind of an exponent so richly endowed and -so transparently sincere, the hidden flaw in his -system could not but at some point disturb its -imposing coherence. Atomism could not at bottom -explain life, and life poured with too abounding -a tide through the heart and brain of Lucretius -not to sap in some degree the authority of his -mechanical calculus, and to lend a surreptitious -persuasiveness to inconsistent analogies derived -from the animated soul. Without ostensibly disturbing -the integrity of his Epicurean creed, such -analogies have, in two ways, infused an alien colour -into his poetry and alien implications into his -thought. In the first place, he feels, as such -abounding natures will, that life—‘the mere living’—is -somehow very good, in spite of all the evils -it brings in its train, and death pathetic in spite of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> -all the evils from which it sets us free. When he -is demonstrating that the world cannot have been -made by gods, he set forth its grave inherent -flaws of structure and arrangement with merciless -trenchancy—<i>tantâ stat praedita culpâ</i> (V. 199); and -like Lear, he makes the new-born child wail because -he is come into a world where so many griefs await -him. And no one ever urged with more passionate -eloquence that it is unreasonable to fear to die. -None the less, phrases charged with a different -feeling about life continually escape him. He -speaks of the <i>praeclara mundi natura</i> (V. 157). To -begin to live is to ‘rise up into the divine borders -of light’ (I. 20). And secondly, despite his philosophical -assurance, incessantly repeated, that birth -and death are merely different aspects of the same -continuous mechanical process, and that nothing -receives life except by the death of something else, -‘Alid ex alio reficit natura, nec ullam Rem gigni -patitur, nisi morte adiuta aliena’ (I. 264, etc.), -he cannot suppress suggestions that the creative -energy of the world is akin to that which with -conscious desire and will brings forth the successive -generations of Man. And so, in the astonishing -and magnificent opening address, the poet who was -about to demonstrate that the gods lived eternally -remote from the life of men, calls upon Venus, the -legendary mother of his own race, as the divine -power ever at work in this teeming universe, the -giver of increase, bringing all things to birth, from -the simplest corn blade to the might and glory of -the Roman Empire:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Mother of the Roman race, delight of gods and men, benign -Venus, who under the gliding constellations of heaven fillest with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> -thy presence the sea with its ships and the earth with its fruits, -seeing that by thy power all the races of living things are conceived -and come to being in the light of day; before thee, O goddess, the -winds take flight, and the clouds of heaven at thy coming; at thy -feet the brown earth sheds her flowers of a thousand hues, before -thee the sea breaks into rippling laughter, and the sky rejoicing -glows with radiant light (I. 1 f.).</p> -</div> - -<p class="p2">So grave and impassioned an appeal cannot be -treated as mere rhetorical ornament. If we call -it figure, it is figure of the kind which is not a -‘poetical’ substitute for prose, but conveys something -for which no other terms are adequate. -Lucretius, the exponent of Epicurus, doubtless -intended no heresy against the Epicurean theology; -but Lucretius, the poet, was carried by his vehement -imagination to an apprehension of the -creative energies of the world so intense and -acute that the great symbol of Venus rendered -it with more veracity than all that calculus -of atomic movements which he was about to -expound, and by which his logical intellect with -perfect sincerity believed it to be adequately -explained.</p> - -<p>Far less astonishing than his bold rehabilitation -of the goddess of Love is his fetishistic feeling for -the Earth, the legendary mother of men. For him -too, as for primeval myth, she is the ‘universal -mother,’ who in her fresh youth brought forth -flower and tree, and bird and beast; from whose -body sprang finally the race of man itself; nay, he -tells us how the infants crept forth, ‘from wombs -rooted in the soil,’ and how, wherever this happened, -earth yielded naturally through her pores a liquor -most like to milk, ‘even as nowadays every woman -when she has given birth is filled with sweet milk,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> -because all that current of nutriment streams -towards the breast’ (V. 788 f.).</p> - -<p>It is true that elsewhere Lucretius speaks with -rationalistic condescension of the usage which calls -the Earth a mother and divine, as a phrase like -Bacchus for wine or Ceres for corn, permissible so -long as no superstitious fear is annexed to it -(II. 652 f.). But it is plain that the Earth’s motherhood -had a grip upon his poet’s imagination quite -other than could be exerted by any such tag of -poetic diction. Doubtless the fervour with which -he insists on it—‘Therefore again and again Earth -is rightly called Mother, seeing that she brought -forth the race of men and every beast and bird -in its due season’—is not wholly due to poetic -motives. He is eager to refute the Stoic doctrine -that men were sprung from heaven. But the poet -in him is, all the same, entranced by the sublimity -of the conception he is urging, and he describes -it with an afflatus which dwarfs that Stoic doctrine, -and makes the splendid legend of Cybele the Earth -Mother, elaborated by the Greek poets, seem puerile -with all its beauty. ‘In the beginning Earth hath -in herself the elements whence watersprings pouring -forth their coolness perpetually renew the boundless -Sea, and whence fires arise, making the ground in -many places hot, and belching forth the surpassing -flames of Ætna. Then she bears shining corn -and glad woodlands for the support of men, and -rivers and leaves and shining pastures for the -beasts that haunt the hills. Wherefore she is -called the mother of the gods and mother of beasts -and men’ (II. 589 f.).</p> - -<p>This all-creating Earth is far enough no doubt<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span> -from the benign Nature of Wordsworth, who -moulds her children by silent sympathy. But it -is not so remote from the Earth of Meredith, the -Mother who brings Man ‘her great venture’ -forth, bears him on her breast and nourishes him -there, but ‘more than that embrace, that nourishment, -she cannot give.’</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">He may entreat, aspire,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">He may despair, and she has never heed.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">She drinking his warm sweat will soothe his need,</div> - <div class="verse indent8">Not his desire.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">Meredith too sees man, in dread of her, clutching -at invisible powers, as Lucretius’s sea-captain in -the storm makes vows to the gods. And Meredith’s -thought that man rises by ‘spelling at’ her laws -is no less Lucretian. But Meredith’s story of -Earth is full of hope, like his story of man. It is -perpetual advance. With Lucretius it is otherwise.</p> - -<p>For the Earth is not only our Mother; she is our -tomb (II. 1148 f.). And the eternal energy of -creation is not only matched by the eternal energy -of dissolution, but here and now is actually yielding -ground to it. The Earth, so prolific in her joyous -youth, is now like a woman who has ceased to bear, -‘worn out by length of days’ (V. 820 f.). In the -whole universe birth and death absolutely balance, -the equation of mechanical values is never infringed; -the universe has no history, only a continuous -substitution of terms. But each living thing has -a history, it knows the exultation of onset and the -melancholy of decline; and its fear of death is not -cancelled by the knowledge that in that very -moment, and in consequence of that very fact, -some other living thing will be born. And thus<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> -Lucretius, feeling for our Earth as a being very -near to us, and with which the issues of our existence -are involved, applies the doctrine to her -without shrinking indeed, but not without a human -shudder. The Earth had a beginning, and ineluctable -reason forces us to conclude that she will have -an end, and this not by a gradual evanescence or dispersion, -but by a sudden, terrific catastrophe, as in -a great earthquake, or world conflagration (V. 95 f.).</p> - -<p>And he feels this abrupt extinction of the Earth -and its inhabitants to be tragic, notwithstanding -that extinction is, by his doctrine, only the condition -of creation, and that at the very moment of her -ruin, some other earth will be celebrating its -glorious birth. Earth has for him a life-history, -a biography, and he forgets that she is strictly -but a point at which the eternal drift of atoms -thickened for a time to a cluster, to be dispersed -again. Thus we see how this mechanical system, -ardently embraced by a poet, working freely upon -him, and itself coloured and transformed by his -mind, stirred in him two seemingly opposed kinds -of poetic emotion at once: the sublime sense of -eternal existence, and the tragic pathos of sudden -doom and inexorable passing away.</p> - -<p>Hence the <i>melancholy</i> that in Lucretius goes along -with an enormous sense of life. To say that he puts -the ‘Nevermore’ of romantic sentimentality in -the place of that dispassionate ‘give and take’ -of mechanics would do wrong to the immense -virility which animates every line of this athlete -among poets. Of the cheap melancholy of discontent -he knows as little as of the cheap satisfaction -of complacency, or of that literary melancholy,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span> -where the sigh of Horace, or Ronsard, or -Herrick, over the passing of roses and all other -beautiful things covers a sly diplomatic appeal to -the human rosebud to be gathered while still there -is time. No, the melancholy of Lucretius is like -that of Dürer’s ‘Melancholia,’ the sadness of -strong intellect and far-reaching vision as it contemplates -the setting of the sun of time and the -ebbing of the tides of mortality; or like Wordsworth’s -mournful music of dissolution, only to be -heard by an ear emancipated from vulgar joys -and fears; or like the melancholy of Keats—the -veiled goddess who hath her shrine in the very -temple of delight—the <i>amari aliquid</i>, in Lucretius’s -own yet more pregnant words, which lurks in the -very sweetness of the flower.</p> - -<p>Thus our ‘scientific poet’ appears in an extraordinary -if not unique way to have united the -functions and temper and achievement of science -and poetry. He ‘knew the causes of things,’ -and could set them forth with marvellous precision -and resource; and the knowledge filled him with -lofty joy as of one standing secure above the welter -of doubt and fear in which the mass of men pass -their lives. To have reached this serene pinnacle -of intellectual security seemed to his greatest -follower Virgil a happiness beyond the reach of -his own more tender and devout genius, and he -commemorated it in splendid verses which Matthew -Arnold in our own day applied to Goethe:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And he was happy, if to know</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Causes of things, and far below</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His feet to see the lurid flow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of terror and insane distress</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And headlong fate, be happiness.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span></p> -<p>There is, it may be, something that repels us, -something slightly inhuman, in this kind of lonely -happiness, and Lucretius does little to counteract -that impression when he himself compares it, in -another famous passage, to the satisfaction of -one who watches the struggle of a storm-tost ship -from the safe vantage-ground of the shore. Yet -Lucretius is far from being the lonely egoist that -such a passage might suggest; his poem itself was -meant as a helping hand to lift mankind to his own -security: he knew what devoted friendship was, -and we have pleasant glimpses of him wandering -with companions among the mountains,<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> or sharing -a rustic meal stretched at ease on the grass by a -running brook.<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> Lucretius like his master had no -social philosophy, and it is his greatest deficiency -as a thinker; but he was not poor in social feeling. -His heart went out to men, as a physician, not -coldly diagnosing their disease, but eager to cure -them.</p> - -<p>And so his feeling for Nature, for the universe -of things, though rooted in his scientific apprehension, -is not bounded by it. He seizes upon the -sublime conceptions which his science brought to -his view—the permanent substance amid perennial -change, the infinity of space and time—and his -vivid mind turns these abstractions into the radiant -vision of a universe to which the heaven of heavens, -as the old poets had conceived it, ‘was but a veil.’ -But he went further, and shadowed forth, if half-consciously -and in spite of himself, the yet greater -poetic thought, of a living power pervading the -whole, drawing the elements of being together<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> -by the might of an all-permeating Love. And -thus Lucretius, the culminating expression of the -scientific thinking of Democritus and of the gospel -of Epicurus, foreshadows Virgil, whom he so deeply -influenced, and prophesies faintly but perceptibly -of Dante and of Shelley; as his annihilating -exposure of the religions founded upon fear insensibly -prepared the way for the religions of hope -and love.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III -<br> -MOUNTAIN SCENERY - -IN KEATS</h2> -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span></p> - -<p>III</p> -</div> - -<p><b>MOUNTAIN SCENERY - -IN KEATS</b></p> - -<p class="drop-capi">THE ‘love of mountains’ which plays so -large a part in the poetry of the age of -Wordsworth, and has so few close analogies in -that of any other country or any earlier time, -offers matter of still unexhausted interest to the -student of poetic psychology. This is not the -place to consider how it happened that any mass -of boldly crumpled strata, on a certain scale, -became in the course of the eighteenth century -charged with a kind of spiritual electricity which -set up powerful answering excitements in the -sensitive beholder. Gray already in 1739 expressed -the potential reach and compass of these -excitements in our psychical life when he called -the scenery of the Grande Chartreuse ‘pregnant -with religion and poetry’—a thought which -Wordsworth’s sublime verses on the Simplon, -sixty years later, only made explicit. Not all the -mountain-excitement of the time was of this -quality; and we can distinguish easily enough -between the ‘picturesque,’ ‘romantic’ mountain -sentiment of Scott, to whom the Trossachs<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> -and Ben Venue spoke most eloquently when they -sounded to the pad of a horseman’s gallop, and -the ‘natural religion’ of Wordsworth, to whom -the same pass wore the air of a ‘Confessional’ -apt for autumnal meditation on the brevity of -life. In the younger poets of the age mountain -sentiment is less original and profound than in -Wordsworth, less breezily elemental than in Scott. -The mountain poetry of Wordsworth concurred, -as an explicit stimulus to mountain sentiment, -with the inarticulate spell of the mountains themselves, -transforming in some degree the native -feeling and experience of almost all mountain-lovers -of the next twenty years, even when they -were of the calibre of Coleridge, Byron, and Shelley. -Yet even where the Wordsworthian colour is most -perceptible, as in <i>The Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni</i>, -in <i>Alastor</i>, <i>Mont Blanc</i>, and in the Third Canto -of <i>Childe Harold</i>, the younger poet has seen his -mountains with his own eyes and through the -glamour of his own passions, impregnated them -with his own genius and temperament. Shelley’s -mountains are no longer the quiet brotherhood of -Grasmere, with a listening star atop, but peaks of -flamelike aspiration, or embodied protests against -men’s code of crime and fraud; Byron’s are -warriors calling joyously to one another over the -lit lake across the storm. For all these poets—even -for Scott when he <i>was</i> a poet—mountain scenery -was not so much new matter to be described as a -new instrument of expression, a speaking symbol -for their own spiritual appetencies and ideal -dreams. Of its importance for the poetry of any -one of them there cannot be a moment’s doubt.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> -There remains, however, another poet, the youngest, -the shortest-lived, but in some respects the most -gifted of the whole group. On a general view -Keats appears to be sharply distinguished, in -regard to the characteristic here in question, from -all the rest. Mountains and mountain sentiment -seem to have a quite negligible place in his poetry. -It may be worth while to consider how far this is -really the case.</p> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p>If we look to the sources of his experience, -Keats was more nearly secluded from the stimulus -of mountain scenery than any of his compeers. -By the outward circumstances, of his birth and -breeding he was in reality the ‘cockney poet’ -of later derisive criticism. During the whole -formative period of youth he hardly encountered -even ‘wild’ scenery; what lay about him in -his infancy was at best the semi-suburban meadow -and woodland landscape of Edmonton, or the ‘little -hill’ (of Hampstead) on which he ‘stood tiptoe’ -to command a wider view. Before the summer of -1818 there is no sign that either ‘mountain power’ -or ‘mountain mystery’ had any meaning for him. -He deeply admired Wordsworth, and regarded <i>The -Excursion</i> as one of the three things to rejoice at -in that age; but it was Wordsworth as an interpreter -of human life, the poet who ‘thought into -the human heart’ (to Reynolds, May 1818), rather -than the mountain lover. There is no clear trace -as yet in his earlier poetry of Cumberland fells; -there is none whatever of the great mountain<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span> -mythology of Wordsworth. No menacing peak -had ever towered up between him and the stars, -no far-distant hills had sent an alien sound of -melancholy to his ear. Not that he owes nothing as -a poet to the mythic rendering of mountains. On -the contrary, up to this date, all his imagining of -mountains, in the stricter sense, is derived from, -or at least touched with, myth. Only it is the -myth of classic legend, not of modern ‘natural -religion.’ Had not the ‘lively Grecians’ inhabited -a ‘land of hills,’ these would hardly -have entered even as largely as they do into the -enchanted scenery of <i>Endymion</i>; and on the -whole it is a scenery of woods and waters, flowery -glades and ocean caverns, not of Olympian heights. -But if Keats’s experience of nature is still limited, -it is used to the full. <i>Endymion</i>, at first sight a -tissue of exquisite dreams, is full of the evidence -of his no less exquisite perception of the living -nature within his reach. From the very outset -we are aware that the ‘things of beauty’ he -loved best and knew most intimately in the natural -world were woods and flowers and streams. There -is no mention, in that opening survey, of hills, -and when they come perforce into the story they -are arrayed as far as may be in the semblance of -these beloved things. ‘A mighty forest’ is -‘outspread upon the sides of Latmus’ (i. 62); -in the summons to the Shepherds, the highland -homes are touched vaguely and without interest -(‘whether descended from beneath the -rocks that overtop your mountains’), while he -lingers with evident delight upon the ‘swelling -downs’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent22">... where sweet air stirs</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Blue hare-bells lightly and where prickly furze</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Buds lavish gold. (i. 201.)</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">as later, no less daintily, upon the</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent8">... hill-flowers running wild</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In pink and purple chequer. (ii. 286.)</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">The ideal dwelling for Endymion and his ‘swan -of Ganges’ will be under the brow of a steep hill, -but they will be embowered in ivy and yew, -and the hill itself, like their bridal couch, will -be ‘mossy’—the haunting character of the -Keatsian woodland and its ‘winding ways’ -(iv. 670).</p> - -<p>On the other hand, some of the hills in -<i>Endymion</i>, like ‘fountain’d Helicon,’ are purely -legendary, and the higher and bolder ones derive -their characters from the tales of Olympus or -Cyllene. Between nature and classic myth there -was for Keats no trace of the disparity which so -deeply offended Wordsworth; his imagination -passed without thought of discord from one to -the other, or blended them together; it was -probably the Nature poet yet more than the -Christian in Wordsworth who responded so coldly -(‘A pretty piece of paganism’) when the young -poet brought his train of Bacchanals ‘over the -light-blue hills.’ It is of Arcadian boar-hunts -that we have to think when Endymion on the -mountain-heights will ‘once more make his horn -parley from their foreheads hoar’ (i. 478), or sees -the thunderbolt hurled from his threshold (ii. 203); -it is an Arcadian shepherd whose ‘pipe comes -clear from aery steep’ (iii. 359). And it is at<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span> -least no English mountain of whose ‘icy pinnacles’ -we have a momentary and here quite isolated -glimpse.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>But while the mountain-drawing in <i>Endymion</i> -is on the whole vague and derivative, there are -hints that Keats was already becoming alive to -the imaginative spell of great mountains, to -their power in poetry, and for his poetry. When -he imagines the moonlit earth, he sees it partly -in delicate miniature like the image of the nested -wren, who takes glimpses of the moon from beneath -a sheltering ivy-leaf, but this is coupled with a -picture of Miltonic grandeur and tumult:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Innumerable mountains rise, and rise,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ambitious for the hallowing of thine eyes. (iii. 59.)</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">He was already on the way to that clear recognition -of his need of great mountains which speaks -from his famous explanation of the motives of the -northern tour which he undertook, with Brown, -in the summer of 1818—the crucial event of his -history from our present point of view. ‘I -should not have consented to myself,’ he wrote -to Bailey, ‘these four months tramping in the -highlands, but that I thought that it would give -me more experience, rub off more prejudice, use -me to more hardship, identify finer scenes, load -me with grander mountains, and strengthen more -my reach in Poetry, than would stopping at home -among books, even though I should read Homer.’<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> -The passage has great psychological value, for it -shows how closely involved his nascent apprehension -of mountains was with the other spiritual -appetencies urgent within him in these months. -To be ‘loaded with grander mountains’ he thought -of as an integral part of an inner process of much -wider scope, of which the common note was to be -the bracing and hardening of a mind which had -not yet won complete control of its supreme gift -of exquisite sensation. The ‘grander mountains’ -were to be only one of the bracing forces, but it -is clear that he felt this new force, under whose -sway he was for a while about to live, akin to -others which his letters show to have been alluring -him during these months. The bare rugged forms -of the mountains he was now to explore accorded -subtly for him with the hardihood and endurance -of the climber, and not less with the severity of -the epic poet, who, like Milton, preferred ‘the -ardours to the pleasures of song,’ or who, like -Homer, allowed us fugitive but sublime glimpses -of the mountains which looked down upon the -scene of his Tale. When Keats and Brown came -down upon the town of Ayr, they had before -them ‘a grand Sea view terminated by the black -Mountains of the isle of Arran. As soon as I -saw them so nearly I said to myself: How is it -they did not beckon Burns to some grand attempt -at Epic?’<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> Keats perhaps thought of the Isle -of Tenedos, which similarly dominates the plain -of Troy across a reach of sea; ‘You would lift -your eyes from Homer only to see close before -you the real Isle of Tenedos,’ he was writing to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> -Reynolds in a different context on the same day. -That one peaked Isle should stand out in Keats’s -mind from all the other imagery of Homer, and -that he should wonder at the failure of another -to beget new Iliads in the unhomeric Burns, shows -with much precision how his literary passion for -the Homeric poetry was now quickened and actualized -by the visible presence of grand mountains.</p> - -<p>It is needless (though not irrelevant) to dwell -here upon other kindred features of the expanding -horizons which came into view for Keats in this -momentous year: the resolve to renounce his -‘luxurious’ art for philosophy and knowledge;<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a> -and the disdain for women, for effeminate characters, -for the pleasures of domesticity. In each -case the urgency of this passion for what he felt -more bracing, more intellectually fortifying, more -masculine, found vent, for a time, in language -too peremptory and exclusive to be true to the -needs of his rich and complex nature.<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> Philosophy -would, had he lived, assuredly have ministered -more abundantly to his poetry, but <i>Lamia</i> shows -how far she was from becoming its master, or its -substitute; the Miltonic ardours of <i>Hyperion</i> were -to be qualified in the renewed but chastened and -ennobled ‘luxury’ of <i>St. Agnes’ Eve</i> and the -<i>Odes</i>. The man who wrote: ‘the roaring of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span> -the wind is my wife and the stars through the -windowpane are my children,’ would yet have -found a place for noble womanhood within his -‘masculine’ ideal, had not a tragical influence -intervened. And, similarly, the traces of his -mountain experience fade after 1818, a new order -of symbols, more congenial at bottom to the -ways of his imagination, asserts or reasserts itself -in his poetry; and it is hardly an accident that -in the revised <i>Hyperion</i> of a year later we approach -the granite precipices and everlasting cataracts of -the original poem by way of a garden, a temple, -and a shrine.</p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p>For, evidently, it is in <i>Hyperion</i>, if anywhere, -that we have to seek the afterglow of that experience -of ‘grander mountains’ which, in June, he -had set out to encounter. We must not indeed -look in poetry of this quality for those detailed -reproductions of what he had seen which Wordsworth -condemned as ‘inventories’ in Scott, but -which are not strange either to the lower levels -of his own verse. Even in the letters written for -the entertainment of a sick brother Keats rarely -describes; and constantly, to others, he breaks -off impatiently when he has begun. ‘My dear -Reynolds—I cannot write about scenery and -visitings.’ His impressions come from him in -brief, sudden, unsought phrases; he left it to the -methodic Brown to give the enchanting and -‘picturesque’ detail of mountains and valleys -‘in the manner of the Laputan printing-press.’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span> -‘I have been among wilds and mountains too -much to break out much about their grandeur,’ -he writes a little later to Bailey. But there is no -doubt of the impression. He had hoped that his -experience would ‘load’ him with grander mountains; -and, in fact, as he goes on to tell, ‘The -first mountains I saw, though not so large as some -I have since seen, <i>weighed</i> very solemnly upon me.’ -And Brown tells us that when Windermere first -burst upon their view, ‘he stopped as if stupefied -with beauty.’<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p> - -<p>Their actual experiences of mountain-climbing -were few. Weather checked them at Helvellyn, -and expense at Ben Lomond; but in the ‘bleak -air atop’ of Skiddaw, as Lamb had called it, -‘I felt as if I were going to a Tournament.’ -What he felt about the Arran mountains we have -seen. Ailsa Craig—the seafowl-haunted ‘craggy -ocean pyramid,’ evoked ‘the only sonnet of any -worth I have of late written.’ They found the -north end of Loch Lomond ‘grand to excess,’ -and Keats made a rude pen-and-ink sketch of -‘that blue place among the mountains.’ But -their greatest experience was doubtless the climb -on Ben Nevis, on 2 August. The chasms below -the summit of Nevis seemed to him ‘the most -tremendous places I have ever seen,’ ‘the finest -wonder of the whole—they appear great rents in -the very heart of the mountain, ... other huge -crags rising round ... give the appearance to -Nevis of a shattered heart or core in itself.’</p> - -<p>The plan of a poem on the war of the gods and -Titans was already shaped or shaping in his mind<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span> -when Keats set out for the north. As early as -September 1817 he had had in view ‘a new -romance’ for the following summer; in keeping -with the new aspirations which that summer -brought, the ‘romance’ was now to be an epic. -The most potent influence governing the execution, -that of Milton, is familiar, and does not directly -concern us here. Still less can we consider the -possible effect of companionship with those three -little volumes of Cary’s <i>Dante</i>, the single book -taken with him on this tour.<a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> But while the -spell of <i>Paradise Lost</i> is apparent in the cast of -the plot, above all in the debate of the Titans, -and in the style, an influence to which Milton’s -is wholly alien asserts itself in the delineation of -the Titanic ‘den’ itself. Clearly based upon -the idea of an Inferno, this ‘sad place’ where -‘bruised Titans’ are ‘chained in torture,’ is -yet full of traits which recall neither Milton nor -Dante, but rather one of those amazing chasms on -Nevis, which seemed to be the very ‘core’ of -the great mountain. He had, even, as he looked -down into that vaporous gulf, actually thought -of the image of Hell. Milton’s Hell is a plain of -burning earth vaulted with fire and verging on a -sea of flame<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a>; if there is a hill (i. 670) it is a -volcano, belching fire, or coated with a sulphurous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span> -scurf. The Keatsian Inferno is genuinely, what he -calls it, a ‘den,’ a yawning mountain dungeon -overarched with jutting crags, floored with hard -flint and slaty ridge, and encompassed by a deafening -roar of waterfalls and torrents. A shattered -rib of rock, with his iron mace beside it, attests -the spent fury of Creus. Enceladus lies uneasily -upon a craggy shelf. To render the spectacle of -the ruined and almost lifeless bodies lying ‘vast -and edgeways,’ he calls in a definite reminiscence, -the ‘dismal cirque’ of Druid stones near Keswick. -He has felt too the silence of the mountains in the -pauses of the winter wind, though he speaks of it -only to contrast it with the organ voice of Saturn -preceding the expectant murmur of his audience -of fallen divinities (ii. 123).<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> The darkness, too, -in which they languish is not eternal and ordained -like that of Milton’s Hell; the coming of the -Sun-god will invade it with a splendour like the -morn and</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">... all the beetling gloomy steeps,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the sad spaces of oblivion,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And every gulf, and every chasm old,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And every height, and every sullen depth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Voiceless, or hoarse with loud tormented streams,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all the everlasting cataracts,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And all the headlong torrents, far and near,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Mantled before in darkness and huge shade, (ii. 358)</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">will stand revealed in that terrible splendour.</p> - -<p>It is clear that in this great passage Keats has -deliberately invoked the image of a sunrise among -precipitous mountains; and these lines assure him -a lasting place amongst our poet interpreters of -mountain glory. We must beware, as we have<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> -seen, of overstressing the element of realism in -the poem. Keats was not <i>describing</i> mountain -scenery, English, Scotch, or any other, but using -certain aspects of it, which had been vividly -brought home to him as he climbed or trudged, -to render poetic inspirations of far richer compass -and wider scope. Much of the detail of this Titan -prison belongs as little to his British mountain -experience as do the Titans themselves. Iapetus -grasps a strangled serpent; Asia, dreaming of -palm-shaded temples and sacred isles, leans upon -an elephant tusk. We are conscious of no discord, -so pervading is the impress of a single potent -imagination, whatever the material it employs. -But it is not immaterial to note that, as Professor -de Sélincourt has pointed out, Keats did alter the -original draft of Hyperion’s coming in such a way -as to give it a close resemblance to a sunrise among -the mountains, omitting two lines which preceded -the last but one quoted above:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">And all the Caverns soft with moss and weed,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or dazzling with bright and barren gems.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">The former of these lines may be described as a -momentary reversion to the tender ‘mossy’ -luxuriance of the <i>Endymion</i> scenery, like the -‘nest of pain’ (ii. 90), which, however, he allowed -to stand.<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> Its excision, in the final version, marks -Keats’s sense of the incongruity of that earlier -symbolism with the sterner matter in hand, as -does the transformation of the dreamy, pastoral<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> -Oceanus of the earlier poem into the master of -Stoic wisdom, able ‘to bear all naked truths, and -to envisage circumstance, all calm,’ who offers -his bitter balm to the despairing Titans, in the -later.</p> - -<p><i>Hyperion</i>, we know, was left a fragment, and -with deliberate purpose. The mighty shade of -Milton, he came to feel, deflected him from his -proper purpose in poetry. It is less important, -but not less true, that his passing vision of grand -mountains was not in complete consonance with -his genius, and that his brief anthem of mountain -poetry had in it something of the nature of a -<i>tour de force</i>. The mountains were for him neither -strongholds of faith nor sources of sublime consolation. -Even in the letters written in their -presence he could speak somewhat impatiently, -as we have seen, of ‘scenery’ compared with -life and men. And if he places his ruined Titans -in this wild den among the crags and torrents, it -is because there was something in him, deeper -than his reverence for Wordsworth or for mountain -grandeur, which felt the very savagery of the -scene, its naked aloofness from everything human, -to be in accord with the primeval rudeness of an -outdone and superseded race. It is not for -nothing that, when the scene changes from the -old order to the new, we are transported from -Hyperion’s sun-smitten precipices to the sea-haunted -lawns and woodlands of Delos, where -the young Apollo is seen wandering forth in -the morning twilight</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Beside the osiers of a rivulet,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Full ankle-deep in lilies of the vale.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span></p> -<p class="noin">Do we not hear in this the home-coming accents, -as of one who has escaped from barbarous Thynia -and Bithynia, and tastes the joy that is born</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘cum mens onus reponit, ac peregrino</div> - <div class="verse indent0">labore fessi venimus larem ad nostrum’?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">Keats had, in effect, come home.</p> - -<p>Yet the deflection, if it strained, also braced; -and if in the following months his imagination, -when he is most inspired, moves once more -habitually among mossy woodland ways and by -enchanted waters, the immense advance in robustness -of artistic and intellectual sinew which distinguishes -the poet of the <i>Nightingale</i> and <i>Autumn</i> -from the poet of <i>Endymion</i> was gained chiefly -in that summer of enlarged ideals and experience, -of which the mountain vision was a small but a -significant and symbolical part.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV<br> - -GABRIELE - -<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span> - -D’ANNUNZIO</h2></div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span></p> - -<p>IV</p> - -<p><b>GABRIELE - -D’ANNUNZIO</b></p></div> - -<p class="drop-capi">MAZZINI, the most prophetic figure of the -nineteenth century, declared in a famous -passage his confidence in the European mission -of his country. ‘The Third Italy,’ destined to -be born of the long agony of the struggle with -Austria without and the papacy within, was not -merely to be a nation, restored to unity and independence; -it was to intervene as an original -voice in the complex harmony of the European -nationalities, contributing of its own inborn genius -something distinctive and unique. ‘We believe -devoutly that Italy has not exhausted her life -in the world. She is called to introduce yet -new elements in the progressive development of -humanity, and to live with a third life. It is for -us to begin it.’ Were Mazzini to return to life -to-day, how far would he regard his prophecy as -fulfilled? Beyond question his lofty idealism -would find much to disapprove and to regret. -He would find a Third Italy, which has committed -grave excesses in the name of her recovered -nationhood. But he would also find a nation -whose present rulers have shown more capacity<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> -for Mazzinean internationalism than any other -European government. And he would find, also, -in the Third Italy, a real renascence, a genuine -rebirth of genius and power, and this in ways so -individual as to justify in a rare degree the anticipation -that Italy would give something vitally -her own to the new Europe. Open any serious -Italian book to-day, and you will note a kind of -intellectual concentration, a girding up of the -loins of speech and thought, in striking contrast -with the loose-tongued volubility of most Italian -writing, in verse or prose, of the mid-nineteenth -century. You note also a new tone of critical -mastery and conscious equality. Italy in the last -century was still the ‘woman-people,’ the -pathetic beauty, languid still after the gentle -torpor of two centuries, and whose intellectual -life, with some brilliant isolated exceptions, faintly -reflected that of the more masculine nations north -of the Alps. To-day she has not only critically -mastered all that Europe has to give, she sits in -judgment upon us, and the judgment she pronounces -has again and again been of that fruitful -kind which disposes of old difficulties by revealing -a larger law. Benedetto Croce, who in his -review, the <i>Critica</i>, brings the literature of Europe, -weighed and measured, to his reader’s doors, has -in his original philosophic work subjected her philosophic -systems to a searching revision, and has -succeeded in some measure to their authority.<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> A -thinker less known, even to cultivated Italians,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span> -Aliotta, has surveyed in a book of singular penetration -and philosophic power, the ‘idealistic reaction -against science’ in the nineteenth century. And -when we look to creative literature, we find in this -Third Italy, together with a profusion of those fungoid -growths of which the modern age has in the -West been everywhere prolific, a group of poets, -of powerful temperament and dazzling gifts, to -whom no predecessor, in Italy or elsewhere, offers -more than a distant resemblance. One of these, -after pouring forth poems, dramas, novels, in -prodigal abundance for thirty years, became the -most vociferous, and possibly the most potent, -of the forces that drove Italy into the war, and -was until lately the idol of the whole Italian race. -Even to-day, after the sorry collapse of his adventure, -the man in whom Europe, irritated and -impatient, sees only a sort of Harlequin-Garibaldi, -impudent where his predecessor was sublime, and -florid where he was laconic, is still, for multitudes -of his countrymen, the hero-poet who took the -banner of <i>Italianità</i> from the failing or treacherous -hands of diplomats and statesmen, and defended it -against the enemy without and the enemy within, -with the tenacity of maturity and the ardour of -youth. Certainly, one who is beyond all rivalry -the most adored poet, in any country, of our time, -who has fought for Italy with tongue and pen -and risked his life in her service, and whose personality -might be called a brilliant impressionist -sketch of the talents and failings of the Italian -character, reproducing some in heightened but -veracious illumination, others in glaring caricature -or paradoxical distortion—such a man, as a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> -national no less than as a literary force, claims -and deserves close study.</p> - -<p>Before entering, however, upon the detail of -his life and work, let me assist our imagination -of Gabriele d’Annunzio by quoting from the vivid -description given by Mr. James Bone of a meeting -with him at Venice in the summer of 1918. The -poet, fifty-six years old, was then at the height -of his renown; Fiume was still unthought of. -His great exploit of flying over Vienna and dropping -leaflets inviting her in aureate imagery to -make peace was on every tongue. The gondoliers -took off their hats as they passed his house on the -Grand Canal, and he had to register all his letters -to prevent their being abstracted as souvenirs. -Mr. Bone was talking with the airmen at an aerodrome -on one of the islands in the lagoons; when -‘Conversation died instantly as an airman, very -different from the others, came hurrying towards -us a rather small, very quick, clean-cut figure, -wearing large smoked glasses and white gloves -with the wrists turned down.... The nose was -rather prominent, complexion not dark but marked -a little, the whole profile very clear, making one -think not of a Renaissance Italian but of a type -more antique, an impression accentuated by his -rather large, beautifully shaped ear, very close to -the head. The body denied the age that was -told in the face, for all its firmness. One’s first -impression was of a personality of extraordinary -swiftness and spirit still at full pressure, remorselessly -pursuing its course “in hours of insight -willed.”... The whole surface of d’Annunzio’s -personality suggested a rich, hard fineness, like<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> -those unpolished marbles in old Italian churches -that gleam delicately near the base where the -worshippers have touched them, but above rise -cold and white as from the matrix.... There -was something of the man of fashion in the way -he wore his gloves, and in his gestures, but nothing -one could see of the national idol aware of -itself.’<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a></p> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p>The soldier-poet-man-of-fashion, who wore his -fifty-six years thus lightly, was born, in 1862, at -Pescara, the chief—almost only—town of the -Abruzzi, then one of the wildest and rudest provinces -of Italy. Its valleys, descending from the -eastern heights of the Apennines to the Adriatic, -were inhabited by an almost purely peasant -population—a hardy, vigorous race, tenacious of -their primitive customs, and little accessible to -cultural influences. The Church enjoyed their -fanatical devotion, but only at the price of tacitly -accepting many immemorial pagan usages disguised -by an unusually transparent veil of Catholic -ritual; while the Law occasionally found it expedient -to leave a convicted murderer (as in the -<i>Figlia di Iorio</i>) to be executed by an angry -multitude according to the savage methods their -tradition prescribed. The little haven of Pescara—one -of the few on Italy’s featureless Adriatic -coast—was the centre of a coasting traffic with -the yet wilder Dalmatian seaboard, a traffic which -like all ancient sea-faring, pursued its economic<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span> -aims in an atmosphere of superstitious observance, -mystical, picturesque, and sometimes cruel. In -the poetic autobiography (‘The Soul’s Journey’) -which occupies the first <i>Laude</i> (1903), d’Annunzio -sketches vividly his boyhood’s home in this -Abruzzan country overlooking the sea. Of the -persons who composed this home, of family affections, -we have only momentary retrospective -glimpses. We hear of the father, long dead -when he wrote, from whom he derived his iron-tempered -muscles; and of the mother, who gave -him his insatiable ardour of will and desire. The -three sisters seem to have been like him; the -face of the second sister resembled his own -‘mirrored in a clear fountain at dawn.’ All -that stood between them, he says, was their -innocence and his passion. There was, too, an -old nurse, to whom in her serene old age, when -she had retired to a mountain hamlet, the poet -addressed some tenderly beautiful stanzas, contrasting -his own stormy career with her idyllic -peace as she ‘spins the wool of her own flocks -while the oil holds out.’<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a></p> - -<p>But of household drama, such as dominates the -experience of most children, little seems to have -existed for this child. Certainly it vanishes completely, -in the retrospect of the man of forty, -beside the drama enacted with prodigious intensity -of colour, animation, and passion, by his imperious -senses. The contrast is here acute between -d’Annunzio and his co-heir of the Carduccian -tradition, Pascoli, whose poignant memories of -childhood, instead of being effaced by the energy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span> -of his sense-life, permeate it through and through, -giving a ‘deep autumnal tone’ to almost every -line he wrote. He spoke in later life of his ‘profound -sensuality’ as a gift which had brought -him poetic discoveries denied to colder men, and -this is no doubt true if by ‘sensuality’ we understand, -as we ought, that d’Annunzio is prodigally -endowed with all the senses, that eye and ear -feast on the glory and the music of the world -and live in its teeming life, that his lithe body -thrills with the zest of motion, that imagery is -the material of his thinking and the stuff of his -speech; and that the passion of sex, so acutely -and perilously developed in him, is just one -element in this prodigal endowment of his entire -sense-organism, itself a main source of the -artistic splendour of his work. In the early pages -of the <i>Viaggio</i> we see the young boy drinking in -with a kind of intoxication the simple sights and -sounds of the farm—the rhythmic fall of the flails -on the threshing-floor, the pouring of the whey -from the churn, the whirr of the spool in the loom, -the scampering of wild ponies with streaming -manes over the hillside; or again, out at sea, the -gorgeous scarlet or gold sails scudding before the -wind, each with its symbolic sign. Even the -inanimate world became for his transfiguring -senses alive; ‘it was a lying voice,’ he cries, -‘that declared that Pan is dead.’ The mere -contrasts of things, the individual self-assertion -shown by a tree, for instance, in not being a rock, -produced in him an excitement analogous to -that which made Rupert Brooke, in his own -words, ‘a lover’ of all kinds of common things<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> -for being just definitely and unmistakably what -they were. So that a conception apparently so -thin and abstract as ‘difference’ can assume for -him the shape and potency of an alluring divinity: -‘Diversity,’ he cries, ‘the siren of the world! -I am he who love thee!’</p> - -<p>And then, with adolescence, came the passion -of sex; for d’Annunzio no shy and gradual discovery, -but a veritable explosion, before which -all obstacles, moral and material, vanished into -air. He tells it with the frankness of a child of -the South, and the self-conscious importance of -an egoist for whom the events of his own physical -history could only be fitly described in terms of -epic poetry, with its contending nationalities -and ruined or triumphant kings. ‘O flesh!’ he -cries, ‘I gave myself up to thee, as a young -beardless king gives himself up to the warrior -maid who advances in arms, terrible and beautiful. -She advances victorious, and the people receive -her with rejoicing. Astonishment strikes the -gentle king, and his hope laughs at his fear.’<a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> -And from the first this new passion allies itself -with the rest of his sense-organism, irradiating -eye and ear and imagination, ‘giving to every -power a double power,’ as Biron says in <i>Love’s -Labour’s Lost</i>. ‘Thou wast sometimes as the -grape pressed by fiery feet, O flesh, sometimes as -snow printed with bleeding traces; I seemed to -feel in thee the twisting of trodden roots, and to -hear the far-off grinding of the axe upon the -whetstone.’ The young erotic was already growing -towards that observant psychologist of eroticism<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span> -who pervades so many gorgeous but repulsive pages -of his novels.</p> - -<p>He was also growing, more slowly and as yet -invisibly, to other and more notable things. In -the first published poems of the boy of eighteen, -and the second, <i>Canto Novo</i>, two years later, -there is not much more than the reflexion of this -intense and pervading ‘sensuality’ (in the large -meaning above indicated), in a speech moulded -upon the diction and rhythms of Carducci. The -great master, then at the height of his fame, -had still to do much of his most splendid work. -D’Annunzio, who never ceased to revere him, was -to become his principal inheritor; but the heir -added so much of his own to the bequest that he -can only at the outset be regarded as his disciple. -The elder poet’s influence was in any case entirely -salutary. The classical severity and nobility of -style which distinguish the <i>Rime Nove</i> and the -<i>Odi Barbare</i> from the florid and facile romantic -verse of the day, contributed to temper the -dangerous luxuriance of d’Annunzio, and to evoke -the powers of self-discipline and tenacious will -which lay within; while Carducci’s exultation in -radiance and clarity, his noonday view of life, -his symbolic sun-worship and his hatred of all -twilight obscurantism and moonlight nebulosity, -equally enforced the more virile strain in d’Annunzio, -the ‘stalk of carle’s hemp’ which, far more truly -than in Burns, underlay the voluptuous senses.</p> - -<p>This background of harder and tougher nature -was already manifested when d’Annunzio, a few -years later, turned to tell in prose some stories -of his native province. There is little in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> -<i>Novelle della Pescara</i> of love, less of luxury or refinement; -we see the Abruzzan village folk at feud, -fanatical and ferocious, the women inciting the -men, the Church in its most ceremonial robes -blandly but helplessly looking on. <i>The Idolators</i> -tells how the men of a certain village plan to -set the bronze statue of their saint upon the -church altar of another neighbouring village. They -assemble at night and march through the darkness -with the image on a cart. In the other village -the men await them in force, and a savage battle -takes place in the church, ending in the rout -of the assailants with much slaughter, and the -ignominious mutilation of the image of their -patron saint. And all this grim matter is told -in a style admirably strong and terse, bold and -sharp in outline, direct and impersonal in statement, -untouched by either delicate feeling or weak -sentimentality. D’Annunzio’s sensuality asserts -itself still, as always; but it appears here as -a Rubens-like joy in intense impressions; now -a copper-coloured storm sky, now a splash of -blood, betrays his passion for the crude effects -of flame and scarlet, most often where they signify -death or ruin. He imagines voluptuously as -always, but his voluptuousness here feeds not in -the lust of the flesh, but in the lust of wounds -and death. When he describes the fighting in -the church, he spares you as little as Homer; -you are not told merely that a man was stabbed, -you are made to see the blade shear away the -flesh from the bone. His men are drawn with -the same hard, pungent stroke, and a visible -relish for scars, gnarled features, frayed dress,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span> -and all the maimings and deformities, which tell -not of weakness or decay, but of battles recent or -long ago, the blows and buffets received in the -tug with fortune. There is little trace of sybarite -effeminacy in the painting of old Giacobbe, for -instance, the leader of the insurgents, a tall, -bony man, with bald crown and long red hairs -on nape and temples, two front teeth wanting, -which gave him a look of senile ferocity, a pointed -chin covered with bristles, and so forth.</p> - -<p>D’Annunzio was intrinsically of the Abruzzan -race; the tough hardy fibre of the peasant folk was -his; and it was the deep inborn attachment to his -blood and kin which produced, twenty years later, -his greatest work, as a like attachment lifted Mr. -Shaw, almost at the same moment, to the rare -heights of <i>John Bull’s Other Island</i>. But much -had to happen to the young provincial before he -could thus discover to the full the poetry of his -province.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>In the early eighties d’Annunzio had come to -Rome. The little circle of young Carduccians in -the capital welcomed the poet’s brilliant disciple, -who was soon to outdistance them all in sheer -splendour of literary gift. More important, however, -than any literary or personal influence—for -his hard encasing shell of egoism made him extraordinarily -immune to the intrusion either of alien -genius or of friendship or love—was the deep impression -made upon the young Abruzzan by the splendour, -the art glories, and above all the -historic import of Rome. ‘The Abruzzi gave<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> -d’Annunzio the sense of <i>race</i>‘, says an excellent -critic, ‘Rome gave him the sense of <i>history</i>.’ -The magical effect of Rome had hitherto been -rendered most vividly in the poetry of other -peoples, to whom it was a revelation, or a fulfilment -of long aspiration, of the ‘city of their -soul,’ in Goethe’s <i>Roman Elegies</i>, <i>Childe Harold</i>, -or <i>Adonais</i>. How overwhelming to an imaginative -Italian the sight and living presence of Rome -could be may be judged from the magnificent -<i>Ode</i> of Carducci. The Englishman who is thrilled as -he stands in the Forum, or by the mossy bastions -of our own Roman wall, may faintly apprehend -the temper of a citizen of the ‘Third Italy’ who -felt his capital, newly won from the Popes, to be -once more in living continuity with the city of -Cæsar. Both the nobility and the extravagance -of Italian national feeling have their root in this -sense of continuity with antique Rome, and this -is to be remembered in estimating the perfervid -<i>Italianità</i> of d’Annunzio, the most striking example -both of the sublime idealism and of the childish -extravagance which it is able to inspire.</p> - -<p>The work of the next years abounded in evidence -of the spell which Rome had laid upon his -sensuous imagination. He poured forth novels and -poems, both charged with an oppressive opulence -of epicurean and erotic detail, but saved for -art by the clear-cut beauty of the prose, and by -frequent strokes of bold and splendid imagination.</p> - -<p>Andrea Sperelli in <i>Il Piacere</i> (1889) and Tullio -Hermil in <i>L’Innocente</i> (1892), are virtuosos in -æsthetic as well as in erotic luxury, and the two -allied varieties of hedonism reflect and enforce<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span> -one another. Sperelli is artist and connoisseur, of -unlimited resources and opportunities, and neither -he nor his mistress could think love tolerable -in chambers not hung with precious tapestry and -adorned with sculptured gold and silver vessels, -the gift of queens or cardinals of the splendour-loving -Renascence. No doubt there is irony in -the picture too; the native stamina in d’Annunzio -resists complete assimilation to the corrupt aspects -of the luxury he describes, and he feels keenly the -contrast between the riotous profusion of the -‘new rich’ of the new Rome and the heroism -and hardships of the men of the <i>Risorgimento</i> -who had won it.</p> - -<p>The poetry of this period is less repellent because -its substance, though not definitely larger or -deeper, is sustained and penetrated by the magic -of a wonderfully winged and musical speech. His -<i>Elegie Romane</i> (1892)—a rare case of his emulating -another poet—are inferior in intellectual force to -Goethe’s, which yet have as lyrics an almost -pedestrian air in comparison with the exquisite -dance of the Italian rhythms. Here is one of -d’Annunzio’s, in some approach to the original -elegiacs. He has listened to a service in St. Peter’s:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Thro’ the vaulted nave, that for ages has gathered so vast a</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Human host, and of incense harboured so vast a cloud,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wanders the chorus grave from lips invisible. Thunders</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Break from the organ at times out of its hidden grove.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Down thro’ the tombs the roar reverberates deep in the darkness;</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The enormous pillars seem to throb to the hymn.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">High enthroned the pontifical priests watch, blessing the people.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">At the iron gates angels and lions keep guard.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How majestic the chant! From its large, long undulations</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Rises one clear voice with a melodious cry.</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">The voice mourns, alone; in his cold vault does he not hear it,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Palestrina? Alone the voice mourns, to the world</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Uttering a sorrow divine. Does the buried singer not hear it?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Does not his soul leap up, bright on the heights of heaven?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Even as a dove makes wing aloft unto golden turrets?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The voice mourns, alone; mourns, in the silence, alone.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The sonnets of the <i>Isottèo</i> and <i>Chimera</i> (1885-8) -show a concentration rare in the later history of -the Italian sonnet. And any reader who thinks -d’Annunzio incapable of writing of love without -offence may be invited to try the charming idyll -of Isaotta Guttadàuro. Scenery and circumstances, -to be sure, are sumptuous and opulent as -usual. The simple life and homely persons traditional -in idyll are remote; but poetry did not -absolutely fly from Tennyson’s touch when he -turned from his Miller’s and Gardener’s daughters -to put Maud in a Hall; and neither does she -retire from d’Annunzio’s Isaotta, in her noble -mansion. The lover stands at sunrise in the -‘high hall garden’ under her window and summons -her in a joyous morning song to come forth. It -is late autumn, the house is silent, but the peacocks -perched on the orange trees hail the morning in -their raucous tones. The situation is that of -Herrick’s May morning song to Corinna; but though -Herrick loved jewels and fine dresses not a little, -the contrast is piquant between the country -simplicity of his Devonshire maids and men, -and the aristocratic luxury of Isaotta. ‘Come, -my Corinna, come! Wash, dress, be brief in -praying’—bids Herrick; but no such summary -toilette will serve the Italian. Isaotta will rise -from her brocaded bed, and her white limbs will -gleam in a marble bath, as her maid pours<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span> -amber-scented water on them, while the woven -figures of the story of Omphale look on from the -walls. At length Isaotta comes out on to her -vine-wreathed balcony and playfully greets <i>messèr -cantore</i> below. She is secretly ready, we see, to -surrender, but makes a show of standing out for -terms. They will wander through the autumnal -vineyards, and if they find a single cluster still -hanging on the poles, ‘I will yield to your desire, -and you shall be my lord.’ So they set out in -the November morning. The vineyards, lately so -loud with vintage merriment and song, are now -deserted and still. Not a cluster is to be seen. -She archly mocks him: ‘What, has subtle Love -no power to give you eyes?’ They meet peasant -women going to their work, and one of them asks -him, ‘What seekest thou, fair sir?’ And he -replies: ‘I seek a treasure.’ A flight of birds -rises suddenly across their path with joyous cries; -they take it as a sign, and gaze at each other, pale -and silent. Then unexpectedly he sees before him -a vineyard flaming in full array of purple and -gold, and a flock of birds making a chorus in its -midst. “‘O lady Isaotta, here is life!’ I cried -to her with rapt soul; and the chorus of songsters -cried over our heads. I drew her to the spot, -and she came as swift as I, for I held her firmly -by the hand. Rosy was the face she turned away -from me, but fair as Blanchemain’s when she -took the kiss of Lancelot, her sovran lover, in -the forest. ‘O Lady, I keep my pact; for you -I pluck the fatal untouched cluster.’ Then she -gave me the kiss divine”.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span></p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p>The last word of the Isaotta idyll—<i>sovrumano</i>—rendered -above ‘divine,’ was an early symptom -of a development of formidable significance in -the prose and poetry of d’Annunzio during the -next twenty years. The ‘Superman’ had not -yet been discovered when he was a boy, but the -spirit to which <i>sovrumanità</i> appeals had from the -first run in his blood. His passion for sensation, -for strong effects, for energy, even for ferocity -and cruelty, was the concomitant of a genius -that strove to shatter obstacles, to bend others -to its will, and reshape its experience, as the -opposite genius of Pascoli submissively accepted -experience, hearing in all its vicissitudes reverberations -of the mournful memories in which his -soul was steeped. When d’Annunzio accordingly, -in the early nineties, discovered the work of -Nietzsche, he experienced that liberation which -comes to every man who meets with a coherent -exposition of the meaning of his own blind impulses, -and a great new word for his confused and inarticulate -aims. In Nietzsche he found a mind -more congenial to him perhaps than any other he -had known, more even than that of his master -Carducci, but, unlike his, congenial mainly to -what was most perilous and ill-omened in himself. -He loftily admitted the German his equal, a -great concession, and when Nietzsche died, in -1900, wrote a noble dirge ‘to the memory of a -destroyer,’—of the <i>Barbaro enorme</i> ‘who lifted up -again the serene gods of Hellas on to the vast -gates of the Future.’</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span></p> - -<p>When d’Annunzio wrote these words the Hellenic -enthusiasms, nourished by his acute sense of -beauty in a nature utterly wanting in the Hellenic -poise, had won, partly through Nietzsche’s influence, -an ascendancy over his imagination which -made it natural for him to render the Superman -in Hellenic terms. The serene gods of Hellas -symbolized for him the calmness of absolute -mastery, of complete conquest, all enemies -trampled under foot or flung to the eternal torments -of Erebus. This mood detached him wholly from -Shelley, and Byron, and the young Goethe. They -had gloried in Prometheus, the spirit of man -struggling against supreme deity on its Olympian -heights, and finally overthrowing it; whereas -d’Annunzio, like the riper Goethe, adores the secure -serenity of Olympus. ‘O Zeus, Father of Serene -Day, how much fairer than the chained and -howling Iapetid seemed in thy eyes the silent -mountain and its vast buttresses fresh with invisible -springs.’ And besides Prometheus, Zeus has -another enemy, Christ—the foe of beauty, and lord -of the herd of slaves with their slave-morality -of pity and submission. ‘O Zeus, he cries, I -invoke thee, awaken and bring on the Morrow! -Make the fire of heaven thy ploughshare to -plough the Night! Thou only canst purify Earth -from its piled-up filth.’</p> - -<p>We are not to look in all this for even so much -of definite ethical or philosophic content as we -find in Nietzsche. If Nietzsche was a poet imagining -in philosophic terms rather than a philosopher, -d’Annunzio was hardly capable of abstract thought -at all. On the other hand, Nietzsche could still<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> -less rival d’Annunzio in creative faculty, and the -series of d’Annunzian characters inspired or touched -by the spirit of Nietzschean <i>sovrumanità</i> may be -set against the richer intellectual and spiritual -substance of <i>Zarathustra</i>. No doubt this influence -was in the main disastrous for him; Nietzsche’s -heady draught intoxicated his brain with visions -of colossal and ruthless power, begetting images -of supermen and superwomen magnificent in -stature and equipment, in the glory of their flame-like -hair, and the crystalline beauty of their speech, -but wholly unreal and impossible. Nevertheless, -there were fortunate moments when the vision of -power was constrained by a human and moving -story to work within the limits of humanity. -And these moments, though few, atoned for much -splendid futility.</p> - -<p>Moreover, his vision of power came to include, -at moments, the bridling of his own -infirmities. There was always the making of a -soldier in the Abruzzan before he became one. -He was capable of an asceticism amazing to those -who know only the hothouse atmosphere of his -novels. Some of his most sumptuous prose and -verse was poured forth in the naked seclusion -of monastic cells, or in wild peasant houses far -from civilization; and only the most iron industry -could have achieved the enormous bulk of his -work.<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> Hence he can put into the mouth of -Claudio Cantelmo, in the <i>Vergini</i>, these evidently -autobiographic words: ‘After subduing the -tumults of youth, I examined whether perchance -... my will could, by choice and exclusion,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> -extract a new and seemly work of its own from -the elements which life had stored up within me.’ -There is a glimpse here of a finer psychological -and a deeper ethical insight than we often find -in d’Annunzio, and it might have led a man of -richer spiritual capacity to a loftier poetry than -he was ever to produce.</p> - -<p>But on the whole the clue thus hinted was not -followed up, and the tough nerve which might -have nourished the powerful controlling will of a -supreme artist, often served only to sustain those -enormities of the ferocious and the grandiose -which make dramas like <i>Gloria</i> and <i>La Nave</i> -mere examples of the pathology of genius.</p> - -<p>We touch here the crucial point. For these extravagances -were not mere momentary aberrations. -They were but the more pronounced manifestations -of fundamental deficiencies in the man, -which in their turn impoverish and dwarf the -poet. D’Annunzio, in one word, is wanting in -humanity; and because of his shallow and fragmentary -apprehension of the human soul, his -vision of power and beauty discharges itself in -barren spectacles of brute energy and material -splendour, for which he cannot find psychological -equivalents in grandeur or loveliness of character. -Shakespeare’s huge personalities—Othello, Lear, -Antony—are human in every trait, however much -they transcend our actual experience of men. -D’Annunzio tries to make violent actions and -abnormal passions produce the illusion of greatness -of soul, and disguises his psychological poverty by -the sustained coruscations of his lyric speech.</p> - -<p>In the meantime novels and poems and dramas<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span> -poured forth. The prolific later nineties saw the -famous novel <i>Fuoco</i> (1900), a picture of Venetian -splendour as gorgeous as that of Rome in <i>Piacère</i>, -but touched with the new joy in power; and the -dramas <i>Sogno d’un Mattino di Primavera</i> (1897), -<i>Gioconda</i>, and <i>Città Morta</i> (1898). In the last -named d’Annunzio’s vision of power assumes an -audacious and original form. It is here the power -of the vanished past to stretch an invisible hand -across the centuries and strike down youth and -life. The result is a tragedy that reproduces as -nearly as a modern dramatist may the horror -excited in ancient spectators by the doom of the -House of Atreus. Nothing indeed could be less -Greek than the structure and persons of the play. -Leonardo, a young archæologist, is excavating in -the ruins of Mycenæ. With him are his sister, -Beata Maria, and their friends Alessandro and -Anna his wife, a cluster of human flowers, full of -living charm and sap, transplanted into the ‘dead -city.’ But the dead city is not merely dead; it -is mysteriously fraught with the power of the -vanished past to control the present and the -future. Its mouldering ruins are the arena of a -struggle between Death and Life, in which death -triumphs and life receives the mortal blow. -Leonardo, obsessed with the <i>Oresteia</i>, is haunted -at night by visions of terrific blood-stained figures, -and has no thoughts by day but of penetrating -the secrets of their tombs. Alessandro, full of -the joy of life, seeks to detach him from these -preoccupations. ‘I hoped he would have come -with me and gathered flowers with those fingers -of his which know nothing but stones and dust,’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span> -and he is drawn to Beata Maria, herself the very -genius of glowing youth, ‘the one live thing, -says her friend Anna, in this place, where all is -dead and burnt ... it is incredible what force -of life is in her ... if she were not, none of us -could live here, we should all die of thirst.’ -‘When Beata Maria speaks, he who hears forgets -his pain, and believes that life can still be sweet.’ -She herself is devoted to the brother whose passion -seems to estrange him so far from what she loves. -She shares his Hellenic ardour, and innocently -recites Cassandra’s prophecy in the <i>Agamemnon</i>, -with Cassandra’s wreath on her golden locks, of -‘an evil, intolerable to the nearest kin, and -irreparable, preparing in this house.’ Anna, -struck with mysterious fear, stops her; but the -ominous words have been spoken, and foreshadow -a real doom. Beata Maria, the unconscious -Cassandra, will suffer Cassandra’s fate. The indestructible -virus of the dead city will poison the -glory of youth. The incestuous passion which -desolated the House of Atreus is not extinguished -in the crumbling dust of their tombs. A horrible -infection seizes Leonardo. He struggles vainly -with an impure passion for his sister. In only -one way can his love be purified, a way grievous -for him, and yet more grievous for her. She must -die; and he slays her among the tombs of the -‘dead city’ which has thus again laid upon the -living its mortal hand.</p> - -<p>The conclusion outrages our feelings, and -betrays d’Annunzio’s glaring deficiency in sympathetic -power. Whatever pity we feel for Leonardo -in his miserable plight is dispelled by his cynical<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span> -purchase of the purity of his own emotions at the -price of his innocent sister’s death. Here, as in -other cases, d’Annunzio’s fundamental want of -passion, and the strain of hard egoism which pervaded -the movements of his brilliant mind, gravely -injured his attempts in tragic poetry. Death was -doubtless the only solution; but it must be -another death—one that would have saved the -‘purity’ of Leonardo’s emotions by ending -them altogether. Leonardo, however, has the -ruthless energy of the Superman, and the innocent -life must be crushed that he may rise.</p> - -<h3>IV</h3> - -<p>Yet d’Annunzio’s vision of power, his appetency -of enormous and abnormal things, was now to -assume a new form. The grandiose dream of the -Superman expands into the dream of the Super-nation. -The discovery of Rome had taught him -something of the pride of citizenship, and more -than the nascent pride of nationality. But in -the last year of the century he underwent an -experience which turned this nascent emotion into -a passion, and the poet himself into a prophet and -preacher in its service, an ‘announcer’ as he was -fond of saying, of the cause and creed of <i>Italianità</i>.</p> - -<p>He had as yet seen nothing of Europe beyond -the Alps. In 1900 he made an extensive tour, -but in no tourist spirit. An Italian had no need -to go abroad for beauty of nature or of art, and -d’Annunzio’s keen eyes were turned in quite -other directions—to the great Transalpine nations -with their vast resources and their high ambitions; -and he measured their several capacities for success<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> -in the conflict which he, among the first, saw to -be impending. He was impressed by the threatening -growth of Germany, and by ‘the extraordinary -development of race-energy’ in England. -Everywhere the force of nationality was more -vehement than ever before. ‘All the world is -stretched like a bow, and never was the saying -of Heracleitos more significant: “The bow is -called Bios (life), and its work is death.”’</p> - -<p>But where was Italy in this universal tension of -the national spirit? Where was <i>her</i> strung bow? -How was <i>she</i> preparing to hold her own with -the great progressive nations of the North? -D’Annunzio flung down these challenging questions -in his eloquent pamphlet, <i>Della coscienza -nazionale</i> (1900). To the foreign observer the -trouble with Italy did not seem to be defective -ambition. She had rather appeared to take her -new rôle as a great Power too seriously, blundering -into rash adventures abroad when she ought to -have been spreading the elements of civilization -at home. But d’Annunzio had seen the race for -empire in the North, and his call to Italy was -the call of an imperialist; a call for unity of -purpose, for concentration of national wealth and -strength in the interest of a greater Italy, mistress -of the Adriatic, if not of the Mediterranean. It -was the beginning of a new phase of d’Annunzio’s -career. He was henceforth a public man, whose -voice, the most resonant and eloquent then to be -heard in Italy, counted, as poetic voices so rarely -do, in the direction of public affairs. He entered -Parliament, a proclaimed disciple in policy of -Crispi, the Italian Bismarck.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span></p> - -<p>How did these enlarged ideals affect d’Annunzio’s -work in poetry? In part, as has been hinted, -disastrously. The enlarged ideals lent themselves -with perverse ease, in a mind already obsessed -with <i>sovrumanità</i>, to a mere megalomania, a rage -for bigness, only more mischievous in practice, -and nowise better as literature, because it was -conveyed in terms of navies and transmarine -dominions. He had already in his fine series of -<i>Odi Navali</i> (1893) fanned to some purpose the -naval ambitions of his country. He now sounded -a loftier note, suited to the vaster horizons of an -Italian Mediterranean. These, for instance, are -some stanzas from the opening hymn or prayer -prefixed to his colossal naval tragedy, <i>La Nave</i> -(1908):</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O Lord, who bringest forth and dost efface</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The ocean-ruling Nations, race by race,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It is this living People by Thy grace</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Who on the Sea</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall magnify Thy name, who on the Sea</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall glorify Thy name, who on the Sea</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With myrrh and blood shall sacrifice to Thee</div> - <div class="verse indent4">At the altar-prow.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of all Earth’s oceans make Our Sea, O Thou!</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Amen!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The fourth book of the <i>Laudi</i> is a lyric celebration -in this spirit, of the Tripoli adventure -‘beyond the sea.’ But megalomania was happily -not the whole result. The older and deeper -instincts planted or quickened in d’Annunzio by -his earlier experience—the feeling for race and for -historic continuity—coalesced with the new and -vehement passion of nationality, communicating -to it, in moments of vision, something of their -human intimacy, and undergoing in their turn<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span> -an answering enlargement of range and scope. -If his <i>Italianità</i> was something more significant -than a resonant cry for more ships and territory, -it was because it drew warmth and insight from -the home sentiment for his Abruzzan province -deep-rooted in the poet’s heart; while the Abruzzan -province, in its turn, was seen in the larger and -grander setting of the Italian people and the -Roman race, but without the distorting nimbus of -megalomaniac dreams. This fortunate harmony -found expression chiefly in certain poems of the -years shortly before and after the beginning of -the new century, the golden period of d’Annunzio’s -production. To these years belong his two most -notable attempts to give to Italy a tragic poetry -built upon Italian history.</p> - -<p>In the material for tragic poetry no country -was richer, but it had been left to the genius of -foreign dramatists to give world-wide fame to the -stories of Romeo and Juliet, Beatrice Cenci, and -Torquato Tasso. Alfieri, the greatest of Italian -tragic poets, had devoted his austere art almost -solely to classical subjects; and his <i>Don Garzia</i> -and <i>Congiura de’ Pazzi</i>, with Niccolini’s <i>Arnaldo -da Brescia</i>, Monti’s <i>Galeotto Manfredi</i>, and Manzoni’s -<i>Conte di Carmagnola</i> and <i>Adelchi</i> stood -almost alone, as remarkable Italian tragedies -on Italian themes. In the story of Francesca of -Rimini, d’Annunzio found to his hand a native -tragic subject of the first order, not yet touched -by a tragic poet of genius, Italian or other. That -it had been made his own by the supreme poet -of Italy hardly disturbed d’Annunzio, deeply as -he revered the poet whose words, in the fine phrase<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span> -of his Dante Ode, clothed Italy like the splendour -of day. He was not going to challenge comparison -with Dante’s marmoreal brevity. And the poet -of Pescara had some title to regard this story of -the adjacent Adriatic sea-board of Rimini and -Ravenna, as his by right. But the story itself -has also exerted its moderating control upon the -natural prodigiosity of his invention, so that in -his Francescan tragedy it is possible to recognize -a general conformity to traditional technique.</p> - -<p>It is even possible that Shakespeare’s handling -of his Italian tragedy may have afforded a hint. -The ruin of Romeo and Juliet results from the -feud of the rival houses. The ruin of d’Annunzio’s -Francesca and Paolo is similarly rooted ultimately -in the feud of Guelf and Ghibelline. Her father, -a great Guelf captain, has sold her to the lord of -Ravenna, as the price of support against the -Ghibellines. But when her hand is thus plighted, -she has already seen his brother Paolo, with his -feminine beauty and luxuriant locks, pass under -her window, and the seed of their passion is sown. -Francesca has grown up ‘a flower in an iron soil,’ -and love throughout is set in a frame of war. But -she would be no d’Annunzian heroine if she did -not respond to the call of life and light. When -about to leave Rimini on her marriage she replies -to the pleading of her devoted young sister who -cannot live without her, ‘I am going, sweet life, -where thou canst not come, to a deep and solitary -place, where a great fire burns without fuel.’ Fire -is d’Annunzio’s haunting symbol for terrible and -splendid things, a symbol, too, for the strange -union of cruelty and beauty in his own mind and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span> -art, and it does not here forecast only the Inferno -flames in which she will move with Paolo so lightly -before the wind. In the palace at Ravenna we -see her among her ladies, chafing at her dull -seclusion, while the Ghibelline siege rages without. -A Florentine merchant displays his gorgeous wares -before them, a feast of scarlet and gold. Presently -Francesca has climbed to the tower where her -husband’s brothers are on guard. Bolts and -arrows crash against the walls or through the -loophole. A cauldron of Greek fire stands ready -for use. Francesca, to the horror of the soldiers, -fires it, and breaks into wild ecstasy at the ‘deadly -beauty’ of this ‘swift and terrible life.’ A -moment later a bolt pierces the curls of Paolo. -She thinks he is wounded, and clasps his head. -In that embrace he stammers the first word of -love. ‘They have not hit me, but your hands -have touched me, and have undone the soul -within my heart!...’ <i>Francesca</i>: ‘Lost! Thou -art lost!’ Thus, again, Francesca’s fate, like -Juliet’s, is provoked by the irrelevant feud of -parties without. But presently the same irrelevant -feud thrusts the lovers apart. Paolo is sent as -General of the Guelf forces to Florence. Francesca -in his absence reads the Lancelot romance with -her ladies. But Paolo, unable to endure his -exile, posts back to Ravenna, and rushes to her -chamber. The romance of Lancelot lies open on the -lectern. The place where the reading stopped is -marked; it is where Galeotto is urging Lancelot’s -suit upon Ginevra. They bend over the book -together. The following dialogue replaces Dante’s -single pregnant line:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span></p> - -<blockquote class="interlinear"> -<div><i>Pa.</i> Let us read a page, Francesca!</div> - -<div><i>Fr.</i> Look at that swarm of swallows, making a shadow</div> - <div class="margin">On the bright water!</div> - -<div><i>Pa.</i> <span class="margina">Let us read, Francesca.</span></div> - -<div><i>Fr.</i> And that sail that is glowing like fire!</div> - -<div><i>Pa.</i> (<i>reading</i>). <span class="margina">‘Assuredly,</span></div> - <div class="margin"> Lady,’ says Galeotto, ‘he does not dare,</div> - <div class="margin">Nor will he ask ye anything of love,</div> - <div class="margin">Being afraid, but I ask in his name, and if</div> - <div class="margin">I did not ask, you ought to seek it, seeing</div> - <div class="margin">You could in no wise win a richer treasure.’</div> - <div class="margin">And she says—</div> - <div class="margin">(<i>drawing Francesca gently by the hand</i>)</div> - <div class="margina">Now do you read what she says,</div> - <div class="margin">Be you Ginevra.</div> - -<div><i>Fr.</i> (<i>reading</i>). And she says: ‘Well I know it, and I will do</div> - <div class="margin">What you command. And Galeotto said:</div> - <div class="margin"> Grammercy, lady; I beg that you will give him</div> - <div class="margin">Your love....’</div> - <div>(<i>she stops.</i>)</div> - -<div><i>Pa.</i> <span class="margina">Read further!</span></div> - -<div><i>Fr.</i> <span class="marginb">No, I cannot see</span></div> - <div class="margin">The words.</div> - -<div><i>Pa.</i> <span class="margina">Read: ‘Certainly ...</span></div> - -<div><i>Fr.</i> <span class="marginb">Certainly,’ she says,</span></div> - <div class="margin">‘I give it him, but so that he be mine</div> - <div class="margin">And I utterly his, and all ill things</div> - <div class="margin">Made good’ ... Paolo, enough.</div> - -<div><i>Pa.</i> (<i>reading with a hoarse and tremulous voice</i>).</div> - <div class="margin">‘Lady, he says, much thanks; now in my presence</div> - <div class="margin">Kiss him, for earnest of true love’—You, you!</div> - <div class="margin">What says she now? What now?</div> - <div>(<i>Their pale faces bend over the book, so that their cheeks almost - touch.</i>)</div> - -<div><i>Fr.</i> (<i>reading</i>). She says: ‘Why should</div> - <div class="margin">He beg it of me? I desire it more</div> - <div class="margin">Than you....’</div> - -<div><i>Pa.</i> (<i>continuing with stifled voice</i>). ‘They draw apart.</div> - <div class="margina">And the Queen sees</div> - <div class="margin">The Knight dare go no further. Then she clasps him</div> - <div class="margin">About the chin, and with a long kiss kisses</div> - <div class="margin">His mouth....’</div> - <div>(<i>He kisses her in the same way. When their mouths separate - Francesca reels, and falls back on the cushions.</i>)</div> - <div class="center">Francesca!</div> - -<div><i>Fr.</i> (<i>with hardly audible voice</i>).</div> - <div class="margina">No, Paolo!</div> -</blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span></p> - -<p>The sequel is too long drawn out, and is marred -by the duplicity of all the persons concerned. -Malatestino’s sleuth-hound cunning brings about -the husband’s vengeance, but his strategy is animated -only by ferocious hatred of the lovers, not -by any care for justice. By his contrivance the -rough soldier, who has never suspected his own -wrongs, returns prematurely from the march, and -thunders at the lovers’ chamber door: ‘Open, -Francesca!’ The wretched Paolo tries to escape -through a trapdoor, but is dragged up by the -hair to be slain. But Francesca rushes to clasp -him, and the husband’s sword pierces her. -<i>Francesca da Rimini</i>, though a brilliant drama, -with innumerable beauties of detail, misses, like -the <i>Dead City</i>, the quality of great tragedy. Of -the principal characters Francesca alone excites a -fitful sympathy, while Paolo’s effeminacy provokes -a contempt which diminishes our compassion for -the woman whose love he has won. These coward -‘heroes’ who leave their mistresses in mortal -peril, or slay their sisters, or see their brides borne -to execution in their place, seem to haunt the -egoist imagination of the poet, to the grievous -hurt of his work. Yet when all is said, <i>Francesca</i> -is one of the most arresting, though dramatically -by no means one of the best, plays produced in -Europe during the first decade of the century.</p> - -<p>If the <i>Francesca</i> owed much to the stimulus -and the control of a great historic and literary -tradition, the rarer beauty of <i>La Figlia di Iorio</i> -(1904) was nourished on the old intimate passion -for his Abruzzan race and home. In language the -more moving, because in d’Annunzio so seldom<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span> -heard, he dedicated ‘To the land of Abruzzi, -to my Mother, to my Sisters, to my Brother in -exile, to my Father in his grave, to all my Dead, -to all my People between the Mountains and the -Sea, this song of the ancient blood.’ It betokened, -indeed, no mere recurrence to the scenes and -memories of his childhood, but a recovery, through -them, of the more primitive sensibilities and -sympathies which the complexities of an ultra -modern culture had obscured or submerged. The -shepherds and peasants of this ‘pastoral tragedy’ -live and move in an atmosphere fanatically tense -with the customs and beliefs of their catholicized -paganism; but no believing poet ever drew the -ritual of rustic unreason with more delicate -sympathy, or rendered its wild prayers and -incantations in more expressive and beautiful -song. For the poetry is not exotic or imposed; -like the songs of peasants in opera, it is found and -elicited. The young shepherd, Aligi, is drawn into -a kind of mystic relationship to Mila di Codra, -a witch-maiden dreaded and abhorred over the -whole countryside. But a bride has been chosen -for him by his family, and the scene opens on the -morning after their nominal bridal. Aligi’s three -sisters are seen kneeling before the old carved oak -chest, choosing her bridal robes, and vying with -each other in joyous morning carols. A band of -scarlet wool is drawn across the open door, a -crook and a distaff lean against it, and by the -doorpost hangs a waxen cross as a charm against -evil spells. Aligi looks on in dreamy distraction, -his thoughts far away. The women of the neighbouring -farms come in procession bearing gifts of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span> -corn in baskets on their heads. An unknown -girl follows in their train. Presently angry cries -are heard in the distance. The reapers are in -pursuit of Mila, whose spells have spoilt their -harvest; they have seen her enter the house, and -now they clamour at the door for her surrender. -The frightened women tremble, but Mila has -crouched down on the sacred hearth, whence it -would be sacrilege to remove her, and Ornella, -the youngest of the sisters, who alone secretly -pities Mila, draws the bolts. The storm of menace -grows louder, till Aligi, roused from his dreamy -absorption by the taunts of the women, raises -his hand to strike the suppliant on the hearth. -Immediately the horror of his sacrilege seizes him, -he implores her pardon on his knees, and thrusts -his guilty hand into the flame. Then he hangs -the cross above the door and releases the bolts. -The reapers rush in, but seeing the cross, draw -back in dismay, baring their heads. Aligi has -saved his ‘sister in Christ;’ but his guilt is not -effaced.</p> - -<p>In the second Act, Aligi and Mila are living -together, as brother and sister, in a mountain -cavern. He would fain go with his flocks to -Rome to seek dissolution of his marriage; but she -knows that happiness is not for her, and she will -not hurt him with her passionate love. But in -his home they know only that the witch-maiden -has decoyed the son away from his mother and -his virgin bride; Ornella, the compassionate sister, -is thrust out of doors, and now the father, who -had returned home only after the reapers had -gone, arrives at the mountain cavern in Aligi’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span> -absence, and peremptorily summons Mila. She -holds him defiantly at bay. He is about to seize -her, when Aligi appears on the threshold. In the -great scene which follows the Roman authority -of the Abruzzan father over the son overpowers -for the moment even the lover’s devotion. Not -softened by Aligi’s humble submission, Làzaro -binds him, flogs him savagely, and turns upon -Mila, now wholly in his power. At the moment -when he has seized her Aligi breaks free, rushes -upon his father, and kills him. The third act -opens with the mourning for Làzaro, in long-drawn -lyric dirges. Then harsher and fiercer notes are -heard, and Aligi, deeply penitent, appears black-robed -and bound, borne by the angry mob to bid -farewell to his mother before being led to the parricide’s -death. ‘To call you mother is no more -permitted me, for my mouth is of hell, the mouth -that sucked your milk, and learnt from you holy -prayers in the fear of God. Why have I harmed -you so sorely? I would fain say, but I will be -silent. O most helpless of all women who have -suckled a son, who have sung him to sleep in the -cradle and at the breast, O do not lift this black -veil to see the face of the trembling sinner....’ -The crowd tries to comfort her in its rough way, -and the mother gives her son the bowl of drugged -wine. Suddenly, confused cries are heard in the -rear, and Mila breaks her way impetuously through -the throng. ‘Mother, sisters, bride of Aligi, just -people, justice of God, I am Mila di Codra. I -am guilty. Give me hearing!’ They call for -silence, and Mila declares that Aligi is innocent, -and she the murderer. Aligi protests: ‘Before<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span> -God thou liest.’ But the crowd eagerly turns its -fury upon the dreaded sorceress who owns her -guilt, and the cry goes up: ‘To the flames! To -the flames!’ Aligi protests again, but with -growing faintness, as the deadening potion masters -and confuses his brain; till at length, when the -bonds have been transferred from his limbs to -Mila’s, he lifts up his hands to curse her. At -this felon stroke her spirit breaks down. With a -piercing shriek she cries: ‘Aligi, Aligi, not thou, -thou canst not, thou must not!’ She is hurried -away to the stake, only Ornella crying aloud: -‘Mila, Mila, Sister in Jesus, Paradise is for thee,’ -while Mila herself, now full of the d’Annunzian -exultation in glorious ruin, goes to her death -crying: ‘Beautiful Flame, Beautiful Flame!’</p> - -<p>A brief résumé such as this inevitably brings -into undue emphasis the melodramatic elements of -the plot. Yet it is the most human and natural, -as it is the most beautiful, of d’Annunzio’s dramas. -For the strangest things that happen in it are no -mere projections of the poet’s inspired ferocity or -eroticism, as so often elsewhere, but are grounded -in the real psychology of a primitive countryside. -We see its fear, love, hatred, now mysteriously -mastered by superstitious awe, now breaking rebelliously -from its control, now wrought by its -mystic power to else inexplicable excesses.</p> - -<h3>V</h3> - -<p>But even the finest dramatic work of d’Annunzio -makes clear that his genius is fundamentally -lyrical. The greatest moments of <i>La Figlia di<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span> -Iorio</i> and <i>Francesca</i> are uttered in a vein which -thrills and sings; while, on the other hand, these -moments are often reached by summary short -cuts, not by the logical evolution of great drama. -And it is fortunate that while he continued to be -allured by drama—giving in particular a very -individual rendering of the tragedy of Phædra -(1909)—d’Annunzio’s most serious and ambitious -poetry took the form of a festival of sustained -song, the <i>Laudi</i> (1903 onwards). We have already -quoted from the picture of his childhood drawn -retrospectively, in the opening book, by the poet of -forty. But these passages, though not at all merely -episodic, hardly disclose the deeper sources of -inspiration in this series of lyric cycles. ‘Praises,’ -he calls them, ‘Praises of the Sky, of the Sea, -of the Earth, of its Heroes.’ The glory of earth, -and sea, and sky had drawn more majestic praise -from the poet of the 123rd Psalm, though in his -naïve Hebrew way he ‘praised’ only their -Maker, not these ‘wonderful works’ themselves. -D’Annunzio’s ‘praise’ expresses simply the ravishment -of acute sensibilities in the presence of the -loveliness and sublimity of Nature and the heroism -of man, an emotion Greek rather than Hebraic. -Our poet is perhaps the least Hebraic of all modern -poets of genius; and if his barbaric violence -alienates him almost as completely from the -Hellenic temper, he is yet akin to it by his inexhaustible -joy in beauty. And in these years of -the <i>Laudi</i> Hellas had become more than ever the -determining focus about which his artistic dreams -revolved, the magnet to whose lure even the -barbarian in him succumbs. The first book, called<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span> -<i>Maia</i>, after the mother of Hermes, describes the -poet’s spiritual journey to the shrine of that god -of energy and enterprise, whose Praxitelean image, -the most magnificent expression of radiant virility -ever fashioned by the chisel, had not long before -been unearthed at Olympia. It is a journey of -discovery, and d’Annunzio invokes for it the -symbolism of the last voyage of the Dantesque -Ulysses to seek the experience that lay ‘beyond -the sunset.’ D’Annunzio turns his prow east, -not west, but he, too, is daring peril in the quest -of the unknown. A splendid Proem in <i>terza -rima</i>, ‘To the Pleiads and the Fates,’ takes us -to a rocky promontory by the Atlantic shore, -where, on a flaming pyre, the helm of the wrecked -ship of Ulysses is being consumed—the fiery consummation -which crowns most of d’Annunzio’s -heroic careers. The modern venturer, too, must -disdain safety, not like Galileo turning back into -the secure haven, but fronting the pathless sea of -fate with no anchor but his own valour. The -sequel does not, it is true, accord completely with -this Ulyssean vision. Symbolic imagery is interwoven, -in this ‘spiritual journey,’ to the ruin -of poetic coherence, with scenes from an actual -voyage to Greece, leaves from a tourist’s notebook, -incidents of steamer-life, games and talk on board, -sketches of fellow-passengers, the squalor and vice -of Patras. Presently the ship reaches Elis, and -then, as we enter the ruins of Olympia, the great -past, human and divine, rises up before us. -Pericles, Alcibiades, Themistocles obliterate the -tourist memories, and the poet holds high colloquy -with Zeus, and offers up a prayer, nine hundred<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span> -lines long, to Hermes—a lurid picture of the future -of humanity, as d’Annunzio imagined it, wrought -by the genius of Energy and Enterprise, Invention -and Will; a future dominated by men of rocky -jaw, who chew care like a laurel leaf, precipitate -themselves on life, and impregnate it relentlessly -with their purposes,—a significant image, for the -d’Annunzian Hermes is fused with Eros (v. 2904). -Eros was, indeed, indispensable, it might well be -thought, to a quite satisfying d’Annunzian divinity. -Yet in the fine colloquy with Zeus, which precedes, -he touches a deeper note, rare with him, of desperate -and baffled struggle with his own ‘vast sensuality.’ -He begs Zeus for a sign. ‘I am at war with -many monsters, but the direst are those, ah -me! which rise within me from the depths of -my lusts.’ ‘Thou wilt conquer them,’ replies -Zeus, ‘only if thou canst transform them into -divine children.’</p> - -<p>The monsters, nevertheless, continued to haunt -his later art. But happier moods were interposed, -when he found relief from their urgency -in poetic communing with the passionless calm -of Nature and of the dead things that cannot -die.</p> - -<p>Such moods in the second and third books of -the <i>Laudi</i>, <i>Elettra</i> and <i>Alcione</i>, both mainly written -before the <i>Maia</i>. The <i>Alcione</i>, in particular, is -the record of a true ‘halcyon’ season—of hours -or moments—in the poet’s stormy course. It -opens, indeed, with a savage denunciation—in -perfectly handled <i>terza rima</i>—of the demons, within -and without, that he has striven with. But now -for a while he calls a truce:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Washed clean from human foulness in cool springs,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">I need but, for my festival, the ring</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the ultimate horizons of the earth.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The breezes and the radiant air shall weave</div> - <div class="verse indent0">My new robe, and this body, purged from sin,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall dance, light-hearted and alert, within!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">Air and light and water do indeed play a large -and significant part in this benign experience, -and in the poetry which renders it. Water, we -know, had peculiar allurements for his imagination; -but now the obsession of fleets and arsenals -is overcome, and he looks out over the wide levels -of the Arno mouth, where fishing boats with their -hanging nets are seen, transfigured in the effulgence -of the west, like cups or lilies of flame upon the -water; or ‘on a June evening after rain,’ when -‘the gracious sky, tenderly gazing at her image -in the earth she has refreshed, laughs out from a -thousand mirrors.’ The solidity of the material -world seems to remain only in its most delicate -and attenuated forms—the crescent moon ‘slender -as the eyebrow of a girl,’ the lean boughs and -tapering leaves of the olive, the seashore sand, -not ‘ribbed’ as Wordsworth put it, but delicately -traced like the palate or the finger-tip. The poet -is visibly striving through these frail and delicate -things to escape his obsession into a realm of -spirit he divines, but cannot reach:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A slender wreath suffices, with few leaves,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Lest it with weight or any shadow burden</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The gracious thoughts of dawn!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">This is the language of no sensualist, but of a -mystic. And d’Annunzio in these poems again -and again approaches the poetic mysticism of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span> -Wordsworth, and of Shelley and Dante. As he -watches the dewy loveliness of evening, the earth -seems to dissolve in the ‘infinite smile,’ which -for Shelley ‘kindled the universe’;<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> and for -the Italian it is the smile of Beatrice. In the -child, who hardly exists for him before, the poet -of pitiless virility now sees not only ‘the father of -the man,’ but the soul implicitly aware of the -Truth we only guess at:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The immense plenitude of life</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is tremulous in the light murmur</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of thy virginal breathing,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Man with his fervours and griefs.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent10"> -*   *   *   *   * -</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou art ignorant of all, and discernest</div> - <div class="verse indent0">All the Truths that the Shadow hides.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If thou questionest Earth, Heaven answers,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If thou speak’st with the waters, the flowers hear.<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>There are hints, perhaps reminiscences, of -Wordsworth here; but d’Annunzio’s more obvious -affinity is doubtless with Shelley, whose Roman -grave he saluted in an ode of lofty eulogy and -sculptured grace.</p> - -<p>The lyric eloquence of <i>Alcione</i> undoubtedly -recalls the rush of Shelley’s music and the æthereal -liquidity of his style. Yet they touch across a -gulf of profound disparity. D’Annunzio, for all -his preoccupation with air and light and water, -never, either as man or as artist, escapes the -earth. The hard stuff of his egoism is never really -transmuted in the flame of love; nor does the -clear and delicate precision of his style ever -really dissolve in radiant suffusion. D’Annunzio’s<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span> -nature-world, like Shelley’s, is peopled with imagined -shapes, in which the myths of old Greece -are created anew. But here too their divergence -asserts itself. Shelley’s Prometheus is not really -earth-born, and his Asia is the hardly embodied -symbol of the ideal passion of his own soul. While -d’Annunzio’s Triton and Dryad are recognizably -akin to the sea or woodland life they spring from, -hued like the salt deep, and full of the sap of -earth. D’Annunzio is the greater artist, Shelley -the finer and the rarer soul.</p> - -<p>But these gracious idylls were, as has been -hinted, an episode. Nature could not replace -man; beyond ‘earth’ and ‘sea’ and ‘sky,’ -the ‘heroes,’ and especially the heroes and -heroic memories of Italy, called for his ‘praise.’ -Here, he felt, was the home of his spirit. The -gracious valley of Arno might be</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A cradle of flowers and dreams and peace;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the cradle of my soul</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Is the crashing chariot’s furrow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the stone of the Appian Way.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>The <i>Elettra</i>, the second book of the <i>Laudi</i>, is -mainly devoted to the memories of these vanished -glories. The resonant herald of the Third Italy -wanders, for instance, among the ‘Cities of Silence’—decayed, -half grass-grown capitals of vanished -dukes and extinct republics—Ferrara, Pisa, Pistoja; -oldest and grandest of all, Ravenna, the ‘deep -ship’s hull, heavy with the iron weight of empire, -driven by shipwreck on the utmost bounds of the -world.’<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a> Of the sequence of lyrics on the great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span> -enterprise of Garibaldi’s ‘Thousand,’ <i>La Notte di -Caprera</i>, it is enough to say that it is worthy of -being put beside Carducci’s Ode. After a quarter -of a century Garibaldi’s glory was no whit dimmed. -On the contrary, Italians who knew how many -gross blots defiled the Italy he had helped to -win, saw Garibaldi as a figure of ideal splendour -and purity on the further side of a foul morass. -The bitter disillusion of such minds is powerfully -painted in the moving piece: ‘To One of the -Thousand.’ An old Garibaldian sailor brings his -broken anchor-cable to the ship cordwainer to -be mended. He looks on, sombre, dejected, -silent, but thinking what he does not say; and -his thoughts are like this:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">The anchor-sheet is broken: let it be.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">No hope of mending. Give it up, go home!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Turn into scourges, cordsman, and halter-nooses</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Thy bitter twine.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Vilely supine lies the Third Italy,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A harlot-people put to basest uses,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And in her holy oak-grove’s shadow, Rome</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Pastures her swine.<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>But Rome, the eternal City, could only obscure -her destiny, not efface it; disillusion founded on -her moments of self-oblivion was itself the vainest -of illusions. That is the faith of the new Italian -Renascence, and d’Annunzio, the fiercest chastiser -of her oblivious fatuities, attains his loftiest note -of ‘praise’ in the Ode which prophetically arrays -Rome in glory as the future centre of the embodied -Power of Man.</p> - -<p>It is based on the legend, told by Ovid,<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a> of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span> -ship of the Great Mother, stranded in the Tiber -mud, and drawn to shore by the Vestal Virgin -Claudia Quinta. The opening stanzas tell the -story—the dearth in the city, the Sibylline oracle’s -counsel to bring the image of the Mater Magna, -the arrival of her ship in the river, the stranding -in the mud, the vain efforts of the entire city to -extricate it, until a Vestal Virgin, without an -effort, draws it to bank. Then the poet interprets -the symbolic legend:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">So, O Rome, our Rome, in its time</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent10"> - -*   *   *   *   *</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall come from far-off seas,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall come from the deep, the Power</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Wherein alone thou hast hope.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So, O Rome, our Rome, in its hour,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A heroic Maid of thy race</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall draw Her within thy walls.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Not a vessel immovably stuck</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the slimy bed, not an image</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Once worshipped in foreign fanes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall her pure hand draw to the shore;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the Power of Man, but the holy</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Spirit born in the heart</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the Peoples in peace and in war,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the glory of Earth in the glow</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Divine of the human Will</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That manifests her, and transfigures,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By works and deeds beyond number,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of light, and darkness, of love</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And hatred, of life and death;</div> - <div class="verse indent0">But the beauty of human fate,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The fate of Man who seeks</div> - <div class="verse indent0">His divinity in his Creature.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Since in thee, as in an imperishable</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Imprint shall the Power of Man</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Take form and image ordained</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the market-place and the Senate</div> - <div class="verse indent0">To curb the dishonour of Men.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent10"> - -*   *   *   *   *</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">O Rome, O Rome, in thee only,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the circle of thy seven hills,</div><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span> - <div class="verse indent0">The myriad human discords</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall find their vast and sublime</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Unity. Thou the new Bread</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shalt give, and speak the new Word.</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">All that men have thought,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Dreamed and endured, achieved</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And enjoyed, in the Earth’s vast bound,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So many thoughts, and dreams,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">So many labours and pangs,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And raptures, and every right won</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And every secret laid bare,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And every book set open</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the boundless circuit of Earth....</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shall become the vesture of thee,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thee only, O Rome, O Rome!</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thou, goddess, Thou only shalt break</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The new Bread, and speak the new Word!</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>On this note, the climax of his boundless national -faith, we will leave d’Annunzio. We are apt to -think that the tide of humanity has ebbed decisively -away from the city of the seven hills, and that -wherever its sundered streams may be destined -finally to flow together in unison, the Roman -Forum, where the roads of all the world once met, -will not be that spot. Yet a city which can -generate magnificent, even if illusory, dreams is -assured of a real potency in human affairs not to -be challenged in its kind by far greater and wealthier -cities which the Londoner, or the New Yorker, or -even the Parisian, would never think of addressing -in these lyrical terms.</p> - -<p>Few men so splendidly endowed as d’Annunzio -have given the world so much occasion for resentment -and for ridicule. His greatest gifts lend -themselves with fatal ease to abuse; his ‘vast -sensuality’ and his iron nerve sometimes co-operate -and enforce one another in abortions of erotics<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span> -and ferocity. But the same gifts, in other phases, -become the creative and controlling elements of -his sumptuous style. His boundless wealth of -sensuous images provides the gorgeous texture of -its ever changing woof. But its luxury is controlled -by tenacious purpose; the sentences, -however richly arrayed, move with complete -lucidity of aim to their goal; the surface is pictorial, -but the structure is marble. Thus this -Faun of genius, as he seems under one aspect, -compounded with the Quixotic adventurer, as he -seems under another, meet in one of the supreme -literary artists of the Latin race; a creator of -beauty which, however Latin in origin and cast, -has the quality that strikes home across the -boundaries of race, and has already gone far to -make its author not merely the protagonist of -the Latin renascence, but a European classic.</p> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V -<br> - -IS THERE A POETIC VIEW - -OF THE WORLD?</h2></div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span></p> - -<h3>SUMMARY -</h3></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="hang">View of the World, or ‘World-view,’ defined. Distinction of -<i>religious</i> and <i>philosophical</i> World-views. The present essay -attempts to define and describe a <i>poetic</i> World-view.—I. -Character of poetic experience. Types of belief about -Man and Nature to which it predisposes. Though rarely -detached from religious or philosophical presumptions, it -habitually modifies them, and the method here proposed is -to study, in some salient examples, the character and direction -of these modifications (p. <a href="#Page_150">150</a>).—II. (i) Modifications of <i>religious</i> -World-views by the poetic inspirations of Personality -and Love. <span class="smcap">Homer.</span> <span class="smcap">Æschylus.</span> <span class="smcap">Dante</span> (p. <a href="#Page_156">156</a>).—III. -(ii) Modifications of <i>philosophical</i> World-views: (<i>a</i>) Materialistic -schools. Epicureanism and <span class="smcap">Lucretius</span>. Poets of -Pessimism: <span class="smcap">Leopardi</span> (p. <a href="#Page_169">169</a>).—IV. (<i>b</i>) ‘Objective idealisms.’ -Stoic pantheism and <span class="smcap">Vergil</span>. <span class="smcap">Wordsworth.</span> <span class="smcap">Shelley.</span> -Philosophic doctrine of ‘Nature’ in <span class="smcap">Wordsworth</span>, and in -<span class="smcap">Goethe</span>. <span class="smcap">Spinoza</span> and <span class="smcap">Goethe</span> (p. <a href="#Page_184">184</a>).—V. (<i>c</i>) ‘Subjective -idealisms.’ ‘Mind’ in the philosophers and in the poets of -the age of <span class="smcap">Wordsworth</span>. The poets subordinate (1) the -rational to the emotional and imaginative factors of soul: -<span class="smcap">Wordsworth</span>, <span class="smcap">Blake</span>, <span class="smcap">Shelley</span>, and (2) moral categories to -a good ‘beyond good and evil.’ Of this poetic ethic the most -vital constituent is Love; and Love, comprehensively understood, -will be an intrinsic element of every World-view won -through poetic experience (p. <a href="#Page_198">198</a>).</p> -</div> -<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span></p> - -<p>V</p> - -<p><b>IS THERE A POETIC VIEW - -OF THE WORLD?</b></p> -</div> - -<p class="noin"><span class="dropcapb"><span class="dropfix">‘</span>V</span>IEW of the World’ is a clumsy phrase for -an idea which itself has for most of us -an unattractive flavour of pedantry. This latter -impression is hardly removed by a knowledge of -the part which, under the neater and more expressive, -term <i>Weltanschauung</i>, it has played in German -literary study. <i>Weltanschauung</i> is the indispensable -final chapter without which no German biography, -the confidential disclosure without which -no German friendship, is complete. A <i>Weltanschauung</i> -or ‘World-view,’ in its full scope, comprehends -ideas about life of quite distinct categories; -it touches metaphysics and science, ethics -and æsthetics; it offers an answer to Faust’s -question ‘what it is that at bottom holds the -world together,’ but also to the practical questions, -what is the end of action and how we ought -to act.</p> - -<p>Historically, we know, the answers to these -questions occur, in great part, as successive steps -in continuous or closely-connected processes of -thought. But between these continuous processes -yawn gulfs which no argument can bridge. From<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span> -Bacon through Hobbes to Locke we can trace -something like a connected development. But -between Hobbes and his contemporary Boehme -there is a cleavage due not to bad reasoning on -either side, but to a radical difference in the kind -of experience from which the reasoning in the -two cases set out. And the history of belief indicates -that there are at least two types of elemental -experience which thus generate ideas about the -world, and to which two great classes of World-view -in essence correspond. These may be distinguished -as the <i>religious</i> and the <i>philosophical</i>. -In the first, thought is dominated by the consciousness -of a power or powers distinct from -man, controlling his fate, protecting his country -or his tribe, determining his moral code, his scheme -of values, and his expectations after death. From -the crudest fetishism and animism to the loftiest -theism, a living relation to such a Power is the root -fact from which the religious World-view takes its -origin and derives its character.</p> - -<p>On the other hand, we find a vast and complex -body of conceptions of the world which do not -originate in intercourse with a divine Power, or -in the fear or hope which such a power may inspire, -but in the effort to give a finally and universally -valid account of experience.</p> - -<p>Naturally, neither these nor any other type of -World-view, if such there be, are mutually exclusive -in substance and content. Religion may reach the -conclusions of philosophy, and philosophy those -of religion, each by a path strictly its own. Historically, -the two attitudes to life have intimately -interacted; and if the religious type has on the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span> -whole shown less power of resistance to the penetration -of ideas of the opposed type, on the other -hand modern philosophy, in particular, has often -built upon, and not seldom with, ideas first begotten -not by speculative curiosity, but by the rapture -or the agony of God-intoxicated or demon-haunted -souls. The eternal war of Ormuzd and Ahriman -still echoes in the Hebraic intensity of our distinction -between good and evil; and the visionary -ecstasies of the mystics were of account in the -evolution of philosophic pantheism. And, similarly, -the edifices of theology have borrowed -fortifying buttresses or indispensable pillars from -ideas evolved by scientific reason or a purely -secular interpretation of good. Aristotle, applied -and interpreted by Aquinas, became one of the -masters, not only of those who know, but of those -who believe. Nevertheless, the two types have, -on a comprehensive survey, stood distinctly apart; -and their ramifications appear to dominate between -them the entire field of belief and speculative -thought.</p> - -<p>Is it possible, nevertheless, to distinguish a third -type of ‘World-view’ analogous to these? In -other words, is there any third kind of experience, -distinct from that of either religion or philosophy, -yet involving an apprehension of reality comparable -in originality, and possibly in importance, -with theirs? The present essay is based upon -the view that such an experience is given in and by -poetry.<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span></p> - -<h3>I</h3> - -<p>For the specific experience which comes to a -poet through poetry, however it may be interwoven -with religious or philosophic ideas, has a radically -different psychological origin and character. It is -equally intense and absorbing, but it is not determined -by conscious relation to an outer power, -and it seeks to express rather than to explain. -It is neither transfigured fear or hope, nor yet a -logical process. In the making of a poem there -may be even a conscious detachment from actuality, -and the poet may float free in a dream world, -apparently without thought of the world which -he inhabits. The poetic may well be thought to -differ from the religious or the philosophic types -of experience less in inducing any specific way of -contemplating reality than in liberating us from -the necessity or desire to contemplate it at all.</p> - -<p>Yet it is certain that the poet’s detachment, -even in his most ethereal dream-flights, from -reality, is only apparent. In all the spontaneous -and seemingly arbitrary movement of his mind -among its crowding ideal shapes, reality through -his stored-up experience is at work, quietly weaving -a thousand subtle filiations between the poem -and the life of men at large. <i>Othello</i> is much -farther from ‘actuality’ than the poor novel on -which its story was based; but it is penetrated with -the vision of life, of which Cinthio’s tale caught so -feeble and fugitive a glimpse. What distinguishes -poetic from religious or philosophic apprehension -is not that it turns away from reality, but that it -lies open to and in eager watch for reality at doors<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span> -and windows which with them are barred or -blind. The poet’s soul resides, so to speak, in his -senses, in his emotions, in his imagination, as well -as in his conscious intelligence; and we may provisionally -describe poetic apprehension as an intense -state of consciousness in which all these are -vitally concerned. In so far as a particular outlook -upon the world is founded upon a particular type -of experience, a poet’s World-view will be radically -affected by his senses, emotions, imagination. The -flower which Wordsworth contemplated on the -bank or by the lake, and that other which Tennyson -with his more curious scrutiny plucked from the -crannied wall, could stir these poets’ intellect and -heart to the depths; and their apprehension, as -poets, of God and man, of Nature, of Duty, would -have been different without it.</p> - -<p>But in any case, it will be said, even if we grant -that poetic experience tends to induce some way of -regarding reality, it cannot possibly induce any -constant or definable way, if elements of mind so -infinitely diverse, so individual, as emotion and -imagination, are vitally concerned in the process. -That energizing of mind released from the control -of actuality, which we call imagination, that free -following out of trains of suggestion called up by -emotion, takes the colour, at every step, of the -individual make of the poet’s nature, and the -individual cast of his experience. In so far as a -World-view is strictly poetic in origin, the conclusion -might seem hard to resist that there may -be as many poetic World-views as there are poets. -And it is true that the individual quality of the -poet will always cleave to whatever is strictly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span> -poetic in his thinking. But even so, it may be -possible to determine typical directions in which -poetic apprehension tends to engender or to sway -belief, and to modify ideas imbibed in education -or accepted on authority.</p> - -<p>Thus, it may be provisionally laid down that a -view of the World reached through poetic experience -will tend to accentuate those aspects of Man and -Nature, and those ways of regarding them, which -offer most scope, analogy, or sanction, to this -type of experience. Where the senses play a vital -part, and are yet vitally implicated with passion -and ideas, there will be little disposition to doctrines -which either brand the senses as evil or illusory, -or erect them into a sufficing faith. The logical -intellect, its processes and conclusions, will receive -a respectful but distant salute, while the irrational -elements of life are accepted as its needful ingredients -or even as a supreme source of its worth. -Love, which tramples on reason, and, in the great -words of à Kempis, warmly glows like a flame -beyond all measure, may be called in some sense -the natural religion of the poet. The mysterious -love of man and woman, in particular, irrelevant -to most of the problems of philosophy, and regarded -by religion chiefly as a dangerous disturbing force, -is one of the perennial springs of poetry, and one -of the shaping analogies of poetic thought. And -the same impassioned insight which gives significance -to this love exalts also all those other energies -of the soul which carry men out of and beyond -themselves. Poetry is naturally heroic; it has -presided over the cult of the hero, as religion and -philosophy over those of the saint and the sage;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span> -it has rewarded him with enchanting secular -Paradises, Elysian fields, Isles of the Blest, and -Temples of Fame. Poetry is disposed to magnify -human nature; the transition from Aeschylus, -who painted men greater than they were, to -Euripides, who drew them after life, is also a decline -in the intrinsic temper of poetry, if in that alone. -And because of its bent to think greatly of man, -it makes for the assertion, in the great sense, of -<i>freedom</i>—of man’s freedom to be himself. Neither -the shibboleths of political freedom nor those of -free thought have always, it is true, found response -among poets. Their part has rather been to keep -alive in mankind the temper which treats outward -obstacles not as the soul’s constraints, but as its -opportunities; the faith that iron bars do not -make a cage, and that you may be bounded in a -nutshell, and yet not only count yourself, but be, -a king of infinite space.</p> - -<p>In the interpretation of Nature, poetic experience -works creatively or selectively on similar lines. -To those wonderful deposits of the imagination of -the past, the myths of extinct faiths, from which -theology and philosophy have long withdrawn -their sanction, or on which they have laid their -taboo, the poets have habitually been very tender. -And when they felt as poets, the image drawn -from a myth has never had merely decorative -value, or served merely as a ‘poetic synonym’ for -the exact term. It expressed something in the -poet’s vision not otherwise to be put into words. -If the glorious anthropomorphism of Olympus and -Asgard has faded for ever, the mystery of life -everywhere pulsing through Nature, and perpetually<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span> -reborn in ‘Man and beast and earth and air and -sea,’ cries to the poet with a voice which will not -be put by; and the symbols by which he seeks -to convey his sense of it, if they read personality -too definitely into the play of that elusive mystery, -yet capture something in it which escapes the -reasoned formulas of science.</p> - -<p>Hence many great philosophic ideas about the -universe which, without ascribing life or mind to -it, might seem projected from our inner, rather -than gathered from our outer, experience, have -powerfully appealed to poets. The antithesis of -the One and the Many, which fascinated and -fertilized every phase of Greek thought, had one -of its roots in the acute Greek feeling for continuity -through change, which is equally manifest in the -Parthenon and in the Pindaric Ode, and to a less -degree in all art and poetry wherever the sense -of rhythm is present at all. ‘When we feel the -poetic thrill,’ says Santayana, ‘is it not that we -find sweep in the concise, and depth in the clear?’ -That felicitously expresses the genius of Hellenic -art in particular; but it also marks off the specifically -poetic apprehension of Oneness as a ‘something -deeply interfused’ in and through the living multiplicity -of the world, alike from the mystic vision -of a One whose splendour dissolves the reality of -things, and from the vision of Peter Bell, for whom -nothing but ‘things’ exists. Yet even this pregnant -Oneness has commonly gathered, in the poetic -conception of the universe, the higher and richer -attribute of soul-life. It has become a living and -working Nature vitally implicated in every organ -and filament, or Mind diffused through every<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span> -limb, or Love, or Beauty, or Power, woven through -the woof of it, or the splendour of God irradiating -it through and through.</p> - -<p class="p2">When we turn, as is proposed in what follows, -from these general considerations to watch the -actual operation of poetic apprehension in concrete -examples, we naturally encounter some serious -difficulties. Poetic apprehension may be as distinct -and definable as we will, but it can rarely -be caught acting <i>in vacuo</i>. Poets are men; they -are usually citizens; they are often penetrated -with some form of religious or philosophical faith. -It is inevitable, in such cases, that their strictly -poetic experience should be coloured or even -overridden by ideas proper to their possibly more -habitual or more deeply established persuasions. -In poets like Goethe and Shelley, deeply concerned -with the issues of life outside poetry, philosophic -and poetic impulses and data may well seem -inextricably mingled. Even Blake and Whitman, -who perhaps come nearer than any other moderns -to shaping out a poetic World-view for themselves, -evidently worked, as poets, under a deep -bias of revolutionary dogma, which made them -unjust to some aspects of poetry itself. And with -poet-exponents of great theological or philosophical -systems, like Lucretius or Dante, it may well -appear idle to seek to catch the moment when the -runnel of poetry carved out a watercourse of its -own, instead of falling into and moving along -with the great tide of Epicurean or Catholic thought. -Yet we attach some meaning to our words when -we distinguish periods in which the poetic element<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span> -in a poet’s nature was more potent than at others. -When we say, for instance, that in Shelley the -poetic apprehension after 1812 worked itself progressively -free from an alien philosophy; or that -in Wordsworth, from about the same date, it -became progressively overlaid by a theology almost -equally alien; or that in Dante’s <i>Convito</i>, the poet -of the <i>Vita Nuova</i>, who will finally recover dominance -in the <i>Commedia</i>, has yielded much ground -to the scholastic thinker. Distinctions so clearly -felt and sharply drawn cannot be groundless. -What is here proposed is to examine whether any -typical character or direction can be discovered -in the modifications which the data of religious or -philosophical beliefs and ideals have undergone -in certain commanding poet natures. In that -case we might possess some of the material for -answering the question I have been bold enough -to suggest in the title of this paper.</p> - -<h3>II</h3> - -<p>I begin with examples in which these data are -derived from <i>religion</i>; and, in the first place, from -religion still untouched by philosophic reflection. -Without rashly assuming the solution of unsolved -or insoluble problems, one may venture to assert -that the Homeric epics owe their present form neither -to purely religious awe nor merely to conscious and -deliberate artistry, but to a poetic apprehension -of the world operating upon the data of the savage -cults and rituals, the animism, totemism, and -magic, which anthropology is gradually deciphering -under the palimpsest of their obliterating splendour.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span> -With some aspects of the process we are not here -concerned. If ‘Homer,’ as many modern scholars -suppose, disliked human sacrifice and similar barbarities, -and tempered or effaced the record of them, -he reflects the growing efficacy of civilized, but -not necessarily of poetic, ideas. It is otherwise -with the transformation, whatever its precise -nature and history, which put the defined character -and rich personal accent of the Homeric -Olympus in place of the psychological fluidity and -incoherence of primitive religion. For the childhood -of poetry the change possibly involved a loss. -A world where there are no barriers, or none which -magic cannot dissolve, where gods and men and -beasts pass over into one another without resistance -or demur, where everything can be done and -had if the right formula be pronounced and the -due charm applied—such a world is the home and -habitat of the fairy tale; but its facile instability -must be overcome before a mature poetry, no less -certainly than before a mature science, can arise. -The Homeric outlook upon the world had as a -religion grave flaws, which merited the strictures of -later moralists; but it had also, as a religion, -magnificent qualities to which they rarely did -justice. His deathless figures permanently raised -the status of man and the ideals of human achievement; -and every line of the poetry is instinct -with an assurance of the glory of the world and the -goodness of life, and the nobility of heroic emprise, -and of reverence and of pity, which justly made -his book the Bible of later Greece.</p> - -<p>Yet it is plain that even Homer reflects or finds -reflection in but a limited tract of the Greek mind;<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span> -that there were many deeper, as well as darker, -currents in the Greek way of apprehending the -world, of which that radiant mirror shows no -trace. Humanity had triumphed over the superhuman -as well as over the subhuman, clarity over -mystery as well as over confusion. The Ionian -thinkers of the sixth century swept away the -fables of Olympus, fastened on the problem of -substance, and proclaimed the sublime discovery -that the All is One. The Orphic cults and the -Thracian orgies of Dionysus betrayed by the widespread -and intimate hold which they won in Greek -life, refined and humanized as they doubtless were, -that religion in Greece too included the riot of -intoxicated rapture as well as clear-eyed piety; -the Bacchic frenzy, which carries men beyond themselves, -as well as temperate self-reverence and -self-control. Both these new elements enriched -and uplifted, if at some points they also impoverished -and degraded, Greek mentality and the -Greek apprehension of the world, religious, philosophic, -and poetic alike. The philosophic apprehension -of unity reacted on religion, and the two -strains coalesced in the sublime theism of Cleanthes’ -hymn. The Dionysiac rapture reacted on philosophy—without -it should we have had the great -doctrine proclaimed in the <i>Phædrus</i>, of the divine -vision won through madness and love? And both -reacted upon poetry—above all on tragedy, with -its stringent ideal of unity, maintained and manifested -through all the phases and moods of conflict, -and the alliance, disclosed in its very structure, -of Apolline clarity and order with the lyric exaltation -of Dionysus. But the matter of tragedy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span> -shows yet more evidently the larger and deeper -World-view which poetry has now won. In passing -from Homer to Aeschylus we enter an atmosphere -in which the gods are hardly ever visible, but -which is laden and tense with the sense of divine -things. His persons, it was said, are more than -human; certainly his gods are sometimes—like the -Zeus of the <i>Prometheus</i>—less than divine. But the -Aeschylean universe has outgrown Olympus without -having dispossessed it. A soul of immense -reach and depth, apprehending life from many -sides, but always with a sense of vast issues and -inexhaustible import, here interprets the old stories -of man’s relations with the gods, and leaves us with -a new vision of the possibilities and responsibility -of man. His tragic conflicts call incommensurate -forces into play, and their apparent solution leaves -yet larger problems unsolved. The story of Prometheus -ended with his reconciliation to Zeus; -and this doubtless expressed the poet’s deliberate -intention and design. The modern world has -remembered Prometheus, not for his final surrender -or appeasement, but as the assertor and embodiment -of something in man which stands over -against the gods he recognizes, and not only endures -unflinchingly all that their utmost anger can -inflict, but arraigns them himself before a law of -Justice higher than their own. Æschylus, we -know, was a devoutly religious man, and never -dreamed of surrendering his reverence for the -divine because of the crimes of the gods. Possibly, -as Wilamowitz has suggested, he believed that -divinity itself had passed through a youth ‘full -of foolish noise’ to become with ripening years<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span> -a righteous God and Father, worthy at length of -universal reverence. Reverence for such an erring -divinity is hardly distinguishable from forgiveness; -in any case it foreshadows, if it does not announce, -the clear recognition of human responsibility. And -that recognition is already dominant in the mature -work of Æschylus. The traditional superstitions -which still entangled the Greek mind—the doctrine -of an irresistible fate, or of a divine jealousy -attending human greatness—dissolve under the -scrutiny of his terrible insight. Man is free even -in his crimes, and the greater because he is free. -Clytaemnestra chooses and wills as freely as Lady -Macbeth; she is as little the helpless victim of the -curse of Atreus as the other of the Witches’ spell. -It needed a great poet thus to embrace in his -vision of life things incompatible to common -sense. ‘Whether Æschylus is greater,’ declares -the penetrating interpreter to whom I have referred, -‘when he uplifts our hearts by the full tones of -surrender to the divine, or when he thrills us with -the terrible acts and sufferings of human freewill, -every one must decide for himself from his own -experience; but let no one say that he understands -the poet until he has known them both.’<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a> The -poet’s eye, ‘glancing from heaven to earth, from -earth to heaven,’ overcomes the antinomies of -theological dogma; and herein lies one of the -most signal services which poetic apprehension -has rendered to thought, and not least to religion.</p> - -<p class="p2">To pass from Æschylus to Dante is to watch -operations of poetic intelligence in which only the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span> -environment, the material, and the instruments -of expression are profoundly changed. The words -just quoted of the Greek might apply without the -alteration of a syllable to the Florentine; and if -ever poet saw earth and heaven at once it was he. -But the theological World-view which he found -was more authoritatively established, more intellectual -in its philosophical substance, and more -rich and beautiful in its human appeal. The -fresh fountain of religious feeling, still abundantly -flowing, was fortified and entrenched within a -vast structure of elaborated dogma, for which -councils and saints had supplied the architects and -the masons, and ancient philosophy the stones. -Within this imposing edifice, nevertheless, Dante, -with complete conviction, found and made his -home. No one now questions the absoluteness of -Dante’s Catholic faith, and we should seek in vain -for any rebellious upsurging of the poet in him -against the starkest of scholastic abstractions. -On the contrary, his wonderful gift of style continually -finds the material for poetry in the most -seemingly arid regions. Sometimes the result is -merely an astonishing <i>tour de force</i>; but often we -become aware that Dante has not only invented -but discovered, and that many a dogma which -has the air of being the mere husk of religion is -in reality the imperfect, stammering utterance -through which religious passion sought to make -itself articulate. Dante, in short, makes us feel -in these constructions of the intellect the language -of the soul.</p> - -<p>To do this needed something more than devout -belief. It needed the imaginative intuition of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span> -poet. The poetry of Dante was distinguished -from that of his older contemporaries above all -by being just this intense soul-vision put into -words. ‘I simply write down what Love within -dictates.’<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> Psychological veracity never fails him. -Allegory, in so many hands a tissue of personified -abstractions, becomes, in his, a living image of -humanity. Symbolic meanings and applications -interweave and encircle it, but the core is real. -His vision is only on the surface a description—necessarily -speculative—of the fortunes of souls -after death; its substance, as he tells us, is ‘man -of his freewill choosing good or evil here.’ The -human denizens of his hell and purgatory and -paradise have undergone no inner change; they -are the men he had known, in their spiritual habits -as they lived; and their fate, when Dante is thinking -most as a poet and least as a theologian, is a continuation -of their crucial actions. That Paolo and -Francesca are immersed in unquenchable flames -satisfies the theological idea of retribution; Dante -inflicts on them the more searching penalty of being -for ever locked in the embrace of their illicit love. -And how often, when he thinks he is devoutly -following out to the last consequence the Church’s -dogma of eternal punishment, he is unconsciously -testifying to the poet’s sublime faith in the soul -of man as stronger than death and hell. ‘Who -is he,’ asks Dante, looking upon Capaneo (<i>Inf.</i> -xiv. 46), ‘who seems not to heed the flame, but -lies fiercely unsubdued by the fiery vein?’ Or -the yet greater picture of Farinata (<i>Inf.</i> x. 85), -defiantly erect where the rest grovel in agony,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span> -‘as if he held hell in great disdain.’ Even the -criminals whom the poet most abhors, and thrusts -into the very depths of the abyss, even the traitors -guilty of the death of Cæsar or of Christ, he allows -still to show greatness of soul; Brutus, champed -to a bloody foam in the jaws of Lucifer, is still the -Stoic philosopher, and though he writhes in agony, -utters not a word (<i>Inf.</i> xxxiv. 66). And how -wonderfully in the great Ulysses scene (<i>Inf.</i> xxvi) -the poet takes the pen out of the hand of the -theologian, and, forgetting the ‘fraud’ for which -the captor of Troy is doing penance in hell, compels -us to listen entranced to his tale of that last voyage, -beyond the sunset, of the old wanderer, still insatiable -of experience, who had kindled his shrinking -comrades by bidding them ‘Consider of what seed -ye are sprung; ye were not made to live like the -brute beasts, but to follow after virtue and knowledge.’ -Strange words to issue from the quenchless -flames of hell! But Dante goes beyond this. -For the sake of the heroism of Cato, he flatly -violates the theological categories which condemned -him to hell, and makes him the guardian of Purgatory.<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a> -As for the rest of the ‘virtuous heathen,’ -he cannot indeed transfer them from the hell to -which the Church has assigned them—a hell much -more ferocious than any of which they had dreamed—to -Elysium. But he does what he may, and he -provides for them within the precincts of hell an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span> -Elysium of green lawns and running streams, ‘the -one place in the Inferno where there is light and -air’ (<i>Inf.</i> iii). The theological ethic of sin is thus -unconsciously crossed, again and again, by the -poetic ethic for which ‘good’ means greatness of -soul.</p> - -<p>Moreover, with a depth of spiritual insight -strangely in contrast with the vulgar notion of -punishment which dictated the theological hell, -Dante has asserted, even in this realm of iron -necessity, the freedom of man. The inmates of -hell are not convicts condemned and punished for -sins long since repented of: they are there of their -own motion and by their own will; and if there -is no hope there, it is not because God has no -mercy, but because they cannot repent. The souls -in Purgatory are held there by no compulsion; -they desire nothing but to be purified of their -sins, and the moment they desire to mount to -Paradise, that moment they are free.</p> - -<p>It would be strange, then, had Dante, with all -his sense of supreme cosmic forces, not stood for -the faith that man is yet the ‘captain of his soul.’ -There he is at one with Æschylus and Milton, -and the other great theological poets of the West. -Man’s ‘freedom’ is a root idea of the Comedy; -and not merely because its purpose was to show -him ‘in the exercise of freewill,’ determining his -fate hereafter. Dante went much farther than -this. A devoted Catholic and citizen, and eager -to welcome the authority both of Church and State, -he was driven by the corruption of the one and the -anarchy of the other to seek ‘another way’—the -way of spiritual self-help with the aid of philosophy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span> -and theology, along which he is led by Vergil and -Beatrice. The great farewell words with which -Vergil leaves him in the Earthly Paradise, ‘I -crown and mitre thee king and bishop over thyself,’ -express with thrilling power the individualist—nay, -the revolutionary—side of his thought. -He would not have been the great poet he was -if it had been the only side. Dante’s reverence -for Vergil and for Beatrice is of the very substance -of his self-assertion; he has crowned and mitred -himself by taking them for his guides, and the -result is the great poetic cosmos eloquent beyond -all the other masterpieces of the world of devout -discipleship, and yet instinct in every line with -the ardour of a soul ‘voyaging through strange -seas of thought alone.’</p> - -<p>But the name of Beatrice points to another -aspect of Dante’s work on which the impress of -the poet in him is yet more unmistakably set. -Measured by the range and compass of thought, -and by the richness and delicacy of feeling, which -the term in his usage conveys, Dante is the first, -as he is the greatest, of the poets of Love. His -poetry recovers and renews, or at the least suggests -and recalls, all the varieties of intellectual and -emotional experience for which philosophy, religion, -and romance had, before his time, found in ‘Love’ -the final expression, or the speaking symbol. The -cosmic love (φιλία) by which Empedocles had -first interpreted the universal phenomena which -we still, hardly less anthropomorphically, know as -‘attraction’; the passion for another human being -(ἔρως) in which the author of the <i>Phædrus</i> and the -<i>Symposium</i> discovered one of the sources of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span> -divine exaltation which emancipates men from -their human limits, and endows them with the -vision of reality; the love of God for man, and of -man for God (ἀγάπη), proclaimed as the very core -of Christianity in the Fourth Gospel—these three -types of love, all denoted for Dante by <i>Amor</i>, -<i>amore</i>,<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> were conjoined in his experience with a -fourth, distinct from all, though nearly allied to -the second: the romantic love of woman which -had been the chief inspiration of the poetry of -Provence, and which, however sublimated and -spiritualized, is enshrined in the <i>Vita Nuova</i>. To -say that Dante’s mind, equally powerful in analysis -and in synthesis, confounds these distinctions -would be unjust; but it would be equally untrue -to assert that their associations are never blended. -Christian philosophy had itself absorbed the first; -cosmic attraction then reappeared in a sublime -apotheosis, as the love which draws all the universe -towards God, and by which God, as its source, -‘moves the sun and the other stars.’ And if -Dante, in his treatise on poetry,<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a> distinguishes -himself from the poets of ‘love’ as a poet of -‘morals,’ or ‘righteousness,’ he also, as we saw, -ascribes his whole power as a poet to his writing -what love dictated in his heart. Man in virtue -of his freedom has power to misuse Love, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span> -Dante everywhere scornfully contrasts the higher -and the baser love. Nay, all sin which can be -‘purged away’ he regards as due to ‘love’ wrongly -used; the whole population of Purgatory is there -because it loved unwisely, or loved indifferent -things too well, or right things too little. But the -harm here, for Dante, arises not from love, but from -the application to it of the evil material in man’s -nature—‘as a foul impress may be set upon the -most precious wax.’<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a></p> - -<p>Something of the idealizing atmosphere which -Christianity and Plato had thrown about love -thus always colours it in Dante’s mind. But it -is also subtly touched with that other idealizing -force which not Christianity but the poets had -recognized, which Christian ethics had contemptuously -tolerated or scornfully tabooed. Dante -had known the love of woman in many forms. -Longing for the absent wife and child had consumed -his flesh and his bones in exile;<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> and his -virginal adoration of Beatrice sprang from no -coldness of the blood. The power of womanhood -to lift men to supreme heights of vision and fortitude, -which he had divined through Beatrice and -sung in the great canzone of the <i>Vita Nuova</i>,<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> no -more passed out of his faith than did her image -from his memory. Nor was it for nothing that -his master Vergil had forgotten the political and -imperial purpose of his poem in making Dido the -most moving heroine of antiquity. If the Comedy -is a great scheme of salvation, it is also a great -song of womanhood such as, he said, no man ever -sang before; and if we say that Beatrice is there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span> -a symbol for Theology, that is doubtless true: -but a thousand phrases remind us how much she -symbolizes besides; and the look ‘in the eyes of -Beatrice,’ which draws Dante upward through the -circling spheres of Paradise to the beatific vision, -attests also his faith in the power of the lover’s -adoration to lift a man out of his humanity -(<i>trasumanar</i>), and make him ‘joyful even in the -flames.’</p> - -<p>Thus Dante, though he counted himself not -among the poets of love, but among the poets of -‘righteousness,’ is one of the inspiring sources -of the modern poetry which invests the love of -man and woman with the ideal attributes which -philosophy and religion had proclaimed in other -forms of love, but had ignored or repudiated in -this. In Spenser—Platonist, Christian, and lover -at once—the fusion of the three strains is complete; -his great hymns to Love, who</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent10">is lord of all the world by right,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And ruleth all things by his powerful saw,</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">prelude his even greater hymn of marriage. Even -Chaucer perhaps learnt from Dante that amazed -awe with which, in the opening lines of one of his -earliest Italianate poems, he contemplates the -‘wonderful working’ of love.<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a> The Petrarchists -and Sonneteers went far to reduce the expression -of this love to hollow phrase-making. But with -Romanticism it found fresh and original utterance, -and its status in the world has never been more -loftily affirmed than by Celtic Romanticizing poets<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span> -of to-day. ‘I say that Eros is a being!’ declares -one of the finest spirits among them. ‘It is more -than a power of the soul, though it is that also. -It has a universal life of its own.’<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a></p> - -<h3>III</h3> - -<p>The power of personality and the glory of love: -these have emerged from our discussion thus far -as the things in life whose appeal to poetic intelligence -was most potent in modifying the substance -or changing the perspective of a World-view derived -from religion. We have now to examine, in a -fashion unavoidably even more fragmentary and -summary, the reaction of another series of poetic -minds upon the more complex and abstruse World-views -of <i>philosophy</i>.</p> - -<p>It is necessary for the purpose to adopt a rough -grouping of philosophic systems, and I take the -following division into three fundamental types, -based with qualifications upon one proposed by -Wilhelm Dilthey in the essay already referred to.</p> - -<p>To the first belong the naturalistic schools, from -Democritus to Hobbes and the Encyclopedists, -deriving their philosophical conceptions directly or -indirectly from an analysis of the physical world, -and commonly disdaining or ignoring phenomena -not to be so explained. To the second type of -thinkers the objective world is still the absorbing -subject of contemplation; but it is approached not -from the side of physics, but from the side of self-conscious -mind; it is felt, not as material for -causal investigation, but as responsive to the human<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span> -spirit, now as living Nature, now as immanent -God, now as a progressively evolving Absolute. -Here, with various qualifications, we may class -Heraclitus, the Stoics, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel. -In the third type, the focus of interest and the -determining source of philosophic ideas is the -self-conscious mind itself. It feels profoundly its -own energy and power of self-determination; and -it regards the objective world not as deeply at one -with it, responsive to its feeling, accessible to its -thought, but rather as a threatening power against -which it must vindicate its spiritual freedom and -build its secure spiritual home. In the philosophies -of this type, personality—which the first -type ignored and the second reduced to an organ -of a world process—became the fundamental condition -of our experience, as with Kant and Fichte, -or a transcendent personal God shaping the universe -to his mind, as with the Plato of the <i>Timæus</i>.</p> - -<p>If we now consider these three types in relation -to our problem, it seems evident that the second -and the third are naturally more congenial to -poetry than the first. Yet we know that one of -the greatest of Roman poets made it the work -of his life to expound the atomic Naturalism of -Epicurus to an unreceptive Roman world.</p> - -<p>The naturalism of Democritus and Epicurus, -though framed purely in the interest of scientific -explanation, and hostile both to poetry and to -religion as commonly understood, was potentially -a great poetic discovery, the disclosure of a Worldview -wholly novel and of entrancing appeal to the -poetic apprehension. The sublime perspectives of -an illimitable universe, the permanent oneness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span> -underlying the changing shows of sense: these -were contributions of philosophy to a poetic outlook -of which no poet had yet dreamed, and which -it was reserved for the greatest of philosophic poets -to make explicitly his own.</p> - -<p>But the new way which Lucretius was the first -to tread was not to be pursued. He had for many -ages no successors. His difficult conquest of poetry -from a mechanical system, designed to explain, -not to inspire, was only to be emulated by a poet -of combined intellectual and imaginative grasp -comparable with his own. On the whole, the -science and the poetry of Lucretius, after that -moment of intense incandescence, fell apart. Vergil, -who as a young man saw the rising of this magnificent -lonely star in the Roman firmament, and -of all his contemporaries perhaps alone understood -its significance, honoured the discoverer of the -causes of things, but his own philosophy was of -a cast easier to harmonize with the idealisms of -poetry. From the side of science, Gassendi and -the physicists of the seventeenth century valued -the Lucretian exposition of atomist theory as a -welcome supplement to the fragments of Democritus -and Epicurus. But before the nineteenth -century scientific materialism was never again allied -with great poetic power. The eighteenth century -saw an immense advance in the scientific reconstruction -of our beliefs about the world, but its -nearest approaches to the negations of Lucretius -were conveyed only in the prose of a D’Holbach -or a Hume, while its most brilliant English poet, -far from wrestling, like his friend Berkeley, with -the new spectre of materialism raised by the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span> -triumphs of Newton, afforded himself and his -readers complete satisfaction by decorating the -easy harmonics of deism in the <i>Essay on Man</i>. -The immense quickening of imaginative power -which marked the decades immediately before -and after the close of the century widened the -chasm between poetry and any mechanical view -of the world. If at certain points (as in Shelley’s -and Coleridge’s early chemical ardour, and Goethe’s -momentous biological researches) poets make fruitful -approaches to science, it was because they -found in science itself an apparent release from -the mechanical point of view, a clue to their ultimate -faith (however differently expressed) in a -divine, benignant Nature. The recovery of imagination -told, in philosophy as in poetry, for the -most part, is a wonderful idealization of the -universe, culminating in Hegel’s evolution of -the Absolute and in Wordsworth’s awe before the -Mind of Man—conceptions which must be discussed -in a later section.</p> - -<p>But in some very distinguished poetic minds -the recovery of imaginative power led to no -idealization of the world. It rather enabled them -to present with a peculiar poignant intensity a -world stripped bare of ideal elements, in which -goodness and hope are alike illusory, and Nature -is either a dead mechanism or a cruel, implacable -and irresistible alien Power. Leopardi, Schopenhauer, -Leconte de Lisle, and (on a lower plane) -James Thomson, were the most conspicuous examples -in the nineteenth century of poetic genius -(for Schopenhauer’s work is a colossal poem of -pessimism) absorbed in the contemplation of a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span> -universe as denuded as that so passionately embraced -by Lucretius, of love or hope for man.</p> - -<p>A situation analogous to that of Lucretius -arises, therefore, in their case. Their world offered -no foothold to the optimist: was it equally bare -of support for the poet? Bacon’s assertion that -poetry submits the shows of things to man’s -desires might imply that; but Bacon (who, incidentally, -thought slightly of Lucretius) ignores -the poetry born of a conviction that the shows -of things are finally unalterable by man’s desires, -and it is Leopardi, even more than Lucretius, who -has shown us how sublime the poetry which rests -on this lonely stoicism may be. One might even, -in certain moods, be tempted to attach a yet -higher value to the temper of this lonely heroism, -which faces a blankly hostile universe utterly -without support, than to that which exults in -conscious Oneness with a universe pervaded by -Love or Beauty, by benign Nature or God. The -loneliness of Prometheus is more moving as poetry -than his rapturous union with Asia. Why is this?</p> - -<p>I take it that it is because the lonely Prometheus, -the heroic striver with a loveless world, makes us -more vividly aware of the Spirit of Man, and that -what moves us most in the great poetry is the -revelation of the Spirit of Man even more than -the revelation of the glory of the universe. We -have seen that these two are natural poles of poetic -faith, that is, conclusions upon which the thinking -of any poet who thinks as a poet, will tend to -converge; and if he is thwarted in the one aim -he will fall back with the more energy upon the -other.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span></p> - -<p>Now this vivid consciousness of spirit, whether -shown in heroism or in love, is ultimately inconsistent -with a creed which strips the universe of -all ideal elements; and where this is in possession, -undermines and disintegrates it. The ‘Everlasting -No’ yields ground to the Everlasting Yea; or negation -itself is impregnated with divinity, as when -Leconte de Lisle glories in his <i>néant divin</i>. To -imagine heroism intensely is to be convinced that -whatever else is illusory, heroism is not an illusion, -that the valour of man has a kinship and support -somehow, somewhere, in the nature of things. -And if heroism is not an illusion, human society -is no illusion either. For the heroic struggler with -infinite odds is no longer alone; the army of saints -and martyrs are with him; and it was the poet -for whom loneliness opened ways into infinity -beyond any companionship who cried to one such -heroic struggler, fallen in the fight—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent10">Thou hast great allies.</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Thy friends are exultations, agonies,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And Love, and Man’s unconquerable mind.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>I propose to illustrate the working of the forces -which thus qualified a creed of negations, from -the impressive case of Leopardi.</p> - -<p>In Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) we have a poet -in whom astonishing power and wealth of mind -were united to a complete rejection of the theological -and philosophical apparatus of consolation. -The mental revolution which left him in early -manhood entirely denuded of the beliefs in which -he had been reared, was final, and left no trace -of reaction or regret, of hesitation or doubt. An<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span> -absolute calm of secure conviction marks the entire -subsequent course of his short life. Few men -who have ‘found religion,’ once for all, have been -brought by it into an anchorage so secure from -inner or outer assault as this man who at twenty-two -discovered that religion was a dream.</p> - -<p>With supernatural belief fell from him also every -form of secular faith and hope for man. Religion -was but one among the crowd of cherished illusions -which cheat men with the expectation of happiness. -Human happiness was always founded on illusion, -and the pursuit of it was therefore vain. Hence -all the organized energies of civilization, the activities -of business or politics, of science or art, of the -professions, of state administration, counted in his -eyes at best as distractions which blinded those -who engaged in them to the deadly vision of truth. -For himself these distractions and the relief they -brought were impossible, for he had seen the -truth; and the remorseless analysis which shattered -the basis of illusion on which they rested, -sapped the impulse to share in them. Of the -state, and the patriotisms which bind its members -together, he was as sceptical as Ibsen, without -sharing his idealizing homage to the man who -stands alone. In the <i>Storia del Genero Umano</i> he -makes Jove introduce the diversities of peoples -and tongues among men, seeds of emulation and -discord, and send forth among them the ‘phantoms’ -known by the names of Justice, Virtue, -Glory, and Love of Country. ‘Humanity’ itself -was an illusory bond, and the ‘nations’ of the -world were ultimately its individual men.</p> - -<p>Yet Leopardi does not denounce crime. Man is<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span> -for him more unhappy than criminal; and his evil -qualities are to be laid to the charge of the Nature -that made him. He is more sinned against than -sinning, and Leopardi’s profound pity, if often -derisive and scornful, never passes into invective. -His passionate upbraidings of his countrymen in -the boyish canzone <i>Italy</i>, like his ardent aspiration -after national glory for his country and poetic -fame for himself, disappear from the melancholy -calm of the <i>Bruto Minore</i> and the <i>Ginestra</i>.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">A great and potent spirit</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Shows itself in enduring, nor will add</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Fraternal hatred, worst of evils, to its griefs</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By blaming Man for them, but lay the charge</div> - <div class="verse indent0">On the true culprit,—Mother of mankind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By right of birth, and Stepmother in heart.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">‘Nature,’ which planted us in this earth, exposed -us from birth till death to malign afflictions and -lured us into constant pursuit of illusive aims, is -responsible for the wrongs which men inflict upon -one another in the vain chase; and Leopardi’s -nearest approach to the passion of humanity -which inspired Shelley, a few years earlier, is the -cry of appeal to men which breaks from him, after -uttering this indictment of Nature, to band themselves -together against her:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Her count the foe, and against Her,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Believing that man’s race, as is the truth,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Was foreordained to be in league,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Count all mankind as born confederates,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And embrace all with unfeigned love,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Rendering and expecting strong and ready succour</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In the changing perils and the anguishes</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of the common warfare.<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span></p> -<p>Man in the grip of Nature is like the anthill -crushed by a chance-falling apple, and the lava -field of Vesuvius, covering extinct cities, where -but the broom plant sheds a forlorn fragrance, -aptly symbolizes the desolate earth he is doomed -to tread. While this earth itself, a vanishing film -of vapour in the universe, traverses by its insignificance -his dream of immortality. And his -humorous irony sports, in the prose dialogues, with -this annihilating disparity between man’s pretensions -and the truth.<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a></p> - -<p>Yet the effect of Leopardi’s work—and especially -of his poetry—is at many points subtly to rectify -his desperate view of the world. He cannot suppress -the uprush of pity for those whose career -in it is prematurely cut short, however his reason -may persuade him that they are fortunate.<a id="FNanchor_43" href="#Footnote_43" class="fnanchor">[43]</a> The -noble pathos of the Attic grave monuments, representing, -for instance, a young girl in the act of -taking leave of her friends, overpowers the reflections -of his philosophy, and he wrestles in moving -verses with the enigma:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent8">Ah me! why at the end</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Of paths so grievous, not ordain at least</div> - <div class="verse indent0">A happy goal? But rather robe in gloom</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And terror that for which through life</div> - <div class="verse indent0">We long as the sole refuge from our woes,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And show us, yet more dread than the stormy sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The port we make for?</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>A portrait of a beautiful woman, carved also -upon her tomb, overwhelms him with the wonder<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span> -of beauty and the paradox of its conversion into -dust:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Ah, human nature, how,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If utterly frail thou art and vile,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If dust thou art and ashes, is thy heart so great?</div> - <div class="verse indent0">If thou art noble in part,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">How are thy loftiest impulses and thoughts</div> - <div class="verse indent0">By so ignoble causes kindled and put out?<a id="FNanchor_44" href="#Footnote_44" class="fnanchor">[44]</a></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Not less acutely he feels the paradox of artistic -creation. Like Abt Vogler he contemplates the -‘palace of music’ reared by the performer’s hand:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">Desires infinite</div> - <div class="verse indent0">And visions sublime</div> - <div class="verse indent0">It begets in the kindled thought, ...</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where along a sea of delight the spirit of man</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Ranges unseen, as some bold swimmer</div> - <div class="verse indent0">For his diversion the deep....</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>But a single discord shatters this paradise in a -moment. Abt Vogler’s creation is not shattered; -he has played to the end, and put the last stone -in its place. But it has vanished, and he calls in, -to save it, his high doctrine of the eternity of -created beauty. Leopardi has no such faith, and -he puts the doctrine to a severer test by dissolving -the spell of beauty before it is complete. Yet he -feels as acutely as Browning the marvel of the -musical creation, and that its abrupt dissolution -does not cancel the significance of its having been -there at all. He does not openly confess that -significance, but it stirs in him a tormenting sense -of anomaly.</p> - -<p>He comes nearer to such confession when he -speaks of love. His own experience of love was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span> -that of a virginal passion; the ideal exaltations -which make every lover something of a poet had -their way in this great poet unclouded by vulgar -satiety. He knows well enough that love arrays -the woman, for the lover, in ideal charms not her -own; but instead of lamenting or deriding this -illusion, as illogically he should have done, he -glories in it. Love, like music, ‘reveals the mystery -of unknown Elysiums,’<a id="FNanchor_45" href="#Footnote_45" class="fnanchor">[45]</a> but these ‘lofty images’ -are accessible only to the man; woman cannot -understand them; for such conceptions there is -no room in her narrow brow. The stern derider -of illusions has here no praise for the sex which -sees things as they are: the unconscious idealist -in Leopardi takes the side of the ‘illusions.’</p> - -<p>And his way of speaking about Love elsewhere -is less that of the pessimist philosopher than of -the Platonist poet who sees in it a clue to real -vision. The pessimist in him does full justice to -the havoc wrought in the world in Love’s name; -but after the gods had watched the working of the -lower love, their cynical gift, Jove sent down -another Love, ‘child of Venus Urania,’ in pity of -the noble hearts who were worthy of it, yet rarely -permitting even to them the happiness it brings -as ‘surpassed in too small a measure by that of -heaven.’<a id="FNanchor_46" href="#Footnote_46" class="fnanchor">[46]</a> Love above all else irradiates the waste -of life, it is ‘the source of good, of the highest joy -found in the ocean of existence’; it alone holds -equal bliss for man with Death, which for ever allays -his ills. ‘Love and Death’ are twin brothers, and -the fairest things on the earth or under the stars.<a id="FNanchor_47" href="#Footnote_47" class="fnanchor">[47]</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span> -Even the memory of love can make ‘abhorred old -age’ endurable, and send a man willingly to the -scourge or the wheel, as the face of Beatrice could -make her lover ‘happy in the flames.’<a id="FNanchor_48" href="#Footnote_48" class="fnanchor">[48]</a> Hence -Love makes the heart ‘wise,’ for it inspires men -with the contempt of life:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">‘For no other lord do men face peril</div> - <div class="verse indent0">With such alacrity as for him.’</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Where thou dost help, O Love, courage is born</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Or wakens; and, against its wont, mankind</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Grows wise in action, not lost in idle thought.<a id="FNanchor_49" href="#Footnote_49" class="fnanchor">[49]</a></div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p>This is not the language of pessimism; and this -‘wisdom’ inspired by love, which reconciles men -to courageous death, is something quite other -than the calculation that death is a release from -life’s ills. That is the suicide’s wisdom, not the -hero’s. Leopardi’s conception of Love has taken -up nobler elements than his pessimism could -supply; he describes a Triumph of Love over -Death, not a shrewd perception that Death is the -easiest way out, or even a blessed port after stormy -seas.</p> - -<p>Yet Love in its noblest form was given, he knows, -but to few; and he himself had known it only as -a fleeting experience. He knew as a continual -possession, on the other hand, his own intellectual -nature, the sovran thought which stripped off the -illusive shows of things and disclosed to him the -naked horror of reality undisguised, but filled him -none the less with the exultation of power, and the -lofty joy which belongs to discovery even of a tragic -truth.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span></p> - -<p>Such exaltation finds its most powerful expression -in the great hymn to ‘Thought the Master.’ His -restless and piercing intellect was a double-edged -instrument. It was not the source of his pessimism, -but it furnished the remorseless analysis of the -glories and shows of life which gave its air of -inevitable logic to his temperamental despair. Yet -the exercise of the instrument was itself a vivid -joy, and, like love, created for the wielder a lonely -earthly paradise within the vast waste of this -earthly hell.<a id="FNanchor_50" href="#Footnote_50" class="fnanchor">[50]</a> There he wanders, in an enchanted -light, which blots out his earthly state; thither -he returns from the dry and harsh converse with -the world as from the naked crags of the Apennines -to a joyous garden smiling afar. Is this -‘terrible but precious gift of heaven’ also an -illusion? Perhaps; but it is one ‘by nature -divine,’ and capable of possessing us with the -secure tenacity of truth itself, as long as life -endures.<a id="FNanchor_51" href="#Footnote_51" class="fnanchor">[51]</a></p> - -<p>In any case it created for him definite and wonderful -values in the world which detracted dangerously -from the consistency of his faith in the world’s -fundamental badness. ‘Thought’ was the only -civilizer; by thought mankind had actually risen -out of their primeval barbarism;<a id="FNanchor_52" href="#Footnote_52" class="fnanchor">[52]</a> it was the -sole agent in advancing the public welfare. His -towering disdain for the frivolity and utilitarianism -of his own age sprang from no mere excess of -self-esteem; it was the scorn of one whom ‘thought’<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span> -had lifted to a standpoint of ideal excellence beside -which all alien impulses seemed intolerable.<a id="FNanchor_53" href="#Footnote_53" class="fnanchor">[53]</a> It -armed him with a magnanimity which the sight of -any cowardly or ignoble act stung to the quick, -which laughed at danger or at death,<a id="FNanchor_54" href="#Footnote_54" class="fnanchor">[54]</a> which could -endure with resolute Stoicism and antique valour -the passage through the miseries of life.<a id="FNanchor_55" href="#Footnote_55" class="fnanchor">[55]</a></p> - -<p>But thought had its peculiar joys also, less -equivocal than these. It fed on the sublimity -even of the desolate world, on the loneliness of -nature, on the infinity of the starry depths. In -the lines on ‘The Infinite’ he describes a favourite -haunt—a lonely hill, from which the horizon is on -all sides cut off. ‘There I sit and gaze, fashioning -in thought boundless distances, superhuman -silences, and profoundest rest.... In this immensity -my thought is drowned, and shipwreck in -that ocean is a joy.’</p> - -<p>And converse with thought gives him, too, the -vision of ideal beauty—a vision which quickens -the ecstasy of his most rapturous moments. It is -no pallid dream; the fairest face he meets seems -but a feigned image of its countenance, a derivative -streamlet from the one sole source.<a id="FNanchor_56" href="#Footnote_56" class="fnanchor">[56]</a> That -ideal beauty is his lady, but he had never seen -her face, for nothing on the earth is like her, or -were it like in feature, or in voice, it would be -less in beauty.<a id="FNanchor_57" href="#Footnote_57" class="fnanchor">[57]</a> Leopardi is here very near to -Shelley. The visionary ideal of beauty and love -was not less vividly present to him; but the sterner<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span> -temper of his pessimism was less easily persuaded -that it had projected itself into the being of any -earthly Emilia. The ‘Intellectual Beauty’ of -Shelley’s hymn had its seat and stronghold in a -like glow of inner vision, but its ‘awful loveliness’ -was more abundantly hinted or disclosed in the -world of nature and of man, giving ‘grace and -truth to life’s unquiet dream,’ and luring the -sensitive poet on to the pursuit of a thousand -fugitive embodiments of its eternal essence. Leopardi’s -language, marmoreally clear-cut and austere, -seems to bear the impress of a mind powerfully -self-contained, exempt from all seductions of -the senses, even of colour and melody, calm with -the resolution of despair. Shelley’s language, dissolving -form and outline in an ethereal radiance, -seems the mirror of a self-diffusive genius which -saw all things through the veil of its own effulgence. -Leopardi has been called ‘the most classical -of the romantics’; Shelley was in some sense -the very soul of romanticism. But as this very -comparison implies, the romantic temper glowed -in both. In both, the long travail of existence -was crossed by the exultations of the visionary -and the idealist. With Leopardi, martyred in -his prime by painful disease, the gloomy shades -closed in more and more impenetrably upon the -world of man and nature, and death was happy -because it was the end of life. With Shelley the -universe grew more and more visibly transfigured -by a spirit deeply responsive to his own; all things -worked and moved in beauty, and were woven -through and through with love. In Leopardi’s -more tenacious intellect the negations of a corroding<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span> -criticism were less easily overcome. But -nature, which had armed his brain with that -corroding criticism flung across it also the rapturous -delight in beauty, in love, in the creative -energy of thought itself, and there were moments -when poetry transported him beyond the iron -limits of his creed, to the belief that love and -beauty and thought are neither illusory nor the -sources of illusion, but signs and symptoms of an -ideal reality.</p> - -<h3>IV</h3> - -<p>The poetry of negations strives instinctively -towards fuller affirmation: that is the purport of -our survey hitherto. We have seen in a previous -essay how Lucretius the poet saw this mechanical -universe through a transfiguring atmosphere of -passion and pathos, attachment, regret, not dreamt -of in his philosophy.<a id="FNanchor_58" href="#Footnote_58" class="fnanchor">[58]</a> And there are signs enough -that had that philosophy admitted, what it fiercely -denied, those ideas of a living and personal or -even divine Nature, or of a universe pervaded -by God, which respond to poetic apprehension at -the point where the Epicurean naturalism left it, -as it were in the lurch, he would have eagerly -embraced them.</p> - -<p>Now it was precisely those ideas of life and -personality present in Nature, or even pervading -the universe, which prevailed among philosophic -thinkers of the <i>second type</i>, who inquired (to put<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span> -it in the roughest way) not how the world might -have come about, but what it meant. For the -answer, infinitely varied in its terms, uniformly -postulated that the idealism of man reflected -something answering to it in the very nature of -reality. Two profound suggestions towards an -ideal conception of the world, thrown out by the -genius of Greece, could still intoxicate the intellect -of early nineteenth-century Germany:—the Heracleitean -idea of the harmony of opposites, and the -Platonic and Stoic doctrine of the soul of the -world. Of the first I say nothing more here; -for Heracleitus, pregnant as his dark sayings are -with poetry, has never had his Lucretius.<a id="FNanchor_59" href="#Footnote_59" class="fnanchor">[59]</a> The -doctrine of a world-soul, on the other hand, has -again and again helped poetry to articulate her -rapturous apprehension of the glory of the world. -For European speculation, at least, the conception -had its origin in the <i>Timæus</i>, where the last perfecting -touch of the divinely-appointed artificer -who constructs the world is to give it a ‘soul’ -and make it ‘a blessed god.’</p> - -<p>In the pantheism of the Stoics, the idea of a divine -world-soul set forth in this grandiose myth became -a radical dogma, one of the chief sources of their -significance as an intellectual and moral force. -At Rome the Stoic pantheism softened the rigour -of national and social distinctions. The humanity -of the Roman law lies in the direct line of its -influence. In the mind of the most sensitive and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span> -tender of Roman poets, on the other hand, the -Stoic idea fell upon a soil rich in qualities uncongenial, -if not unknown, to its native habitat. -Stoic thought in Vergil, no less than Epicurean -in Lucretius, has taken the colour of that richer -soil. The sublime verses which he puts in the -mouth of Anchises have riveted this solution, if -such it be, of the world-riddle upon the mind of -posterity; but the real contribution of Vergil is -less in any expressive phrase or image than in the -diffused magic of a temperament in which all subtle -and delicate attachments wonderfully throve; -where, more than in any other Roman mind, the -‘threefold reverence’ of Goethe, the reverence for -what is above us, for what is below us, and for -our fellow-men, found its congenial home.</p> - -<p>And it is not hard to see how sheer poetic instinct -drew him this way. His two great masters in -poetry, Homer and Lucretius, had inspired and -helped to mould a genius fundamentally unlike -either. The majestic pageant of the Olympians -was not at bottom more consonant to his poetry -than the scorn which tramples on all fear of divinity -and puts the roar of Acheron under its feet. The -Jupiter and Venus and Juno and Pallas who so -efficiently order the changing fortunes of Æneas -are but a splendid decoration, like the Olympian -figures in Raphael’s frescoes at the Farnesina. -And well as he understands the bliss of the triumphant -intellect, of Man become the master of -things, he is himself content with the humbler -joys of one who has acquaintance with Pan and -the Nymphs, with the gods of the woodland and -the fountain-spring. These were real for him, not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span> -it may be with the matter-of-fact reality of the -senses, but as speaking symbols of something more -deeply interfused, less articulate than man, but -more articulate to man’s spirit than the fountains -or the flowers.</p> - -<p>The great pantheistic phrases of Vergil have -echoed, we know, throughout the after-history of -poetry. We might even be tempted to say that -pantheism, in some sense, must be the substance -of any ‘poetic view of the world.’ But if so, it -must be a pantheism which owes at least as much -to the entranced intuition of the poets as to the -abstract thinking of philosophy. Their ecstasy of -the senses, their feasting joy in the moment, and -in the spot, have enabled them not merely to -express the creed of pantheism with greater freshness -and sincerity, but to give it interpretations -and applications of which theoretic speculation -never dreamed. We should not prize the great -lines of <i>Tintern Abbey</i> so far above the eloquent -platitudes of the <i>Essay on Man</i> if we did not feel -that Pope was merely putting philosophy at second-hand -into brilliant verse, while Wordsworth had -not only reached his thought through his own -impassioned contemplation, but actually given it -a new compass and profundity not attainable by -any logical process. He found his ‘something -more deeply interfused’ as he looked with emotion -too deep for tears upon the humble flower and the -simple village child, or remembered the experiences -of his own wonderful boyhood; and these were -for him not merely portions of a body of which -God was the soul, but themselves luminous points, -or running springs, of spiritual light and life. So<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span> -that if his poetry touches doctrinal pantheism -(which he never names) at one pole, at the other -it is nearer to the spiritual fetishism of St. Francis’s -hymns to Brother Sun and Brother Rain.</p> - -<p>It is easier to distinguish definite philosophic -ideas at work in the poetic apprehension of Shelley. -We know in any case that they played an immensely -greater part in his intellectual growth. -Plato and Dante have helped him to those wonderful -phrases in which he seeks to make articulate -his rapturous cosmic vision of</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0">That light, whose smile kindles the universe,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">That Beauty in which all things work and move,</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent0"> - -· · · · ·</div> - </div> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent22">that sustaining love</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Which thro’ the web of Being blindly wove,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">In man and beast and earth and air and sea,</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Burns bright or dim as each are mirrors of</div> - <div class="verse indent0">The fire for which all thirst.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -<p class="noin">That is his rendering, translated out of theological -terms, of the sublime opening lines of the <i>Paradiso</i>:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>The glory of Him who moves the whole, penetrates through -the universe and is reflected in one part more and in another less.</p> -</div> - -<p class="p2">But, even so, Shelley is feeling through these -great words—Light, Love, Beauty—towards something -which none of them can completely convey. -And in this Shelleyan ‘love’ itself, the subtle -distinctions carried out, as we saw, by Dante -disappear even more completely than the dramatic -play of thought in the <i>Symposium</i> disappears in -the suffused splendour of Spenser’s <i>Hymns</i>. In -logical power Shelley was as little to be compared<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span> -with Dante as Spenser with Plato. Yet some -distinctions seem to assert themselves even in -that ecstatic love-interwoven universe of his. His -poet’s intense consciousness of personality sounds -clear through the pantheistic harmonies. When he -is trying to utter as he sees it the sublime paradox -of the dead but deathless poet, he falls successively, -heedless of inconsistency, upon symbols drawn from -the dogmas of antagonistic schools of thought. -Pantheism, individual immortality, heaven, Elysium—he -draws upon them all, but none suffices. -The dead poet is made one with Nature, becomes -a part of the loveliness which once he made more -lovely; his voice is heard in the nightingale’s -song. But he is also an individual soul, who has -passed at death to the abode where the Immortals -are, and is welcomed there by Chatterton and -Sidney and Lucan and the rest. A cognate depth -and reach of apprehension has perplexed the -discoverers of contradiction in <i>In Memoriam</i>. -‘For the poets,’ aptly comments Mr. Bradley, -though he is thinking chiefly of Shelley and Tennyson, -‘the soul of the dead in being mingled with -nature does not lose its personality; in living in -God it remains human and itself.’<a id="FNanchor_60" href="#Footnote_60" class="fnanchor">[60]</a></p> - -<p>In comparison with the magnificent audacities -of pantheism and cosmic love, the philosophic -conception of ‘Nature’ has enjoyed the position -of a great authoritative commonplace, by invoking -which the most mediocre poet could dignify and -quicken his verse. It belonged to science as much -as to poetry, and to the poetry of clarified good -sense by as good right as to that of childlike intuition.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span> -It could stand for the ideal of just expression -which Pope counselled the poet ‘first to -follow,’ as legitimately as, a century later, it was -to stand for the living presence of Beauty, of -whose ‘wedding’ with the soul Wordsworth -chanted the spousal verse, or as the teeming -creative energy whose infinity Faust sought vainly -to clasp. But even that Augustan ‘Nature’ -gathered something from the quality of the minds -which pursued literary discipline by its light, and -no one doubts that in Wordsworth or in Goethe -the φύσις or <i>natura</i> of strictly philosophic speculation -was but the fecund germ of a poetic creation, -which, whether it answered to a cosmic reality or -not, answered to deep-seated and ineffaceable -instincts and needs of man. Only, if great and -original genius has set its hall-mark upon this -noble metal, the crowd of small poets have mixed -it with their feeble alloys. There is a Nature -which responds to the greatest and sublimest -aspirations of man, and one which answers to his -self-indulgent dreams; a Nature which is wedded -to his soul, and one which is but the casual mistress -of his light desires. If the term ‘poetical’ -has a slightly derisive air, it is because a cheap -glamour, which disguises truth, so often replaces -the profound symbol which touches its core. A -truly ‘poetic’ World-view has at any rate nothing -to do with this second-rate romance.</p> - -<p>Among the poetic ways of regarding <i>Nature</i>, -there are two types, the distinction between which -concerns us. It is shadowed forth in the two -images I borrowed just now from Wordsworth and -from <i>Faust</i>. We may feel Nature as intimately<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span> -united to us, deep calling to deep. Or we may -feel it as something which eludes our clasp, but -holds us by the very appeal of its affinity to that -which is infinite in ourselves. The first type is -too familiar to be further discussed here. But the -second, or Goethean type, needs a few words.</p> - -<p>For it was with Goethe that a new and powerful -philosophic influence tardily entered modern -poetry—the influence of Spinoza. A quarter of -a century before Wordsworth and Coleridge were -overheard talking of him at Nether Stowey, Spinoza -had found deep springs of sympathy in the young -Goethe. A vivid passage in <i>Dichtung und Wahrheit</i> -(Book XIV) tells us that what especially fascinated -him was ‘the boundless unselfishness that glowed -in every sentence,’ and notably that ‘strange -sentence’ which later suggested a famous retort -of his Philine—‘He who loves God must not expect -that God shall love him in return.’<a id="FNanchor_61" href="#Footnote_61" class="fnanchor">[61]</a> Spinoza’s -God meant, roughly, the infinity of Nature, and -to love God meant to see all things in the light -of that infinity. Such a dictum therefore cut at -the root of the whole body of poetry which asserted -an answering spirit in Nature, from the self-indulgent -dreams of romantic sentiment to the -love-interwoven universe of Dante or Shelley. -The grandeur of Spinoza’s conception is apparent -enough even in his geometrical formulas, but -Goethe’s intense intuition translated it into human -experiences which stir us to the depths. The -Erdgeist’s retort to Faust—‘Du gleichst dem Geist -den du begreifst, nicht mir’—is one of the most -thrilling in all poetry, not because it indulges all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span> -our wishes, nor yet because it baffles them, but -because the barrier it opposes to the intellect is -a gate to the imagination, and we step out into -a poetic apprehension of the infinity which our -formulas seek to capture in vain.</p> - -<p>It is by a like suggestion of infinities beyond -our reach and untouched by our emotions that -he moves us in poems like <i>Das Göttliche</i> or <i>Die -Grenzen der Menschheit</i>, or the opening scene of -the Second Part of <i>Faust</i>, which insist with so lofty -a calm on our limitations. From these infinities, -if we wish to live and act, we must turn away, -and that is what, as a wise physician, Goethe -bids us do. The intolerable glory of the sun is -broken up for us in the many-hued rainbow, and -this refracted light must be the guide of our life. -But no one could see life there who had not himself -gazed on the glory of the sun, and while we read -Goethe’s words we evade the very limitations he -imposes, just as Shelley (in the great kindred -passage), by the very image which condemns life -as a dome of many-coloured glass, lifts us into -the ‘white radiance’ beyond. ‘A little ring -bounds our life,’ he says elsewhere, ‘and many -generations succeed one another on the endless -chain of their being.’ A little ring on an endless -chain—a ‘little life rounded with a sleep,’—that -way lies a poetry as great as that which comes -to the visionary Celt who sees ‘waving round every -leaf and tree the fiery tresses of that hidden sun -which is the soul of the earth.’<a id="FNanchor_62" href="#Footnote_62" class="fnanchor">[62]</a></p> - -<p>But that way, also, lies a poetry of Man, a poetry -which has its sustaining centre not in the cosmos,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span> -but in the soul. To refuse the easy assumption -of Nature’s comradeship in our sorrow, to resign -the cheap consolations of the ‘pathetic fallacy,’ -may be the way not merely to resignation, or -Stoicism, but to an apprehension of the heights -and depths of the soul thrown back upon itself, -and fetching strength not from any outer power, -but from undreamed-of inner resources of its own. -When Wordsworth, in the grasp of a great sorrow, -puts aside the glamour of the poet’s dream, in -order to bear with fortitude ‘what is to be borne,’ -he has taken a step towards that poetry. When -he finds in suffering ‘the nature of infinity,’ with -gracious avenues opening out of it to wondrous -regions of soul life, he has entered it.<a id="FNanchor_63" href="#Footnote_63" class="fnanchor">[63]</a></p> - -<h3>V</h3> - -<p>We have thus watched the modification of -naturalistic atomism, of pessimistic materialism, -and of the cosmic conceptions of ‘pantheism’ and -‘Nature,’ by the immediate intuition, the eager -senses, and the vivid soul-consciousness which -characterize the poetic apprehension. It remains -to glance, finally, at the relations of poetry with -that third type of philosophic system, in which -soul-consciousness itself has played the guiding -and master part.</p> - -<p>It was with the assertion of the soul’s predominance -that European philosophy, in the full sense -of the word, began. When Socrates turned from -the cosmic speculations of the Ionians to found -his ‘thinking-shop’ at Athens, and chaffed Anaxagoras<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span> -for having put mind at the head of things -and then given it nothing to do, he was preparing -the way, we know, for the magnificent soul-sovereignty -established by the master of all idealists. -Plato set up a trenchant dualism between soul -and sense, and thrust the sense-world into a limbo -of disparagement from which, where his spell -prevailed, it never emerged. The body was the -soul’s prison; the sense cheated it with illusion -and dragged it down with base desires.</p> - -<p>The Transcendentalists of modern Germany -established a soul-autocracy differently conceived, -and founded upon other postulates, but not less -absolute. Kant shattered the claims of <i>Verstand</i>, -but only to enthrone <i>Vernunft</i>; Fichte found -nothing real and nothing good that was not rooted -in heroic will; Schopenhauer built up a philosophy -of self-effacement and world-flight on the doctrine -that the will to live which tortures us is also the -malign indwelling energy of the world. And none -of them surpassed in calm audacity the claims -made for individual reason by Fichte’s English -contemporary, Godwin.</p> - -<p>Speculation of this type was already allied to -poetry by the boldness of its ‘subjective idealism,’ -and it might be expected that its points of fruitful -contact with poetry would be correspondingly -numerous. Yet this is hardly, on the whole, the -case. If Plato’s influence on poetry is hard to -measure, if Kant taught something vital to -Schiller, and Schopenhauer to Wagner, ‘subjective’ -philosophers and poets in the main pursued their -common preoccupation with soul along paths which -rarely crossed. Each brought to the exploration<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span> -of that marvellous mine a lamp of extraordinary -power; but they carried it into different regions, -surveyed them on different methods, and returned -with different results. Poets without any scientific -psychology have, in virtue of imaginative insight -into the ways of character, created a mass of -psychological material with which scientific psychology -has only begun to cope. It is only among -poetic portrayers of the second rank, such as -Jonson and the allegorists, that theoretic categories -of character have had any determining weight. -The supreme characters of literature are true -creations, creations that are at the same time -discoveries—pieces of humanity which exceed -Nature’s ‘reach,’ perhaps, but not her ‘grasp.’ -Prometheus, Hamlet, Satan, Faust, permanently -enlarged the status of the human soul in our -common valuation of life. That ‘discovery of -Man’ which intoxicated the Renascence was preeminently -a discovery of the stature of man’s soul—‘how -noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, -... in action how like an angel, in apprehension -how like a god!’ but philosophic ideas hardly -touched the surface of either Shakespeare or -Marlowe, and they furnished but one strand in -the woof of the mind of Milton.</p> - -<p>In the English poetry of the time of Wordsworth -there is more affinity to philosophic ideas, but -their actual influence is apt to be strongest just -where the poetry itself is least intense. In a -very luminous lecture Mr. Bradley has traced the -relation between the two movements.<a id="FNanchor_64" href="#Footnote_64" class="fnanchor">[64]</a> An exalted<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span> -faith in soul possessed and inspired both, but each -was in the main unconscious of the other. In the -poetry of his own countryman, Schiller, Kant’s -austere ideas reappear transformed in the crucible -of the poet’s livelier emotions or quicker sense of -beauty. Coleridge drank as deeply of Kantian -and cognate ideas, but only when the brief chapter -of his creative poetry was all but closed; while the -magnificent prose-poem in which Carlyle conveyed -the philosophy of Fichte-Jean-Paul-Teufelsdröckh -stands alone. What Wordsworth may have drawn -through Coleridge’s talk is not clearly distinguishable -from the original bent of his own mind. -The two streams ran courses largely parallel, but -in distinct though adjacent valleys. With Godwin’s -ideas, on the other hand, both Wordsworth, Blake, -and Shelley had stood in close intellectual relations. -And these were precisely the men whose poetry set -the deepest impress upon their view of life.</p> - -<p>Is it possible by the help of either the parallel -or the derivative relationship to lay down any -common features in the process?</p> - -<p>In the first place, the stress on the exaltation -of spirit is shifted by the poets, and with great -emphasis, from ‘reason,’ the instrument of philosophy, -to imagination. Reason is constantly not -merely ignored but openly slighted. It is not -what they mean when they exalt ‘mind.’ When -Wordsworth tells us, in the great <i>Recluse</i> passage, -of the awe, beyond Empyrean or Erebus, with -which he contemplated ‘the mind of man’; when -he sees the heroic devotion of the fallen Toussaint -perpetuated in ‘man’s inconquerable mind’; when -he encourages those who doubted Spanish heroism<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span> -with the sublime assurance that ‘the true sorrow -of humanity consists in this: not that the mind -of man fails, but that the course and demands of -life so rarely correspond with the dignity and -intensity of human desires’;—by this ‘mind’ he -means imagination, passion, heroic will, but not -discourse of reason. Wordsworth, apprehending -soul with his poet’s intuition, apprehends it as he -knew it in himself. He saw it, therefore, as an -energy operating not through ‘meddling intellect’ -but through vision and vision-illuminated will, -with open eye and ear for its indispensable associates, -and love as its core. The ‘soul’ whereby -alone the nations shall be great and free was -something in which the humblest peasant and the -simplest child had part, and in which the meanest -flower struck answering chords. It is not accident -that the soul-animated England of Wordsworth’s -ideal is so utterly unlike Hegel’s Prussian state.</p> - -<p>In William Blake soul-autocracy became aggressive -and revolutionary, and the breach with reason, -philosophic or other, widened to a yawning gulf. -Whether he is declaring ‘the world of imagination -to be the world of eternity,’ scoffing at the nature-lover -who sees ‘with’ not ‘through’ the eye, or -affirming that ‘to generalize is to be an idiot’—(a -stupendous example of the procedure he derides)—he -stands for a poetry stripped bare of all that -allies it either to philosophy or to common sense. -His prophetic books adumbrate a grandiose poetic -metaphysic, a world-system framed to the postulates -of this denuded poetry. And Shelley’s -<i>Apology</i> enthrones imagination as the creator and -upholder of all civilization.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span></p> - -<p>Secondly, the poetic shifting of the stress, within -the domain of the autocratic soul, from reason -to imagination and feeling, told powerfully upon -the ethical ideals proclaimed by this group of -poets. It added fresh impetus to that disposition -to override or transcend external standards of -morality which is inherent in all vivid inner consciousness. -Moral distinctions fade in the inner -illumination of the mystic. We have seen hints -of such a ‘transvaluation of ethical values’ disarranging -the iron categories of Dante’s Hell. -Applied to Hamlet or Othello, the traditional -categories of good and evil break in our hands. -Milton’s heroic devil, and the lovers whom Browning -scorns for being saved by their sloth from -crime, still perplex the moralist. But the poets -of the Revolution are openly sceptical of morality. -Of Shelley I need not speak. Even Wordsworth -makes a hero of a murderer. And Blake first -proclaimed explicitly, a century before Nietzsche, -a good ‘beyond good and evil,’ and figured the -inauguration of this transcendent ethic in the -colossal symbolism of his Marriage of Heaven and -Hell.</p> - -<p>In all these writers, it is true, their attitude to -morality was in part derived from the bias towards -emancipation then current in all departments of -ethical, social, and political life, and had no relation -to specifically poetic apprehension. ‘Freedom’ -was an ideal for Godwin and for Robespierre, as -well as for Shelley and for Kant, and was pursued -by them with equal devotion in their several -fashions. But they all, also, understood it in the -light of their several preoccupations. With Godwin,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span> -as with Robespierre, it is mainly negative; with -Shelley, as with Kant, it acquires positive substance -and content. And this is because both -philosopher and poet see it as the means to some -perfection of the soul. The soul-autocracy of the -age, extravagant as it might be, is seen at its -noblest in the Kantian freedom won through -duty, and in the Shelleyan freedom won through -Love. The Kantian ideal of freedom interpreted -in that last conclusion of Goethe’s wisdom—‘He -alone is free who daily wins his freedom anew’—has -passed into the very substance of the strenuous -German mind. The Shelleyan ideal is of a rarer -but also of a more perilous stuff, and has touched -no such chords in the English character as his -music has stirred in the English ear. But something -of the genius of both ideals was gathered up -and concentrated in Wordsworth’s great affirmation -of the meaning of national freedom.</p> - -<p>Wordsworth’s sense of law corrects what is -anarchic in Shelley, as Shelley’s flame-like ardour -corrects what is prosaic and common in Wordsworth. -Together they present more purely than -any of their contemporaries the noble substance -of a poetic ethic. In that poetic ethic the greatest -word, rightly understood, is still the Shelleyan -Love.</p> - -<p>And it may be that if there is any ideal which, -springing from poetic apprehension, is yet fit, -rightly interpreted, for the common needs of men, -it is that ‘love of love’ on which Tennyson, so -far always from the revolutionary temper either in -love or poetry, set his finger in his early prime, -as the sovereign endowment of the poet. Only<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span> -it must be love wide enough to include every kind -of spiritual energy by which the soul, transcending -itself, fulfils itself, and exerts, whether upon men -or nations, its liberating and uplifting power: the -love which creates, and the love which endures; -the love which makes the hero or the artist, and that -which spends itself inexhaustibly on a thankless -cause; the impersonal ardour of the mind, which -Spinoza called the ‘intellectual love of God,’ and -the impassioned union of souls, which to some -has seemed a clue to the vision of reality, and to -others the surest pledge of a future life; the love -of country which distinguishes the true service of -humanity from a shallow cosmopolitanism; and -the love of our fellow men, which distinguishes -true patriotism from national greed. To have had -no mean share in sustaining this large ideal of the -‘soul’ which makes us free is an enduring glory -of the poets.</p> - -<p>Nor is this strange if, as I trust this partial -survey may have served to suggest, the spiritual -energy transcending itself, for which Love is the -most adequate name, be the core of the World-view -towards which, from their various religious -or philosophic vantage-grounds, a number of poetic -master-spirits have made an approach. Whether -they have found it as a light kindling the universe, -like Dante and Shelley; or as a creative power -shadowed forth in the eternal new birth of all -things, like Lucretius; or as the will and passion -of the human soul, heroically shaping its fate, -and divining its infinity most clearly when most -aware of its limitations, like Goethe; in some form -the faith that spiritual energy is the heart of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span> -reality was the centre towards which they knowingly -or obscurely strove. Such a faith, I suggest, -will be found to be a vital constituent of every -view of the world reached by a poet through his -poetic experience, and the main contribution of -that rich, profound, and intense form of experience -to man’s ultimate interpretation of life.</p> - -<hr class="chap"> -<p class="center"> -<i>Printed in Great Britain by</i><br> -UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED<br> -WOKING AND LONDON -</p> - -<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> The characteristics of this norm are well set forth by Wetz, -<i>Shakespeare</i>, ch. v.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> The conflict of friendship with love was in general treated in -England with a livelier sense of the power of love than in Italy. -Boccaccio’s Palemone and Arcita, rivals for the hand of Emilia, -courteously debate their claims (<i>Teseide</i>, V, 36, 39 f.); Chaucer -makes them fight in grim earnest. Spenser in the spirit of the -Renascence makes friendship an ideal virtue, but exposes it to -more legitimate trials, as where the Squire of low degree repels -the proffered favours of his friend’s bride. (<i>Faerie Queen</i>, iv. 9, 2.)</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> ‘Perjured, murderous, ... savage, extreme ... rude, cruel, -not to trust.’</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> Goethe probably never heard of a less fortunate adventure in -that kind by his English contemporary, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, the -<i>Loves of the Plants</i>, which had then been famous in England for ten -years; a poem which suffices to show that it is possible to exploit -in the description of natural processes all the figures and personifications -of poetry, and yet to go egregiously wrong.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> To Knebel, 14 February 1821.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> I. 140 f.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> I. 922, 1.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> This and subsequent passages are freely compressed here and -there.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> IV. 575.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a> II. 29.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a> 18 July 1818.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a> 13 July 1818, to Tom Keats.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a> April 1818, to Taylor.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a> Cf. his amusing outburst at Teignmouth, in the previous March, -at the effeminacy he ascribed to the men of Devon. ‘Had England -been a large Devonshire, we should not have won the battle of -Waterloo. There are knotted oaks, there are lusty rivulets, there -are meadows such as are not elsewhere—there are valleys of feminine -climate—but there are no thews and sinews,’ etc. March 13th, to -Bailey.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a> Lord Houghton, quoted by Buxton Forman, <i>Letters</i>, LXI.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> It is not irrelevant, however, in this context, to recall that -Dante’s account of his Dream-journey has been thought to give -evidence of actual climbing experience. The Purgatory mountain -was provided with a good path; but the Inferno, with its precipitous -walls, was less easily negotiated. He had, however, -the services of a most competent Guide! Cf. H. F. Tozer, <i>Mod. -Quart.</i>, April 1899.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a> Cf. ‘vaulted with fire,’ <i>Paradise Lost</i>, i. 298, with ‘the vaulted -rocks,’ <i>Hyperion</i>, ii. 348.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a> Cf. the sonnet written at the top.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> Referred to also by Professor de Sélincourt (note <i>ad loc.</i>), -though he ascribes it (somewhat sternly) to the ‘vulgarity of -Hunt.’</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a> Much of this paragraph is repeated in substance from an article, -by the writer, on ‘The Higher Mind of Italy,’ in the <i>Manchester -Guardian</i>, 15 March 1920.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a> <i>Manchester Guardian</i>, 12 September 1918.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a> Dedication of <i>Il Poema Paradisiaco</i> (1892).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a> <i>Laus Vitæ</i>, 232 f.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a> Gargiulo, <i>Gabriele d’Annunzio</i> (1912), to whose account of the -poet’s <i>sovrumanità</i> the present essay is much indebted.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a> <i>Beatitudine.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a> <i>Il Fanciullo.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a> <i>Elettra: Città del Silenzio.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a> <i>Elettra: A uno dei Mille.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a> <i>Fast.</i> iv. 291 f.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a> The distinction of a religious, philosophic, and poetic World-view -is based upon W. Dilthey: <i>Das Wesen der Philosophie: Weltanschauungalehre</i> -(Hinneberg, <i>Kultur der Gegenwart</i>, I. vi).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a> Wilamowitz, <i>Oresteia</i>, p. 47.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a> <i>Purg.</i> xxiv. 52. 4.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a> The case of Trajan, who for his justice was said to have been -saved by the prayers of Gregory, is not quite parallel, since there -was here a theological tradition in his favour. But at least Dante -seizes on and emphasizes the tradition, and not merely ‘saves’ -Trajan, but makes him the comrade of the glorious just kings in -Jupiter (<i>Par.</i> xx. 44 f.).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a> The second type I take to be represented, with obvious differences, -for Dante by the ‘philosophical’ love of Guido Guinicelli, -the ‘father of love poets and my own’ (<i>Purg.</i> xxvi. 97); there is -no evidence that he knew anything of this part of Plato; in any -case, of course, this love is for him excited only by woman. The -<i>amore</i> of Empedocles is mentioned in <i>Inf.</i> xii. 42; Empedocles -himself, as well as Plato, is in Limbo (<i>Inf.</i> iv. 138).</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a> <i>De Vulg. Eloq.</i> ii. 2.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a> <i>Purg.</i> xviii. 36.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a> <i>Canz.</i> xix.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a> <i>Canz.</i> i.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a> <i>Parlement of Fowles</i>, 1 f.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a> A. E., <i>Imaginations and Reveries</i>, p. 151.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a> <i>Ginestra</i>, p. 120.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a> <i>Il Copernico.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_43" href="#FNanchor_43" class="label">[43]</a> <i>Sopra un basso relievo</i>, etc.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_44" href="#FNanchor_44" class="label">[44]</a> <i>Sopra un ritratto di una bella donna</i>, etc.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_45" href="#FNanchor_45" class="label">[45]</a> <i>Aspasia.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_46" href="#FNanchor_46" class="label">[46]</a> <i>Storia dell genere umano.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_47" href="#FNanchor_47" class="label">[47]</a> <i>Amore e Morte.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_48" href="#FNanchor_48" class="label">[48]</a> <i>Consalvo.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_49" href="#FNanchor_49" class="label">[49]</a> <i>Amore e Morte.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_50" href="#FNanchor_50" class="label">[50]</a> ‘Che paradiso è quello,’ etc.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_51" href="#FNanchor_51" class="label">[51]</a></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> - <div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent6">‘Ma di natura ...</div> - <div class="verse indent0">Divina sei,’ etc.</div> - </div> -</div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_52" href="#FNanchor_52" class="label">[52]</a> <i>Ginestra.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_53" href="#FNanchor_53" class="label">[53]</a> <i>Il Pensiero Dom.</i>: ‘Quasi intender non posso,’ etc.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_54" href="#FNanchor_54" class="label">[54]</a> <i>Il Pensiero Dom.</i>: ‘Giammai d’allor,’ etc.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_55" href="#FNanchor_55" class="label">[55]</a> <i>Bruto Minore.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_56" href="#FNanchor_56" class="label">[56]</a> <i>Pens. Dom.</i> ‘Quanto più torno,’ etc.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_57" href="#FNanchor_57" class="label">[57]</a> <i>Alla sua Donna.</i></p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_58" href="#FNanchor_58" class="label">[58]</a> The essay on <i>The Poetry of Lucretius</i> in the present volume -supplements the argument of the present essay at this point, and -he is merely referred to here.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_59" href="#FNanchor_59" class="label">[59]</a> His famous illustration, quoted by Plato, is the harmony of the -lyre brought about by the balance of opposite forces in the strings. -Plut. <i>Is. et Osir.</i> (quot. Ritter and Preller, p. 17), Plat. <i>Symp.</i>, -p. 187.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_60" href="#FNanchor_60" class="label">[60]</a> <i>A Commentary on In Memoriam</i>, Introd.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_61" href="#FNanchor_61" class="label">[61]</a> <i>Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre</i>, iv. 9.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_62" href="#FNanchor_62" class="label">[62]</a> A. E., <i>The Renewal of Youth</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_63" href="#FNanchor_63" class="label">[63]</a> The lines from <i>The Borderers</i> are in fact, of course, earlier than -those from <i>Peele Castle</i>.</p> - -</div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a id="Footnote_64" href="#FNanchor_64" class="label">[64]</a> <i>English Poetry and German Philosophy in the Age of Wordsworth</i> -(Manchester University Press).</p> - -</div> -<hr> -<div class="transnote"><h3><a id="Corrections"></a>Corrections</h3> -<p>The first line indicates the original, the second the correction:</p> -<p>p. <a href="#Page_28">28</a></p> -<ul><li>A second mark of unripeness in the conception -of love as extravagant magnanimity</li> - -<li>A second mark of unripeness in the conception -of love <span class="u">is</span> extravagant magnanimity</li></ul> - -<p>p. <a href="#Page_57">57</a></p> - - <ul><li>He was not, like Pope in the <i>Essay of Man</i>,</li> - <li>He was not, like Pope in the <i>Essay <span class="u">on</span> Man</i>,</li></ul> - -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SHAKESPEARE'S TREATMENT OF LOVE AND MARRIAGE AND OTHER ESSAYS ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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