Correspondence

242.  EBB to Uvedale Price

As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 1, 271–274.

[Not all marks of stress and pronunciation have been reproduced in this transcript. They are all reproduced in the print volume.]

[Hope End]

[ca. December 1826] [1]

As you have permitted me to express opinions on more important subjects, you must let me assure you, dear Sir, that “Ba” is much better pleased to hear from you than “Miss Barrett” could be. I have been deeply interested by your letter—almost as much as I have been gratified! For the distinction & encouragement which I recieve from you, I feel my thanks, trusting that for the feeling’s sake, you will forgive the imperfect expression.

I acknowledge the justice of your position “that there is in English no dissyllable, to the two syllables of which we habitually give an equal length”, but, tho’ I have reconsidered the subject with great attention & with the assistance of your remarks, I do not yet feel inclined to acknowledge that there is in English heroic verse no dissyllable, to the two syllables of which we are not induced by position to give an equal length. In my quotation from Milton you excommunicate “uproar” from the trochaic, spondaic, & iambic pale! & leave it if with “a local habitation”, at least without “a name”. [2] “Uproar”, however, I will own, does partly deserve this hard usage on account of the inconvenient consonant on its first syllable, which we must rest on, if we rest at all, & which we gladly leave for “roar”, taking advantage of the new accent. But I still think that this organic preference should be surmounted as much as possible, in deference to the expression. The expression appears to me to depend entirely on contrast—on the distinct preservation of the different characteristics of the first & second parts of the line: the first representing the restlessness of startled confusion by the heaving of the voice—the second representing the firmness of order by the firmness & decision of the voice. Now I cannot help thinking that by making “wild” & “roar” the emphatic syllables, & by considering “up” “much less so”, as you propose doing, you make the distinct characteristics less distinct, & therefore injure the expression of the line. Your adagio non troppo does not quite satisfy my ambition for “up”: I should prefer a largo con espressione. “Uproar” suffers in good company—with the Italian virtù—&, not to be too national, virtù shall have the benefit of an “in forse [3] before I go on to our English spondees. It seems to me very clear that in the line you quote

 

“Caʹde virtù dall’infiammate stelle”— [4]

virtù has little spondaic pretension; but I am doubtful whether it may not have, from position, the same spondaic rank which I would grant to some English dissyllables. I submit it to you whether in the following line from Francini’s Ode to Milton

 

“Sol virtù rintracciando il tuo pensiero”– [5]

the metre is contented with an adagio non troppo on virtùs first syllable. To my ear the dissyllable is, in that place, a true spondee. To return to English spondees, I do not think that your able statement of the identity of what we call accent & the ancient quantity, bears very hard on my opinions, because, as in the case of ‘uproar’, I would not shift but multiply the accent. In some instances indeed the accent is merely shifted, as with the words ‘triùmphing’ for the usual ‘trìumphing’, & ŭntō for the usual ūntŏ—so that Herrick says properly—

 

Thus, Julia, let me woo thee,

Thus, thus, to come unto thee— [6]

but all this seems very different from what I am contending for– Since I acknowledged that there existed a little organic disinclination to mark equally the two accented or long syllables of uproar, I must hazard an opinion that, in a line which I shall take from Comus,

 

“Amongst the ēnthrōned Gods on sainted seats”— [7]

there exists a greater degree of organic disinclination to do otherwise than mark equally the two accented or long syllables of enthroned. For the inclination of the organs pleads strongly for a resting upon throned, & the metre necessitates us to rest on the “en”, & thus, between the organic preference & the metrical necessity, the spondee prefers its claim. In the following line (from Comus again)

 

“their way

Lies thro’ the perplexed paths of this drear wood”– [8]

I think our organs would be a little ‘perplexed’,—tho’, as you observe, they are seldom scrupulous about such matters, to know how to shorten the last of the dissyllable, while the metre would be equally ‘perplexed’ if we attempted to shorten the first. There are some dissyllabic words compounded of monosyllabic ones, which are I believe, spondees—as in the Arcades—

 

Under the shady roof

Of branching elm stār-prōof; [9]

where the expression obliges us to rest on star, the metre on proof! In these predicaments what recourse have we but the acknowledgement of spondees? I find that pĕrspēctĭve has been recieved as a molossus by some poets—a discovery only agreable to me as it supports an argument that, if, with “our trochaic & iambic habits of speech,[”] we can manage a word of three long syllables, we may at least aspire to the management of a word of two. My first example of this practice, I take from the Night thoughts—

 

“Joy behind joy in endless pērspēctīve.” [10]

“By pērspēctīve devised, beholding now”–

Drayton’s Barons’ Wars. [11]

 

“All our good deeds & bad—a pērspēctīve

That shows us hell–”

Websters Duchess of Malfi. [12]

 

You murmur a little against the “licence in our prosody & pronunciation”, & triumphantly refer to the practice of the Greeks & Romans, which was far from authorizing a word’s appearance in the character of a spondee trochee or iambus, “according to the wish & fancy of the poet”. I am not desirous of comparing our poetical habits with the “severiores muras” [13] of the ancients—tho’ the latter were by no means Dracos, [14] being remarkably good-humoured to certain words in certain positions. Of this good humour we have many instances, as in the line,

 

Α’υταρ ’επειτ’ ’αυτοισι βελοσ ’εχεπευκες εφιεις

βαλλ. [15]

where βελος the pyrrhic becomes βελος the iambus, without the foreign aid of consonants. By an artifice of the understanding to conceal its subjection to the ear, we pronounce the cæsura to have effected the change. But if we reason instead of calling names—if we analyze the cæsural line, we shall, I believe, find, that we have much the same motive for lengthening the last syllable of “βελος” as for lengthening the first syllable of ‘enthroned’ or ‘perplexed’–

 

Cynthius aurem

Vellit et admonuit– [16]

 

The desire which at the conclusion of your letter, you in kindness express, & the promise which you make: (being in every way suited to gratify my ambition) must act as a strong stimulus to exertion. I have been thinking of late that genius developped by circumstances & developped tardily might make a fine subject for a narrative Poem: but I have proceeded no further with my plan than the outworks. [17] If the extraordinary history of Alfieri’s mind, as given in his memoirs, [18] occur to you, you will know at once the character of my design.

Believe me

Most truly & gratefully yours

E B Barrett.

Publication: None traced.

Manuscript: Armstrong Browning Library.

1. This letter is a response to letter 241.

2. A Midsummer Night’s Dream, V, 1, 17.

3. “In doubt.”

4. See letter 241, note 2.

5. “Virtue alone seeking your thought.” This is line 44 of an 84-line ode addressed “Al Signor Gio. Miltoni Nobile Inglese” by Antonio Francini of Florence. The ode was included at pp. 5–9 of Joannis Miltoni Londinensis Poemata, 1645.

6. “The Night-Piece. To Julia” in Hesperides (1648).

7. Line 11.

8. Lines 36–37.

9. Milton’s “Arcades,” lines 88–89.

10. Line 171 of “Night the First” in Edward Young’s The Complaint: or Night Thoughts on Life, Death, & Immortality (1742).

11. Canto VI, line 279 in the revised text of 1603; however, it reads “prospective” not “perspective.”

12. IV, 2, 386–387.

13. Literally “more severe walls,” meaning stricter rules.

14. Draco, an Athenian of the 7th century B.C., whose code of laws gave birth to the phrase “of Draconian severity.”

15. “Thereafter on the men themselves he let fly the sharp-pointed darts” (Iliad, I, 51–52).

16. “Cynthius pulled his ear and warned” (Vergil, Eclogues, VI, 3–4).

17. This remark dates the genesis of “The Development of Genius,” published in HUP, II, 99–133. No extant manuscript carries either date or title; the editor of HUP gave it the title by which it is now known, adapting the phrase used by EBB in this letter.

EBB had obviously forgotten that she had mentioned this project before—Price commented approvingly on her choice of subject at the end of letter 236.

18. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Victor Alfieri (1810).

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