E541000A. Poems (1852).
The Yale Literary Magazine, October 1854, pp. 6–11.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 20, 388–390.
The poetry of Mrs. Browning is not calculated to win a speedy popularity. For her faults are prominent and evident to the meanest critic, while her extraordinary merits, to be fully appreciated, require considerable literary cultivation, as well as a careful study of her poems. Hence, as we might expect, she has suffered the twofold misfortune of meeting with bitter and contemptuous criticism on the one hand, and indiscriminate praise on the other. Yet her reputation is rising, slowly indeed, [p. 7→] but surely, and ere the close of this century, she will no doubt be acknowledged and crowned as the queen of all that bright sisterhood, the female poets of England.
There is a genuineness in her writings; to use her own words, “they have her heart and life in them, they are not empty shells.” This is sustained by abundant internal evidence. We see that they are but the reflection of the deep heart and cultivated intellect of the accomplished authoress. As its fragrance reveals the flower, as her bearing betrays the princess, though in disguise, so do Mrs. Browning’s poems reveal to us the leading features of her life and character.
Little is known of her life. We are told that she was for years confined to her room by sickness, often passing weeks in total darkness, shut out from all the sights and sounds of external life, which she loved so ardently, and secluded even from her friends. Having afterwards married a man and a poet, worthy of her, she is living quietly in the old palace of Casa Guidi, at Florence.
Few have been privileged with seeing or corresponding with her. Probably less is known of her than of any other living author. During her seclusion, and in spite of her long continued illness, she has made attainments, perhaps unparalleled by any one of her sex, which take us back in fancy to the times of Lady Jane Grey, and Sir Roger Ascham. The whole circle of modern literature has been traversed by her, while a vivid and accurate translation of the Prometheus Vinctus, and learned papers on the Greek poetry of the primitive Church, attest her scholarship. She pleasantly alludes to her Grecian studies, in a poem entitled “Wine of Cyprus,” addressed to her former instructor. The leading characteristics of her poetry harmonize perfectly with what we know of her life.
Her poetry is pervaded by a profound religious feeling, and seems to be haunted by a life-long sorrow. We feel that we are reading the writings of one who has felt and suffered deeply, of one to whose mind the awful mysteries that brood over life and death are ever present realities. She seems fond of dwelling on the view of our Saviour as the man suffering and dying, and to be peculiarly alive to the oriental beauty of the Gospels. It was feelings like these that inspired the painters whose works adorned the Cathedrals of the Middle Ages. Her mind, indeed, resembles one of those wonderful structures, with its “dim, religious light,” and “long drawn aisles,” with the emblems of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection, that meet the eye on every side, while crosses, and mounting arches, and soaring spires all point heavenward. Such feelings [p. 8→] we would expect of one who had undergone much sorrow, and who by long sickness had been accustomed to the thought of death.
Her genius is essentially tragic. No attempt at anything like comedy is to be found in any of her poems. The ideas of human weakness, human guilt, and human dependence are prominent throughout. The poem entitled “The Cry of the Human,” is, as has been remarked, but a commentary on the prayer, “God be merciful to us sinners.” The same feelings are strikingly expressed in the “Romaunt of Margaret,” and the verses called “A Valediction.”
Mrs. Browning’s writings, as we might expect, abound in the most passionate and delicate pathos. The ballad, “Bertha in the Lane,” is the most exquisite picture of a broken heart that ever drew tears from the eye of man or woman. The “Cry of the Children” is as eloquent a plea for the factory children, as was the “Song of the Shirt” for the poor seamstresses of London. There are many passages in these poems which none but a woman, and one of rare sensibilities, could have written. No man could have written “Bertha in the Lane,” or the sonnet entitled “Comfort.” Besides, it is rare for a man to unite to intellect such as hers, a faith so pure and so unwavering. Here we see the marked difference between her and the author of “In Memoriam.” The latter, though a reflective, earnest poet, has evidently been harassed by doubts, which seem never to have cast even a passing shadow across the mind of the former. For faith, as the greatest minds acknowledge, is a matter of the heart. We accept the mysteries of revelation, “believing where we cannot prove.” When our weak reason becomes bewildered, the heart can yet witness to what it has felt. And woman, being far more a creature of feeling than man, being endowed with a nicer intuition and finer sensibilities, has clearer perceptions of duty, and a more unwavering faith.
Mrs. Browning’s poetry is characterized by a rich and radiant imagination. What a glowing yet ethereal fancy is displayed in the “Lay of the Brown Rosarie,” or the “Romaunt of Margaret.” No one can fail to be struck by the many apt and beautiful images which sparkle on every page of her writings. She often shows a deep “psychological insight,” derived, probably, from a long cultivated habit of watching her own consciousness. It is natural for the mind in solitude to recoil on itself, and to turn from the study of the outer to that of the inner world. This peculiarity of our authoress is exemplified in some of her sonnets, in the poem entitled “The Four-fold Aspect,” in the ballad “Bertha in the Lane,” etc. Some may sneer at such passages as exhibitions of a “morbid fancy,” but there are others who feel their depth and truth. [p. 9→]
An ignorance of mankind and the world is betrayed in her writings, owing, no doubt, to her long seclusion from them. This deficiency especially shows itself in her dramatic efforts. Take the characters in her “Drama of Exile.” Lucifer is a “milk and water fiend,” a weak, metaphysical prater. Adam and Eve make no distinct impression on us; they are mere mouth pieces for the authoress; quite destitute of individuality. As for the Earth Spirits, Flower Spirits, etc., they are the most intangible abstractions. Yet there are passages in “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship,” and elsewhere, which show considerable skill in drawing character, a different thing, however, from developing it.
Her poems are characterized by a singularity, a recklessness, as it were, of expression, which also we are inclined to ascribe to her long seclusion. This peculiarity becomes at times a serious fault. There is an obtrusive, but we hope, unconscious display of learning. There is a profusion of words that were never seen in poetry before, such as “nympholeptic,” “oenomel,” “hyaline,” etc. Every one notices her employment of adjectives as nouns. Thus we find the phrases “Cry of the Human,” “Melt not yet to its divine,” “Falling off from your Created,” etc. The word “divine” is used in this way, ad nauseam. Few of Mrs. Browning’s poems possess that unity of effect, that harmony, and that finish, which belong to the works of a great artist. They are remarkably unequal. We sometimes seem to be reading the “raw material” of poetry. Her versification is often harsh. Besides, she employs the most wretched apologies for rhyme, e.g., “eagles” and “vigils,” “poems” and “interflowings,” “branch” and “grange,” &c. She is one who much oftener sacrifices sound to sense, than the contrary. This is owing less, we think, to a defective ear than to negligence, or a want of command of our language; for her verse is occasionally very musical, as in the “Brown Rosarie,” or particularly in the conclusion of the “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship.”
It is a little remarkable that nothing has been written on the resemblance between this conclusion and Poe’s “Raven.” This resemblance is so striking as to render it absolutely certain that one poem was suggested by the other. Poe’s “Raven” appeared in the American Whig Review, in Feb. 1845, while Mrs. Browning’s “Lady Geraldine’s Courtship” was published in England the year before. The peculiar metre, the employment of double rhyme, and of alliteration, and the quaint repetitions, were probably suggested to the author of the “Raven” by this poem. There are other points of resemblance. Both poems describe a student in his lonely chamber at night, addressing with somewhat of awe a mys- [p. 10→] terious intruder. This intruder is in the one case a “ghastly, grim, and ancient raven;” in the other “a vision of a lady,” that “’twixt the purple lattice curtains” “standeth still and pale.” Again, one line has been reproduced almost exactly by the author of the “Raven,” though we think unconsciously; for a writer is apt to mistake some vague reminiscence floating in his mind, for a conception of his own.
Mrs. Browning’s poem reads as follows:
With a rushing stir, uncertain, in the air, the purple curtain
Swelleth in and swelleth out, around her motionless pale brows.
E. A. Poe’s as follows:
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain,
Thrilled me, filled me, with fantastic terrors never felt before.
The whole of this poem (Lady Geraldine’s Courtship) is one that none who read it once will soon forget. It reminds one of Locksley Hall. The versification is the same, with an additional syllable at the end of every alternate line. The line “Oh the dreary, dreary moorlands,” &c., is echoed by the passage in Mrs. B’s poem, commencing, “O the blessed woods of Sussex.” The plot of the poem is superior, but the execution falls below that of Tennyson in condensation and in sustained power; at the same time there are passages in it which surpass in brilliancy anything in Locksley Hall. The conclusion, too, is much more satisfactory, for Locksley Hall ends in the same tone of despairing regret with which it began.
For all that has been said of Mrs. Browning’s harsh rhymes and uncouth phrases, her faults are those of expression merely. In comparison with her merits they are like spots on the sun, and they might be erased with a little labor. In her happier moments she seems to throw them off entirely in the hurry of her inspiration,
As a strong runner straining for his life,
Unclasps a mantle to the hungry winds.
In reading her poems, we are impressed by a reach of thought and a depth of feeling which excite our admiration and reverence. She has nobly vindicated the higher instincts of the heart. The devotion to Truth and Beauty, the dignity and true mission of poetry—the dignity and the true mission of woman—she has fully recognized and nobly illustrated. Religion with her is not a sentiment, nor is it a metaphysical problem which every one is to solve in his own way, but it is the great [p. 11→] fact of the Universe, in which she believes with as firm a faith as in her own existence, or in that of the objects of sense that surround her. With those solemn questions that lie at the base of all others, she deals fearlessly and profoundly.
Her poetical creed seems to be contained in the following lines from the “Vision of Poets:”
In my large joy of sight and touch,
Beyond what others count for such,
I am content to suffer much.
I know—is all the mourner saith—
Knowledge by suffering entereth;
And life is perfected by death!
Reviewed:
Poems (EBB), New York: C.S. Francis, 1852.
___________________
